Short answers, pulled from the story.
The term environmental refugee was first proposed by Lester Brown in 1976. In 1985, UNEP researcher Essam El-Hinnawi provided one of the earliest formal definitions, describing those forced to leave their habitat due to environmental disruption that jeopardized their existence or quality of life.
Norman Myers, the most prominent proponent of large projections, estimated an upper limit of 200 million environmental migrants by 2050, later revising the figure to as high as 250 million. Myers acknowledged that these figures are based on what he called heroic extrapolation.
The International Organization for Migration identifies three types: environmental emergency migrants who flee temporarily after a sudden disaster, environmental forced migrants who leave due to gradual environmental deterioration, and environmental motivated migrants who relocate proactively to avoid anticipated problems.
Over 65 million people across 39 countries live in Small Island Developing States, which face rising sea levels, increasing natural disasters, and freshwater depletion. As of 2020, an estimated 11.5 million people originally from SIDS were living outside their country of birth, and that number is projected to increase significantly.
Environmental racism refers to the systemic exposure of racialized and Indigenous communities to environmental hazards while excluding them from land and resource decisions. For example, oil extraction in the Niger Delta has displaced local Indigenous and Black communities, while islands like Kiribati and Tuvalu face severe sea-level rise despite contributing minimally to global emissions.
The SAMOA Pathway is a ten-year plan adopted in September 2014 when Small Island Developing States met in Apia, Samoa. It addresses climate change impacts on the islands and aims to prevent and manage the migration issues that result.