ICDS Junior Research Fellow Helga Kalm spoke about climate refugees at a seminar organised by the Estonian Green Movement in Tartu on December 1 and in Tallinn on December 9.
Kalm explained that it is difficult to draw a distinction between climate refugees and economic migrants and therefore there is no international agreement that would protect climate refugees. Climate alone is usually not enough to push a country towards civil war, but it is one of the key triggers alongside political and economic environment, social justice, economic and legal inequality, fast economic growth, population density, as well as ethnic and religious divisions. Nevertheless, we should not underestimate the impact that climate can have on a country’s internal stability.