Adrift Nations: How Climate Change Is Creating the First Stateless Populations

By Riko Matsumoto, Japan Sep. 29, 2025

For centuries, the map of the world was defined by borders — lines carved through history, culture, and conflict. But as rising seas redraw the planet’s geography, a new kind of displacement has begun: one where countries themselves are disappearing. The slow submersion of low-lying island nations is not only an environmental crisis but a legal and political one. For the first time in human history, entire populations may become stateless without war, revolution, or conquest. The era of “climate refugees” has already arrived, yet the world remains unprepared for its moral, legal, and geopolitical consequences.

Sinking Sovereignty: Nations on the Edge of Existence

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global sea levels are projected to rise between 0.6 and 1.1 meters by 2100, even under moderate emission scenarios. While these figures might seem small, their impact on small island developing states (SIDS) is catastrophic. The Republic of Kiribati, whose highest point is only three meters above sea level, faces complete submersion within decades. The Marshall Islands and Tuvalu—home to fewer than 120,000 people combined—are already losing freshwater sources as saltwater intrudes into aquifers, rendering agriculture impossible.

The crisis is not hypothetical. In 2014, the government of Kiribati purchased 6,000 acres of land in Fiji as a “climate insurance policy” for potential relocation. Tuvalu’s Prime Minister, Kausea Natano, has publicly declared that his nation “will move with dignity,” yet relocation raises the impossible question: can a nation exist without land?

Under international law, sovereignty is traditionally tied to territory. The Montevideo Convention of 1933 defines a state as possessing (1) a permanent population, (2) a defined territory, (3) government, and (4) capacity for relations with other states. As the seas erase territories, these legal cornerstones begin to dissolve. Statelessness, once the tragedy of individuals stripped of nationality, may soon apply to entire peoples.

The Legal Vacuum: Refugees Without a Category

Despite the growing urgency, international law has yet to recognize “climate refugees.” The 1951 Refugee Convention, drafted in the aftermath of World War II, protects those fleeing “persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.” Environmental displacement does not qualify.

As a result, citizens from nations like Tuvalu or Kiribati who migrate for survival cannot claim asylum under existing frameworks. In 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) ruled on the case of Ioane Teitiota, a Kiribati national seeking refuge in New Zealand due to rising seas. The court acknowledged that climate change posed a real threat to life but ultimately rejected his asylum claim, citing a lack of imminent danger. The decision exposed a deep gap between humanitarian reality and legal precedent.

Without formal recognition, climate migrants remain in limbo — unable to return home but unwelcome abroad. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that by 2050, up to 216 million people could be displaced by climate-related factors. Yet there is no binding international framework to determine who they are, where they can go, or who bears responsibility for their protection.

The Geopolitics of Displacement

The disappearance of sovereign territory is not only a humanitarian crisis but a geopolitical one. Nations like Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Maldives hold exclusive economic zones (EEZs) extending 200 nautical miles into surrounding waters, granting access to lucrative fisheries and seabed minerals. If these nations vanish physically, who controls these waters?

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), maritime boundaries are defined relative to baselines along coastlines. When the coastline disappears, so do the baselines—and, by extension, the economic rights tied to them. This ambiguity could trigger disputes between neighboring states over maritime inheritance.

In 2023, the Pacific Islands Forum proposed a radical legal innovation: maintaining the sovereignty and maritime boundaries of disappearing states based on pre-submersion coordinates. The idea, supported by the UN General Assembly Resolution 77/276, asserts that statehood should not “sink with the land.” However, without universal recognition, such efforts remain symbolic.

Meanwhile, migration pressures are already straining regional politics. Fiji, which hosts climate-displaced populations from Kiribati, faces its own vulnerability to cyclones and rising seas. In Bangladesh, where 30 million people may be displaced by 2050 due to coastal flooding, internal migration is destabilizing urban centers like Dhaka. As the climate crisis intensifies, borders will harden, not open.

Economic Fallout: The Cost of Displacement

The economic toll of climate displacement extends far beyond humanitarian aid. According to the World Bank’s 2024 Groundswell Report, the annual cost of climate-induced migration could surpass US$520 billion by 2050. Small island economies—heavily reliant on tourism and fishing—face total collapse.

For example, tourism accounts for nearly 60 percent of GDP in the Maldives. Rising sea levels threaten not only the nation’s existence but its economic engine. Likewise, Kiribati’s per capita GDP, already below US$2,000, is projected to decline by half within two decades as agricultural and fishing industries vanish.

Even relocation, often framed as a humanitarian solution, comes with hidden costs. Studies from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reveal that resettled communities experience 30–40 percent income losses and severe social fragmentation. Host countries, already facing housing shortages and unemployment, struggle to absorb new arrivals without international assistance.

Adaptation or Exile: The Technological Dilemma

In response to existential threats, some nations have begun experimenting with adaptation technologies. The Maldives is constructing elevated “floating cities,” designed to withstand rising seas through modular platforms. Tuvalu, facing imminent loss, announced the creation of a “digital nation”—a metaverse-based twin of its cultural and political institutions, aimed at preserving national identity online.

While innovative, such solutions raise philosophical and ethical questions: can sovereignty be simulated? Can culture survive when its land does not? The notion of a “cloud state” may preserve symbols, but it cannot replace community, heritage, or physical belonging.

As UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in 2023, “We cannot move entire nations to the metaverse.” The technological imagination of survival must not distract from the political responsibility of prevention.

Toward a New Framework of Responsibility

Addressing climate-induced statelessness requires rethinking both sovereignty and accountability. First, the Refugee Convention must be updated—or supplemented—with a new protocol recognizing environmental displacement as a legitimate basis for protection. The UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (2018) was a step forward but remains non-binding.

Second, the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility”—enshrined in the Paris Agreement—should extend to displacement. Major emitters, responsible for the bulk of greenhouse gases, must finance relocation and adaptation programs for vulnerable nations.

Finally, the international community must codify “statehood continuity”: the recognition of governments-in-exile for nations lost to the sea. This would preserve their UN membership, maritime rights, and international personality. The loss of territory should not mean the loss of identity.

Conclusion

The sinking of island nations is more than a slow-motion tragedy—it is a moral test for the modern world. Humanity stands on the brink of witnessing the first nations disappear not by conquest, but by neglect. The crisis of climate-induced statelessness demands more than sympathy; it demands reinvention.

If the international community fails to adapt its laws and conscience, the 21st century will not only be defined by climate change but by the collapse of the very idea of nationhood. The tides are rising, but the greater danger lies in our refusal to recognize what they are washing away: the boundaries of justice, responsibility, and belonging itself.

Works Cited

“Climate Change and Displacement: The Legal Gap.” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 2024, https://www.unhcr.org/climate-change-displacement-2024.

“Groundswell Part II: Acting on Internal Climate Migration.” World Bank, 2024, https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/environment/publication/groundswell-part-ii.

“Global Report on Internal Displacement 2024.” International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2024, https://www.iom.int/reports/global-internal-displacement-2024.

“IPCC Sixth Assessment Report: Sea Level Rise and Coastal Impacts.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2023, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6-sea-level-rise-2023.

“Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States.” League of Nations Treaty Series, 1933, https://legal.un.org/avl/pdf/ha/mcrds/mcrds_e.pdf.

“Resolution 77/276: Protecting the Statehood of Pacific Island Nations.” United Nations General Assembly, 2023, https://documents.un.org/en/a/77/276.

“Tuvalu: Digital Nation Initiative.” Government of Tuvalu, 2023,

 https://www.tuvalu.tv/digitalnation.