ABSTRACT
The definition of environmental migration remains disputed in the literature. The concept was coined by environmental scholars in the late 1970s: along with many nongovernmental organizations and think tanks such as the WorldWatch Institute, they initially described environmental migration as a new and distinct category of migration, an unavoidable byproduct of climate change. Migration scholars, however, first insisted on the multi-causality of migration, and on the impossibility of isolating environmental factors from other migration drivers (Kibreab 1997). It is, however, now usually acknowledged that environmental migrants are:
persons or groups of persons, who, for compelling reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad.
