ABSTRACT
As climate change impacts increase in severity, complex disasters affect ever-growing numbers of people, land grabs and resource-related conflicts become more common, and political instability and conflict spreads in Africa and the Muslim world, there is little doubt that there will be an increase in involuntary population displacements in this century (Walker, Glasser and Kambli 2012). Even were these other factors to remain unchanged, population growth in affected areas would dictate greater numbers of displaced persons. Yet with more evidence that the Earth's climate is changing more rapidly than previously thought (Bryssea et al. 2013) and the significant environmental and economic disruptions that would be inherent in a likely 4°C rise in global temperatures (New et al. 2011), there is a need to anticipate how changes in the volumes of displacement will affect various populations, and how humanitarian and development actors will respond.
