Recent figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) expose a stark contradiction in contemporary border governance: Mediterranean and Atlantic border governance: despite measurable fluctuations and localized declines in arrivals along maritime corridors, such as Atlantic route to the Canary Islands between 2024 and 2025, the mortality rate at sea has remained stubbornly consistent.[i] Rather than curbing irregular mobility, militarized border protocols and externalized controls merely force displaced populations into longer, more dangerous routes. This persistence of high-risk migration underscores a fundamental policy failure: state-centered deterrence frameworks attempt to suppress physical movement while failing to address its underlying structural drivers. Across West Africa and the Sahel, accelerating environmental degradation—manifested through prolonged droughts, desertification, unpredictable monsoon patterns, and severe soil erosion—erodes agrarian livelihoods and destabilizes rural economies. Consequently, international governance frameworks, particularly within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP process, must reframe human mobility away from national security paradigms toward urgent climate adaptation, mobility governance, and “Loss and Damage” priority allocations.[ii]
This reactive reliance on border militarization stems from a broader conceptual shift in state strategy: the reframing of climate-induced crises from environmental disasters into core national security threats. The primary reason environmental degradation is perceived through a security lens is not merely the severity of natural events themselves, but their capacity to exceed state administrative and economic capacities. Through the loss of agricultural land, the depletion of water resources, and the collapse of infrastructure, climate change erodes the ability of states to function effectively. These unmanaged environmental stress factors act as institutional friction points, amplifying pre-existing ethnic, economic, and political vulnerabilities, which frequently culminate in localized conflict and internal displacement. Within this analytical framework, climate change functions as a “risk multiplier.” Consequently, state security apparatuses and destination governments increasingly view climate-displaced populations through a threat lens. Rather than recognizing displaced communities as populations experiencing severe environmental vulnerability, sovereign border regimes categorize them as destabilizing risks to internal security, public order, and territorial integrity.
This securitized stance is further sustained by the international legal framework governing human mobility. The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol define a refugee strictly through a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.[iii] Designed in the early Cold War era to address state-driven political persecution, this legal framework contains no explicit recognition or protection mechanisms for individuals forced to move due to environmental degradation or sudden climate disasters. This structural legal void means states hold no explicit international obligations to grant protection based on environmental factors. Exploiting this legal gap, destination governments routinely categorize climate-displaced individuals as “voluntary economic migrants” or “irregular entrants.” This classification legitimizes coercive enforcement measures, border interdictions, and pushbacks, reducing complex human mobility management to a unilateral border enforcement operation. While non-binding international initiatives such as the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) attempt to bridge this protection gap, the absence of a legal regime allows states to prioritize national security over international burden-sharing.[iv]
Crucially, this vulnerability and institutional strain are no longer confined to the Global South. Widespread wildfires in Greece and Spain highlight that climate displacement is now a pan-European reality.[v] Recognizing this escalating baseline, COP30 in Belém marked a critical turning point by pushing human mobility from the structural margins into core climate architecture. Grounded in advocacy from bodies like the IOM and UNHCR, COP30 emphasized that adaptation finance, the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), and the operationalized Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) must explicitly account for human mobility. As the international community prepares for COP31 in Antalya, expectations have shifted toward implementation and structural resilience.[vi] With compounding natural catastrophes continuing to test regional capacities worldwide, COP31 faces mounting pressure to move beyond abstract acknowledgments of “displacement” in text toward concrete mechanisms: local urban adaptation, risk insurance, and climate-resilient infrastructure.
Concrete mechanisms play out on two fronts. Low-lying Pacific islands face existential sea-level rise, forcing communities into planned relocations, land purchases abroad, and digital statehood preservation. Meanwhile, key transit and destination regions are shifting their focus to municipal infrastructure resilience to manage incoming climate displacement. A primary example is the strategic partnership between the European Union and Türkiye leading up to COP31 in Antalya. Through initiatives aimed at building “climate-resilient cities” and financing facilities like the Sustainable Urban Resilience Financing Facility (SURFF), this cooperation reflects a transition from passive border enforcement to proactive, localized urban adaptation. By strengthening host-city infrastructure and municipal capacity, regional actors recognize that long-term stability relies on absorbing displaced populations into resilient urban environments rather than managing them through reactive security protocols.[vii]
Ultimately, the persistent failure of militarized border externalization demonstrates that state-centered deterrence cannot suppress mobility driven by environmental breakdown. As traditional international legal definitions fall short of protecting climate-displaced individuals, multilateral climate arenas, spanning COP30 in Belém to COP31 in Antalya, offer the only viable alternative governance model. The tension between state claims to absolute territorial sovereignty and the reality of global climate-induced mobility highlights the limits of unilateral border enforcement. Moving forward, bridging global climate finance, Loss and Damage mechanisms, and localized urban resilience will be essential to ensure that human mobility is addressed not as a security threat to be policed, but as a fundamental dimension of climate justice and global adaptation. Addressing human mobility not as a national security threat to be policed, but as a central component of global adaptation architecture and climate justice, remains essential for long-term international governance.
[i] “Missing Migrants Project”, International Organization for Migration (IOM), https://missingmigrants.iom.int/, (Date Accessed: 27.10.2026).
[ii] “Why human mobility matters at COP 30 and why the EU should pay attention”, United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC), https://unric.org/en/why-human-mobility-matters-at-cop-30-and-why-the-eu-should-pay-attention/, (Date Accessed: 27.10.2026).
[iii] “The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol”, UNHCR, https://www.unhcr.org/media/1951-refugee-convention-and-1967-protocol-relating-status-refugees, (Date Accessed: 27.10.2026).
[iv] “United Nations Global Compact”, UN Global Compact, https://unglobalcompact.org/, (Date Accessed: 27.10.2026).
[v] “Why human mobility matters at COP 30 and why the EU should pay attention”, United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC), https://unric.org/en/why-human-mobility-matters-at-cop-30-and-why-the-eu-should-pay-attention/, (Date Accessed: 27.10.2026).
[vi] “Preparation and implementation of strong cooperation for climate-resilient cities to lead COP31”, European External Action Service (EEAS), https://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/turkiye/preparation-implementation-strong-cooperation-climate-resilient-cities-lead-cop31_en?s=230, (Date Accessed: 27.10.2026).
[vii] “Vanishing islands: The Pacific’s bold new strategy to save communities from rising seas”, News.by, https://news.by/eng/news/v_mire/vanishing-islands-the-pacific-s-bold-new-strategy-to-save-communities-from-rising-seas, (Date Accessed: 27.10.2026).
