Climate Change as a Driver of Covid-19: The Protection of Refugees in the Post Covid-19 World

Abstract

As the world is grappling with the chaos brought about by COVID-19, coupled with already existing climate change situation, the global refugee crisis is predicted to worsen in the coming years. The impacts of climate change contribute to the increased vulnerability of disadvantaged communities to COVID-19. Exposure to environmental pollutants is strongly associated with increased risk and severity of COVID-19, as well as to pre-existing health conditions that predispose to worse health outcomes in individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2.Meanwhile, to mitigate the global refugee crisis during and in the post Covid 19 era, policymakers in different countries and international organizations have implemented various measures for refugee’s protection in a form of relief packages to mapping protocols.The paper examines what COVID-19 and climate change crises reveal about the prevailing and anticipated challenges of refugees and displaced persons across the world and the capacity and limits of international law protection to them.The paper further explores how the global refugees’ challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic could be a source for a breakthrough policy formulation with a holistic multidisciplinary approach for tackling the looming climate refugees challenge.

Keywords: Covid 19. Climate Change, Refugees, International Law, Protection.

DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/118-04

Publication date: February 28^th 2022