Climate displacement isn’t going anywhere.
Amid significant upheaval across immigration, climate, and international policy, this Earth Day may be a solemn one for those who care about the climate crisis and the people displaced by it.
Our planet continues to go in the wrong direction on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, with a World Meteorological Organization report last month confirming that 2024 was the hottest year on record and more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature averages.
In January 2025, the United States announced it would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement meant to keep global temperatures below this threshold. Humanitarian assistance for climate-affected populations, too, has been sharply reduced amid the United States’ gutting of foreign aid programs.
Even in better times, though, climate displacement is a difficult topic for the public and policymakers alike to grasp. There are few protections in international law for those displaced by climate disasters like storms, floods, and droughts, and there is no universal terminology for those displaced by climate disaster. People do not generally identify as climate-displaced or as “climate refugees,” and those fleeing are usually affected by both climate-related and other factors. Unfortunately, however, experts often approach the topic from either the lens of immigration policy or climate policy—making it challenging to hold discussions that highlight both areas and recognize their intersections.
Despite these challenges, the needs of climate-displaced people are as pressing as ever.
Global Refuge believes that the time for action to protect climate displaced persons is now and that the United States still has the capacity and moral responsibility to strengthen its protection pathways for these individuals—and to be a global leader in climate resilience.
Here are five key principles informing Global Refuge’s work on this subject in the months ahead:
We must support the right to stay.
Climate mobility exists on a spectrum—whether it’s temporary or permanent, across a border or within a country, or voluntary or forced. Many individuals and families do not want to relocate; in fact, most people want nothing more than to stay in their homes and communities.
The resumption of U.S. foreign assistance in the new landscape should support their right to stay, seeking to minimize and reduce climate-related displacement from occurring in the first place by supporting common-sense adaptation measures that can help keep families and communities in place.
We must also support local actors like refugee-led organizations in climate resilience work.
We are clearly in a global retrenchment—and inflection point—regarding how we respond to displacement and humanitarian crises.
With fewer resources amid the U.S. retreat on foreign aid and other disaster responses, we should center community-based organizations closest to the needs in their areas. Refugee-led organizations and others can champion the local knowledge and practices that will make communities more resilient.
They will need funding and meaningful participation on the international level—and we should work to help them get there.
A dedicated pathway remains essential for climate-related displacement.
The Climate Displaced Persons Act (CDPA) was first introduced in Congress in 2019 and endorsed by Global Refuge, and subsequently reintroduced in the last two sessions of Congress in 2021 and 2023 in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In 2025, its provisions for a Global Climate Change Resilience Strategy and a vetted admissions pathway for climate-displaced persons to the United States have only become more necessary.
A reintroduced CDPA will face long, if not impossible, odds this Congress and during this administration. But we should work to get additional co-sponsors of both parties and both chambers on board with this transformative solution. We must show how a rights-based approach to climate displacement will make America stronger, safer, and more prosperous.
In the meantime, other humanitarian programs must be protected.
In lieu of a dedicated pathway, we must preserve the system of laws that can respond to increasingly climate-driven or climate-affected humanitarian crises. Members of Congress, advocates, and others must defend the U.S. refugee admissions program from being dismantled.
Current U.S. immigration law provides some temporary protections for persons seeking safety outside of their country following a sudden-onset disaster. Existing temporary humanitarian protections like Temporary Protected Status (TPS) remain important—and should be invoked to prevent returns to countries enduring climate shocks, such as Afghanistan.
Collaboration and partnership will be critical in this work moving forward.
With changing policies at the federal level, state and local governments may need to take more of a leadership role on climate resilience.
We should build bridges across civil society—with academia, philanthropy, the business community, and others—to craft innovative solutions for climate displacement.
For more resources and background on climate-related displacement, check out Global Refuge’s Climate Displacement Hub.
