Displacement owing to climate change is quickly outpacing conflict, political oppression, and other sociopolitical forces from which people flee the states in which they habitually reside. However, at present, most ongoing state-based programs to admit displaced persons explicitly address themselves to people displaced by conflict and human rights abuses. One notable exception is Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the US. Nationals of countries experiencing “natural disasters” can be designated for TPS while in the US. Recipients often renew these twelve- to eighteen-month visas for many years, meanwhile putting down roots in the US and forming mixed status families. Such relief is episodic, insofar as it treats natural disasters as discrete and unpredictable events, and discretionary, insofar as it depends on the judgment of the United States Attorney General. This chapter raises questions about whether such an approach is a good model for future programs that will be needed to support people seeking refuge from uninhabitable or inhospitable environments.

This chapter debates the displacement impacts of climate change. Is there a need for some sort of law on ‘climate migration’? Above all, does it make sense to talk about climate migration as a discrete phenomenon? Ingrid Boas argues that ‘climate mobility’ is real and observable and takes many forms (hence climate mobilities), including that of immobility (the decision to stay put despite the pressures to move). She makes the case for this phenomenon being a proper subject of research and governance. Calum Nicholson, by contrast, argues that climate migration researchers literally have no idea what they are talking about. These scholars, he claims, have made a virtue of imprecision in order to keep attracting research grants to study the individual experiences of those allegedly affected by the impacts of climate change, from which no generalizations could possibly be drawn.

This chapter debates the displacement impacts of climate change. Is there a need for some sort of law on ‘climate migration’? Above all, does it make sense to talk about climate migration as a discrete phenomenon? Ingrid Boas argues that ‘climate mobility’ is real and observable and takes many forms (hence climate mobilities), including that of immobility (the decision to stay put despite the pressures to move). She makes the case for this phenomenon being a proper subject of research and governance. Calum Nicholson, by contrast, argues that climate migration researchers literally have no idea what they are talking about. These scholars, he claims, have made a virtue of imprecision in order to keep attracting research grants to study the individual experiences of those allegedly affected by the impacts of climate change, from which no generalizations could possibly be drawn.

This chapter discusses the main debates surrounding climate adaptation law. Adaptation to climate change is often presented as a subfield of climate law, alongside that of mitigation. Article 7 of the Paris Agreement establishes ‘the global goal on adaptation’ and links it with the Article 2 mitigation goal, thus lending support for the idea that an adaptation law might develop under the influence of the Paris Agreement, at least at the domestic level. Nevertheless, many in the field are sceptical: adaptation efforts often consist in the implementation of pre-existing developmental, environmental, or human-rights policies that are highly localized in their outlook. This chapter reviews the wealth of views on whether ‘adaptation law’ has emerged or should be recognized as a legal field, creating new, legally enforceable rights and obligations.