Climate Change Is Deepening the Crisis for Millions Living Without a Nationality Today

New global recommendations from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the University of Melbourne’s Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness set out practical steps to protect people whose rights and security are becoming more fragile as climate change intensifies.

A flood can sweep away a family's home and the documents they need to prove where they belong, leaving them facing questions about their identity just as they need help rebuilding their lives. For people without a nationality, the consequences can reach much further than the immediate disaster, making healthcare, education and safe movement even harder to access. New global recommendations from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the University of Melbourne's Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness set out practical steps to protect people whose rights and security are becoming more fragile as climate change intensifies.

Nearly 90 per cent of the 4.5 million people known to be stateless live in countries highly exposed to extreme weather and environmental degradation, including heatwaves, droughts, cyclones, floods and rising seas. Someone who is stateless is not recognised as a national by any country, a situation that can turn ordinary activities such as getting a job, attending school, seeing a doctor or getting married into difficult or inaccessible processes. Climate pressures deepen that exclusion, placing people who already struggle to access basic services in circumstances where those services become even more essential.

How Displacement Can Put Nationality at Risk

The danger extends to people who have a nationality but may struggle to establish or retain access to it after being displaced. Lost identity documents do not automatically make someone stateless, but their disappearance, combined with interrupted civil registration services and gaps in nationality laws, can expose families to that risk. Parents forced to move may face difficulties registering a birth or obtaining evidence of a child's nationality, allowing the consequences of a disaster to follow children through their lives. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre records an average of 27 million weather-related displacements annually over the past decade, a figure that counts movements rather than necessarily distinct individuals, with climate change expected to push the trend upwards.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Barham Salih described climate change as an increasingly urgent protection crisis for stateless people and others in vulnerable situations, stressing that nationality supports identity, rights and belonging. Associate Professor Radha Govil, one of the recommendations' lead authors, warned that millions more could face the risk of statelessness if moving to survive cuts off their access to civil registration or proof of nationality. Their concerns point to a part of disaster recovery that can be overlooked: families need functioning systems that recognise who they are and protect their rights.

Protecting Children, Records and the Right to Belong

The first-ever Global Recommendations on Nationality and Statelessness in the Context of Climate Change encourage governments to identify stateless people displaced in climate-related circumstances and include them in adaptation and response planning. Strengthening birth registration and identity systems would help protect access to vital records, with dedicated procedures needed to identify and protect stateless people during displacement. Governments are also urged to ensure that every child affected by climate change can acquire a nationality, preventing childhood statelessness from becoming another lasting consequence of a family's forced move.

Keeping Rights Secure as Coastlines Change

The recommendations draw on international law and policy covering nationality, statelessness, climate change and human mobility, guided by equality, non-discrimination, life with dignity, international cooperation and participation. They also reflect growing international recognition that statehood should continue despite sea-level rise and related territorial loss, an issue of profound importance for communities facing existential threats to their homelands. UNHCR and the Peter McMullin Centre are calling for timely funding and support, urging governments, regional organisations, civil society and development partners to put the guidance into practice through inclusive, resilient nationality systems, climate policies and human mobility frameworks that protect those most at risk.