Wie is de klimaatvluchteling?

Abstract

Millions of people will need to move from their home due to changes in the natural environment. However, at this moment there is no international policy to protect these climate refugees. Based on the assumption that scientific knowledge is useful for designing policy, this research focusses on the question: “in which stage is the scientific debate on climate refugees and to which extend is this reflected in international policy?”. By analyzing the scientific and policy discourse on the topic the different aspects of meaning and attitude towards climate refugees are researched. It appears that there are more similarities than differences between the scientific and policy discourse. The description of climate refugees or climate-induced migrants are rather vague and doesn’t give a categorization of who is and who is not a climate refugee, a false consensus. Furthermore, discursive conflicts on the role of migration and interdiscursivity on the depiction of climate refugees, show that nor scientists, nor policymakers are close to the finding consensus on the term climate refugees that is needed to stimulate policymaking. The challenge is to bring the aspects back into debate, define who the climate refugees are and start from there.