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the subject matter is not covered by law, then the individual cannot be guaranteed
protection. The notion of human displacement occurring as a result of climate
change is a relatively recent conceptualization compared to the more traditional
ideas associated with refugees. ‘Climate refugees’, who move due to natural disasters and climate change, are now recognized in the 2018 UN Global Compact on
safe, orderly, and regular migration under its Objective No. 2. Although this aims to
protect the rights of those displaced and help address the root economic, environmental and social drivers that are compelling people to leave their communities and
countries, most often the protection is only extended to the people who have a wellfounded fear of being persecuted on grounds related to race, religion, nationality or
membership of a particular social group or political opinion and are unable or
unwilling, owing to fear of persecution, to seek protection from their home countries (European Union 2019).
The term ‘environmental refugee’ or ‘climate refugee’ appears frequently in various literatures to refer the forceful movement of people from their homeland to different parts of their own or other countries due to adverse environmental conditions
around them. As climate change has gained prominence in every environmental and
human geographical issue, hence relating the mass movements of people, inflicted
by adverse climate, hydrological changes or geomorphic hazards can be all studied
under the problems of environmental refugees. The Environment Justice Foundation
(EJF) Trust of UK defines a ‘climate refugee’ as ‘persons or groups of persons who,
for reasons of sudden or progressive climate-related change in the environment that
adversely affects their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual
homes either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country
or abroad’ (EJF 2017). Climate displacement involves people facing famine, lack of
water, conflict over habitable resources, or their homes have been washed away by
the river or the sea. Even though most victims have negligible roles in creating the
disasters or have poor capacity to avert, there are also groups who have the means to
move before the calamities, and there is an argument for those ‘early decision’
migrants, who have understood the importance of actually improving overall climate resilience. Therefore, the issue of providing protection should focus on the
issues of human rights securing livelihoods for those forced to move due to climate
change, developing infrastructure to ease the lives of those unable to move and
building capacity in places that will be destinations for climate migrants (Nishimura
2015; OHCHR 2018). Since the decision-making is concerned with socio-economic
wellbeing, extensive risk and gradual change in environment (Wilkinson et al. 2016),
many migrants are in the grey, middle zone where aspects of choice and coercion
comingle (Hugo 2010). ‘Climate-induced migrants neither qualify criteria under
1951-Refugee Convention, nor fully protected by Guiding Principles of Internal
Displacement as this is not legally binding and designed to apply forcibly displaced
people by natural and human made disasters inside their own country’ (UNFCCC
2016; CPRD 2015). However, it is to be noted that displacements almost always are
linked with the current unfavourable state of political establishment, economic disintegration and social and demographic maladjustments causing even more complexities in enumeration and disbursement of protection covers.
12 Environmental Vulnerability and Displacement Due to Land Erosion: Selected…
the subject matter is not covered by law, then the individual cannot be guaranteed
protection. The notion of human displacement occurring as a result of climate
change is a relatively recent conceptualization compared to the more traditional
ideas associated with refugees. ‘Climate refugees’, who move due to natural disasters and climate change, are now recognized in the 2018 UN Global Compact on
safe, orderly, and regular migration under its Objective No. 2. Although this aims to
protect the rights of those displaced and help address the root economic, environmental and social drivers that are compelling people to leave their communities and
countries, most often the protection is only extended to the people who have a wellfounded fear of being persecuted on grounds related to race, religion, nationality or
membership of a particular social group or political opinion and are unable or
unwilling, owing to fear of persecution, to seek protection from their home countries (European Union 2019).
The term ‘environmental refugee’ or ‘climate refugee’ appears frequently in various literatures to refer the forceful movement of people from their homeland to different parts of their own or other countries due to adverse environmental conditions
around them. As climate change has gained prominence in every environmental and
human geographical issue, hence relating the mass movements of people, inflicted
by adverse climate, hydrological changes or geomorphic hazards can be all studied
under the problems of environmental refugees. The Environment Justice Foundation
(EJF) Trust of UK defines a ‘climate refugee’ as ‘persons or groups of persons who,
for reasons of sudden or progressive climate-related change in the environment that
adversely affects their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual
homes either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country
or abroad’ (EJF 2017). Climate displacement involves people facing famine, lack of
water, conflict over habitable resources, or their homes have been washed away by
the river or the sea. Even though most victims have negligible roles in creating the
disasters or have poor capacity to avert, there are also groups who have the means to
move before the calamities, and there is an argument for those ‘early decision’
migrants, who have understood the importance of actually improving overall climate resilience. Therefore, the issue of providing protection should focus on the
issues of human rights securing livelihoods for those forced to move due to climate
change, developing infrastructure to ease the lives of those unable to move and
building capacity in places that will be destinations for climate migrants (Nishimura
2015; OHCHR 2018). Since the decision-making is concerned with socio-economic
wellbeing, extensive risk and gradual change in environment (Wilkinson et al. 2016),
many migrants are in the grey, middle zone where aspects of choice and coercion
comingle (Hugo 2010). ‘Climate-induced migrants neither qualify criteria under
1951-Refugee Convention, nor fully protected by Guiding Principles of Internal
Displacement as this is not legally binding and designed to apply forcibly displaced
people by natural and human made disasters inside their own country’ (UNFCCC
2016; CPRD 2015). However, it is to be noted that displacements almost always are
linked with the current unfavourable state of political establishment, economic disintegration and social and demographic maladjustments causing even more complexities in enumeration and disbursement of protection covers.
12 Environmental Vulnerability and Displacement Due to Land Erosion: Selected…