Olive Heffernan

This week on Nature Reports Climate Change, Amanda Leigh Haag looks at how climate change is increasingly becoming an issue of national security, raising the alarm on issues of border control and immigration policy globally.

The feature details how regions likely to bear the brunt of climate impacts are already beginning to look to neighbouring states for potential resettlement deals, while less vulnerable nations are considering the likely spillover of large-scale migration from areas impacted by severe drought or flooding.

This raises some interesting issues, such as whether adaptation should focus on protecting the rights of people to live in their home, rather than offering relocation programmes, and whether these scenarios are inevitable without drastic measures to prevent further warming….but more on that shortly.