What is a ”climate migrant”?

In 2005, the UN EP predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010.

But as 2010 came and went, climate sleuths observed that the areas from which the UNEP had predicted people would flee now had increased populations. The climate refugees were nowhere to be found, and the UNEP had quietly deleted their webpages, rather than reflected on their failed predictions.

In 2022, the Zurich Insurance Group claimed that “There could be 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050”.

But what is a climate refugee? Is there any such thing? And what does the rush to claim that climate change is creating so many victims, without regard for evidence, tell us about how we understand both climate and society?

In this episode, we hear from Dr Calum Nicholson, who is Director of research at the Danube Institute, and former director and currently associate research fellow, at the Climate Policy Institute in Budapest. Dr Nicholson is also the co-editor and author of a number of chapters in Climate Migration; critical perspectives for law, policy, and research.