The European Union’s approach to climate mobility: a decolonial climate justice analysis

Abstract

The nexus between climate change and human mobility has received growing academic, legal, and policy attention in recent years and represents a significant governance challenge for the international community and the EU. While there has been significant policy development internationally, a legal protection gap for climate migrants remains. This thesis specifically investigates climate mobility governance in the EU. Given the legacy of European colonialism and the EU’s disproportionate contribution to climate change, it analyses in what ways the EU’s approach to climate mobility can be reimagined through a decolonial climate justice lens. It finds that a decolonial climate justice framework conceptualises climate migrants as rights holders to whom the EU owes reparations. Analysing the EU’s legal and policy framework of climate mobility, the thesis finds that the international policy developments have not translated to EU level. Furthermore, amidst a predominant discourse of climate migrants as a national security threat, no comprehensive legal or policy measures to protect climate migrants have materialised thus far. The collective right to self-determination of affected Indigenous and local communities has so far been neglected. The findings emphasise the urgent need for the EU to establish a comprehensive framework that incorporates Indigenous and local knowledges and centres around affected Indigenous and local communities. The EU has to take accountability for its historical and ongoing contributions to the climate crisis by offering reparations to climate migrants in the form of emissions reduction, financial and practical support, providing the opportunity to immigrate or covering the costs of relocation, and, most contentiously, providing land to accommodate affected communities in cases of total territory loss. Keywords: Climate Change, Climate Justice, Climate Migrants, Climate Mobility, Decoloniality, EU Law, International Law