Noah's Ark

Climate change will trigger global migration on a massive scale. A new book asks whether we can overcome tribalism and treat the planet as “a commonwealth of humanity”.

- VERONIKA MEDUNA

The latest global climate summit may well be remembered as a failure – not least because one of the most pressing issues was not even on the agenda.

The main achievement of COP27, held in Egypt in November, was to establish a long-awaited fund to compensate developing countries for loss and damage wrought by a fast-changing climate. Exactly how wealthy countries will pay is yet to be fully negotiated.

Meanwhile, the summit largely avoided debate about how countries less affected by climate change should prepare to welcome people fleeing parts of the world that are becoming unliveable.

Mass migration is inevitable, with millions of people forced to leave their homes and countries because of deadly heat and increasingly frequent extreme weather, says Gaia Vince, an award-winning UK science journalist. Her latest book, Nomad Century, highlights what she describes as the “most underreported, seismic consequence” of climate change.

“Over the next 50 years, hotter temperatures combined with more intense humidity are set to make large swathes of the globe lethal for 3.5 billion of us,” she writes. “Fleeing the tropics, the coasts and formerly arable lands, huge populations will need to seek new homes. You will be among them, or you will be receiving them.”