(Re)framing the Ethics of Climate Migration: Asylum, Responsibility, and the Case for Yielding Territory

Scientists predict that climate change will be the driving force behind most of the world’s migration over the next three decades. They estimate that climate change will force the migration of 200 million individuals by the year 2050. The forced migration of millions of individuals raises important ethical questions such as: how can they be helped? And who should be responsible for helping them? The principal solution presented by scholars and activists is to classify climate migrants as refugees and grant them asylum in affluent western countries. Proponents of this position argue that these countries—through their polluting and consuming habits, past and present—created the problem of climate change. As such, they are responsible for the plight of climate victims and therefore have a moral obligation to take in the anticipated millions of displaced climate migrants. But is asylum the best solution? And are affluent western countries responsible for climate change and, in turn, liable to climate victims? I explore these important questions in this dissertation. In this project, I challenge asylum as the best solution for helping climate migrants by pointing out the practical hurtles to this decision and by highlighting the unintended moral harms that climate migrants will be subjected to if climate migrants were to be categorized as refugees. I also problematize the responsibility claims against affluent western states by examining the theoretical concept of responsibility and showing that assigning responsibility for climate change is much more challenging than it seems. Additionally, I present my own solution to the problem of climate displacement and make the case for it on remedial responsibility grounds—a type of responsibility rooted in capacity not moral, causal, or outcome justifications