Climate Migration

TL;DR: Climate migration research presents challenges for law, policy and research due to the equivocal link between climate change and migration and the lack of clear responses.

Abstract: This book explores the complex literature on climate migration and investigates the epistemological and ethical challenges the topic poses for anyone who takes an interest in the relationship between climate change and human migration. At the heart of the contemporary preoccupation with climate change is a concern for its societal impacts. Among these, its presumed effect on human migration is perhaps the most politically resonant, regardless of whether that politics is oriented towards human or national security. There is, however, a problem: research on the causal link between climate change and migration has shown it to be a highly equivocal one. By extension, it remains unclear what – if any – response is required from law and policy. Carefully structured to guide the reader through the issue of climate migration in a logical and rigorous manner, this book is the first to bring together key critiques, caveats and cautions in order to systematically examine the challenges facing law, policy and research on the topic. At a time in which both the effects of climate change and the causes of migration are of great public and political interest, and in which these interests are often fraught with sentiment and freighted with politics, the book brings dispassionately critical perspectives to bear on a topic that desperately needs it.