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Assessing migration in the context of climate change, Nash draws on empirical research to offer a unique analysis of policy-making in the field. This detailed account is a vital step in understanding the links between global discourses on human mobilities, climate change and specific policy responses. An important contribution to several ongoing debates in academia and beyond.

Since 2017 a debate has been ongoing in Germany around a proposal by the Green Party to introduce a 'climate passport' that would confer citizenship-like rights to people most likely to be displaced due to climate change. The debate, ranging from solidaristic work to open hostility, is highly Eurocentric, with the German border and affected people's potential interactions with it providing a central ordering node in the debate. German voices and perspectives are foregrounded, and Germany is placed in a problem-solver position in relation to affected communities. By doing so, the positioning of Germany as able to control and define future acceptable human mobilities is centred. Affected people are positioned as the 'other,' which oscillates between Pacific Islanders and Africans depending on the speaker. Inhabitants of Pacific Islands are identified as recipients of the climate passport, as vulnerable individuals whose countries will inevitably be erased from the map by climate change. Africans, on the other hand, are portrayed as economic migrants waiting to take advantage of climate-related residency permits to migrate to Europe. Based on this analysis, I argue that the Eurocentrism of well-intentioned policy proposals to protect people forced to move in the context of climate change is a blind spot in policy circles and research that demands further attention.

Assessing migration in the context of climate change, Nash draws on empirical research to offer a unique analysis of policymaking in the field. This detailed account is a vital step in understanding the links between global discourses on human mobilities, climate change and specific policy responses.

Established categories used to describe different kinds of human mobility, based on a distinction between forced and more-or-less voluntary forms of movement, dominate the discourse on human mobility in the context of climate change. In particular, the phrase "displacement, migration and planned relocation" anchored in the Cancun Adaptation Framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has become prominent. Despite being portrayed as objective representations of the world, these categories are not neutral, with terminology being value-laden and taking on different connotations in different contexts. The categories used to describe human mobility in the context of climate change therefore do not necessarily impart knowledge about the realities of human mobilities, but rather say more about the speakers using these categories. This essay provides an impulse to look beyond established categories from policymaking, to strengthen critique of these categories in academic work, and to move beyond policy-relevant research.

In recent debates on climate change and migration, the focus on the figure of 'climate refugees' (tainted by environmental determinism and a crude understanding of human mobility) has given ground to a broader conception of the climate–migration nexus. In particular, the idea that migration can represent a legitimate adaptation strategy has emerged strongly. This appears to be a positive development, marked by softer tones that de-securitise climate migration. However, political and normative implications of this evolution are still understudied. This article contributes to filling the gap by turning to both the 'climate refugees' and 'migration as adaptation' narratives, interrogating how and whether those competing narratives pose the question of (in)justice. Our analysis shows that the highly problematic 'climate refugees' narrative did (at least) channel justice claims and yielded the (illusory) possibility of identifying concrete rights claims and responsibilities. Read in relation to the growing mantra of resilience in climate policy and politics, the more recent narrative on 'migration as adaptation' appears to displace justice claims and inherent rights in favour of a depoliticised idea of adaptation that relies on the individual migrant's ability to compete in and benefit from labour markets. We warn that the removal of structural inequalities from the way in which the climate–migration nexus is understood can be seen as symptomatic of a shrinking of the conditions to posing the question of climate justice.

It has become increasingly common to argue that climate change will lead to mass migrations. In this chapter, we examine the largenumbers often invoked to underline alarming climate migration narratives. We outline the methodological limitations to theirproduction. We argue for a greater diversity of knowledges about climate migration, rooted in qualitative and mixed methods. Wealso question the usefulness of numbers to progressive agendas for climate action. Large numbers are used for rhetorical effect tocreate fear of climate migration, but this approach backfires when they are used to justify security-oriented, anti-migrant agendas. Inaddition, quantification helps present migration as a management problem with decisions based on meeting quantitative targets,instead of prioritising peoples' needs, rights, and freedoms. ; 0 ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published