Year After Year, the "Hottest on Record": How Close Are We to Climate Refugees?

Since June, persistent high-temperature weather has occurred in many parts of the world, with heatwaves wreaking havoc on public health and safety. In West Asia, Central Asia, North Africa and other regions, the number of days with daily maximum temperatures exceeding 40℃ has reached 10-20 days; in southern Spain, local temperatures once soared above 46℃, and as of July 19, 1,180 people in the country had died from heat-related illnesses.

In addition, in January this year, a storm hit the central United States, prompting winter alerts for nearly 60 million people; in spring of the same year, the UK experienced extreme drought, with 115 wildfires occurring in just four months, and 2025 may become the year with the most severe wildfire disasters in the country.

This series of extreme weather events epitomizes the real threat climate change poses to human survival. Increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as sustained high temperatures, droughts, and precipitation caused by climate change, along with glacier melting and sea-level rise, not only bring more natural disasters but also render some areas uninhabitable for humans, forcing people to migrate or even become displaced—"climate refugees" have thus emerged.

The 2021 update of the Groundswell report by the World Bank points out that climate change is becoming a significant driver of global population migration. By 2050, approximately 216 million people in six major regions of the world may be forced to migrate, and their fates are becoming a proposition of the times that all humanity must confront together.

Over the past year, multiple climate indicators have continued to break records.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed, based on six international authoritative datasets, that 2024 has become the hottest year on record, with the global average temperature approximately 1.55℃ higher than the pre-industrial level (1850-1900), exceeding for the first time the 1.5℃ temperature control target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Meanwhile, data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service show that five of the past six years have seen the fastest recorded glacier retreat, and 2022-2024 marked the three years with the largest recorded loss of glacier mass.

As the global climate change situation grows increasingly severe, international attention to "climate refugees" has gradually risen on the agenda.

As early as the 1970s, Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute first proposed the concept of "environmental refugees" to study large-scale population migration caused by environmental degradation. Since then, international agencies such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have adopted and promoted this concept, gradually bringing it into global focus.

However, because population migration is often intertwined with multiple factors such as environment, culture, economy, and family, international law has not yet formed a unified definition of "climate refugees" in theory or practice. Currently, terms such as climate refugees, ecological refugees, environmental migrants, environmental refugees, and climate-displaced persons coexist, and relevant viewpoints remain inconsistent.

To promote international consensus, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) defined "environmental migrants" in 2007 as people forced or voluntarily, temporarily or permanently leaving their homes due to sudden or gradual environmental changes that adversely affect their livelihoods or living conditions, including both domestic and cross-border migration. This definition provides a reference for international actions.

In parts of Africa and Asia, where ecosystems are fragile and more vulnerable to climate change, a large number of climate refugees have emerged. Among the five countries with the most people displaced by natural disasters in 2024, three are in Africa (Chad, Ethiopia, and Somalia), and two in Asia (Afghanistan and the Philippines).

In recent years, internal displacement caused by environmental factors has become increasingly prominent. In 2024, the number of global displacements due to natural disasters was approximately 45.8 million, 2.4 times that of a decade ago; in contrast, displacements due to war and conflict in 2024 were about 20.1 million, only half of the former.

The disasters faced by climate-displaced persons vary by region. In the Philippines, Tropical Storm Tembin in 2024 brought heavy rainfall, triggering floods and landslides that forced over 10,000 people in the Bicol region to evacuate urgently; in Ethiopia, extreme drought triggered a food crisis, forcing large numbers of residents to leave their homes in search of food and drinking water.

The impacts of climate change are not isolated but intertwined, forming a vicious cycle that exacerbates poverty and conflict.

Specifically, climate change first leads to frequent extreme weather, disrupting ecosystem services and threatening human well-being, making some areas uninhabitable and forcing people to become displaced as climate refugees. When these refugees move to new areas, they often compete with local residents for limited resources such as water and land, leading to new social conflicts.

More alarmingly, human factors such as war and conflict not only cause destruction but may also amplify the negative impacts of climate change, triggering more and complex conflicts and instability.

Take Somalia in the "Horn of Africa" as an example: on one hand, intensified drought and unstable rainfall directly lead to crop failures and trigger food security crises; on the other hand, long-standing conflicts and deteriorating security situations have displaced large populations. Armed conflicts in central and southern Somalia not only disrupt market systems but also block humanitarian aid channels, making it difficult for affected communities to access urgently needed food and basic services. Multiple factors overlap and interact, worsening the humanitarian crisis in Somalia.

Somalia is not an isolated case. In 2024, the first climate report released by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) pointed out that among the approximately 120 million forced displaced persons worldwide, about 90 million live in countries particularly vulnerable to climate change, and half of them are simultaneously affected by both conflict and extreme climate.

From global response measures, on one hand, countries are trying to address the root causes by controlling pollution and strengthening environmental protection to slow climate change, thereby indirectly reducing the emergence of climate refugees. For example, Maldives actively participates in international climate negotiations, calling for stricter global emission reduction measures.

Addressing climate change requires long-term, sustained efforts, but protecting climate refugees is already an urgent challenge. Although the international community has taken various preliminary actions, a comprehensive and well-formed response system still needs to be further established.

This concerns not only humanitarianism but also the common future of all. If the problem continues to worsen, who can guarantee that we will not face the same fate in the years to come?