ICDS Research Fellow Helga Kalm wrote about climate refugees and whether they should be entitled to receive an official refugee status. Kalm said that there are a lot more climate refugees in the world than there are war refugees, but that under current regulations they don’t share the same legal refugee status as war refugees do. That is mainly because it is very difficult to differentiate between economic migrants and climate refugees as these two are often very interlinked. That does not mean, however, that the people would not have serious motivations for leaving their homes and that international community should in the light of Paris climate talks focus a lot more on ways that we can mitigate the effects of climate change in areas that are most affected by it.
ICDS Research Fellow Helga Kalm wrote about climate refugees and whether they should be entitled to receive an official refugee status. Kalm said that there are a lot more climate refugees in the world than there are war refugees, but that under current regulations they don’t share the same legal refugee status as war refugees do. That is mainly because it is very difficult to differentiate between economic migrants and climate refugees as these two are often very interlinked. That does not mean, however, that the people would not have serious motivations for leaving their homes and that international community should in the light of Paris climate talks focus a lot more on ways that we can mitigate the effects of climate change in areas that are most affected by it.
Read more (in Estonian): Müürileht