The Effects of Climate Change on Refugees and the Need for Global Action

As the climate crisis throughout the world continues to worsen, individuals are being forced to flee their home countries because of the extreme effects of climate related natural disasters at an alarming rate. Research and scholarship in climate change have paid only cursory attention to the relationship between widespread displacements and climate related disasters. However, as this phenomenon progresses, it is becoming increasingly important for researchers and scholars to acknowledge the ways that climate change is affecting mass migration, as well as analyze what countries/regions are most at risk of facing this crisis. According to the World Bank, there will be 143 million more climate migrants by 2050 from just three regions: Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia (World Bank Group, 2021). Drawing on the research published by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Epule et al., and Islam and Khan, I assess the various factors that are driving mass displacement in these three regions. I then include my own data collected from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, showing the number of disaster related displacements in each region over the course of one decade. This data contributes to a better understanding of the patterns associated with the number of displaced people in a specific region and the natural disaster(s) that caused those displacements.