Will rising sea levels cause mass migrations of people from low-lying, impoverished equatorial areas into regions of higher ground—and if so, what will their reception be by their hosts? What can world leaders do to prepare for the population shifts likely to come from sea level rise already under way from the current high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Building upon existing international law, such as the 1954 Refugee Convention, the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Articles 3.1 and 4.8 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the authors look into the social effects of sea level rise caused by global warming on human populations and underscore the need to have a protocol that provides rights to climate exiles.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0096340215571904
(*Sujatha Byravan and Sudhir Chella Rajan are the authors of this paper.)
