Climate Migration

Canada’s Next Government Must Prioritize Climate Justice

Canadians go to the polls on April 28th, with tariffs and the trade war between the United States dominating much of the conversation this election cycle. Amidst this turbulent political context, conversations around climate change have gone under the radar despite the rapid exacerbation of the global climate emergency during the past year.

At the end of 2024, the Senate and the House of Commons published reports on Canada’s role in responding to the global forced displacement crisis and Canada’s engagement with African countries, respectively. Climate Refugees provided input and shaped the recommendations for both reports to ensure climate justice is at the centre of Canada’s efforts.

In December 2024, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights published a timely report entitled Ripped From Home: The Global Crisis of Forced Displacement. The report highlights the scale of the displacement crisis, which is exacerbated as climate change negatively influences environmental, economic and physical wellbeing. 

In the recommendations presented, the Committee encourages Canada to “recognize climate displacement as an existential crisis and take an international leadership role on mitigating and adapting to climate change.” The report calls on the government to fully fund Canada’s climate finance commitments and address climate migration through international instruments such as the Convention on Statelessness. The Committee also encourages the government to consider introducing new pathways for refugees based on specific human rights considerations, such as people displaced by climate change. 

The report acknowledges the connections between climate change and displacement by asserting, “In short, climate change must no longer be thought of as a peripheral concern in the context of global displacement. It is already amplifying threats to peace and security, development and human rights, and has the potential to supercharge global displacement to unprecedented levels. Mitigating and adapting to climate change is therefore central to the nexus approach to global displacement.”

Climate Refugees contributed to the study through a joint brief with key recommendations on how Canada should respond to the global solidarity crisis for forced displacement in the context of the climate emergency. These recommendations include recognizing climate displacement, training decision-makers and officials on the intersection between refugee law and climate change, increasing humanitarian visas, developing relocation processes for internally displaced communities, and establishing long-term legislative solutions to provide a more permanent and comprehensive response to climate protection.

In November 2024, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development published a report on a New Era of Partnerships: Canada’s Engagement with Africa. The report outlines a series of recommendations, including for Canada to address the intersection between climate change and healthcare, as well as to support climate-resilient agricultural systems. Climate Refugees contributed to the report as Amali Tower testified at the House of Commons by highlighting the impact of climate change on poverty, loss and damage, development setbacks and human rights, while underlining the climate injustice in the continent as African countries have contributed less than 4% of carbon emissions. Climate Refugees called on Canada to provide equitable, grant-based climate finance, including compensation for losses and damages, as well as for the government to take action that would help communities to adapt in place to climate change and support and facilitate voluntary migration. 

In March, the government launched its “Canada’s Africa Strategy: A Partnership for Shared Prosperity and Security.” The foreign policy is centered around five strategic areas aligned with the African Union’s Agenda 2063, including supporting adaptation and addressing biodiversity loss through Canada’s climate finance envelope, as well as through bilateral agreements and initiatives, such as the Global Carbon Pricing Challenge and Powering Past Coal Alliance. These investments are critical as the World Meteorological Organization estimates that by 2030, 118 million people living in extreme poverty across the continent will be exposed to drought, floods and extreme heat if adequate response measures are not put in place. 

As the United States retreated from global climate action under the second Trump presidency, which will have detrimental impacts on global climate finance through the dissolution of USAID, Canada has an urgent role to step up and demonstrate its leadership in global climate justice. This includes advancing protection pathways for those displaced and migrating due to the effects of the climate crisis, as recommended by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, as well as developing an ambitious and justice-centered five-year international climate finance pledge between 2026-27 and 2030-31.

Canada has disproportionately contributed to the climate crisis as it is the largest polluter in terms of cumulative emissions per population and the second highest in cumulative emissions per capita historically. Such figures underline how the next government must urgently work toward rectifying its global climate destruction by advancing justice-centered solutions to the climate crisis through ambitious climate finance pledges, including compensation for losses and damages for countries disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis, as well as innovative approaches to protect those displaced and migrating due to the complex and intertwined effects of the global climate emergency. 


Climate Change Forcing Many to Flee Honduras, Highlighting Need for Protection

Climate Change Forcing Many to Flee Honduras, Highlighting Need for Protection

Following an official visit to Honduras, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, Ian Fry, is sounding the alarm about how climate change impacts are pushing many people to leave the Central American country.

Fry found that communities are facing prolonged droughts, severe flooding events, and coastal erosion and inundation due to climate change. These impacts are “forcing people to leave their homes and seek more sustainable livelihoods” elsewhere in order to avoid starvation and a lack of safe drinking water. Industries that provided stable livelihoods just a few years ago are now being swallowed by rising seas, creating “‘ghost communities with only old people left’”. In one Dry Corridor community the Special Rapporteur visited, drought has forced 80% of residents to leave Honduras, given how limited livelihood options are elsewhere in the country. 

The World Cup of Climate Injustice

The World Cup of Climate Injustice

When the world’s best players take the field in November, they will be playing in stadiums that at least 6,500 migrant workers died to build. It is believed that the number could actually be much higher, Of the countries that sent a large number of migrant workers to Qatar, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are the only ones that actually kept track of how many of their citizens have died. Since 2010, an average of 12 people have died each week constructing the World Cup infrastructure from these five countries alone. Other countries with a large number of workers in Qatar, including The Philippines and Kenya, have not kept track of fatalities. On average nearly two workers have passed away daily, listed officially as ‘natural causes.

To Mitigate Climate Change, Combat Slavery and Protect Climate Migrants & Refugees

To Mitigate Climate Change, Combat Slavery and Protect Climate Migrants & Refugees

Addressing the needs and protection of climate migrants is a matter of human rights, but according to a new study linking modern slavery and climate change, it might also hold massive potential in mitigating climate change. Astonishingly, modern slavery emits 2.54 billion tons of CO2 a year and over the past few years, increasing correlations have been made recognizing the nexus between climate change, migration and modern slavery. According to Anti-Slavery International, modern slavery can come in the form of human trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, forced prostitution and child labor among others, and now climate-induced migration is increasing migrants’ vulnerability to modern slavery.

Climate Change Displacing Already Vulnerable Iraqis; Spells Trouble for Region

Climate Change Displacing Already Vulnerable Iraqis; Spells Trouble for Region

With about 30 percent of Iraq covered in desert, all of these added climate problems, along with a population rapidly increasing, which we detailed in this earlier Spotlight, renders an already vulnerable population from conflict, geopolitical tensions, decades of sanctions, chronic poverty and corruption, rather fragile. It’s no wonder then that right now, thousands of families across Iraq continue to be displaced from their homes in rural parts of the country due to the loss of arable land and water scarcity.

2021 Deepened Climate Migration as Survival

2021 Deepened Climate Migration as Survival

2021 closed with yet another year of record forcibly displaced persons and the climate crisis played a major role driving over 84 million people out of their homes.

We already know that in 2020, three times as many people - 30.7 million - were internally displaced by the climate crisis than by conflict or violence. Numbers over the last decade don’t fair any better either, where twice as much displacement was triggered by weather-related events than conflict or violence. The trends tell us people are being forcibly displaced, forced to migrate and wherever possible, migrating to survive.