Legal limbo awaits millions of future ‘climate refugees’

At least 19.3 million people worldwide were driven from their homes by natural disasters last year — 90 percent of which were related to weather events, according to the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.

The U.S. Department of Defense has called climate change “an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources such as food and water,” according to a report this year.

Yet climate change does not make one a refugee, a designation for people forced to leave their home countries because of war, persecution or other violence.

Someone seeking refuge from environmental disaster cannot apply for refugee status, lacks protection under the U.N. High Convention for Refugees and can be sent back to their countries of origin without question at any time.

Some in vulnerable countries fear they could face the same hostile reception that Syrian war refugees have received from some countries.