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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think climate change will force a complete rethinking about immigration?

210 replies

OneMoreBanana · 13/08/2026 10:07

I'm not sure how many people, on the ground or in government policy making, have connected the dots here.

The climate crisis disproportionately affects the global south, where average temperatures are hotter, infrastructure less developed and available economic resources for mitigation lower. This is already making life in some areas, that have previously supported human communities for thousands of years, near impossible. There is talk of whole cities having to be abandoned.

The same crisis is primarily created by the industrialised countries of the global north, whose per capita emissions far outweigh those of less industrialised countries.

So if/when the large scale exodus of millions of people from no-longer-habitable environments becomes inevitable, two questions arise: Is it MORAL to disallow those people asylum in countries like the UK? And is it PRACTICABLE to do so - when the "small boats" issue becomes an increasingly large number of increasingly large boats, do we literally just view it as warfare and gun them down, or what?

These questions apply regardless of how you feel about immigration currently. If you are a hardline Brexiteer or otherwise strongly for controlling and reducing immigration, can you see a point in the future where it will no longer be tenable, either morally or practically, to maintain that position? And if you are liberal on immigration, can you see a point where having to be even more liberal will mean letting go altogether of many aspects of the UK's (and other countries') "identity"?

Interested in a range of perspectives - I think there's a whole bunch of sacred cows that may end up slaughtered by this. However if you believe that climate change either isn't happening or isn't due to human activity, please just jog on past and grow a brain cell or two. Life is too short.

OP posts:
Tel12 · 13/08/2026 10:28

It's inevitable. Leaders are incapable of taking the tough decisions to halt climate change so will have to deal with the consequences. Mass migration being one of them. Amazing the world is burning and the best we can come up with is don't buy disposable barbecues. Yes, that should do it.

SadiraOfTyr · 13/08/2026 10:27

OneMoreBanana · 13/08/2026 10:23

If whole areas of North Africa become uninhabitable you don't think it will increase population flows to southern Europe?

No, I think hard borders would be imposed (as they pretty much are already). I imagine Spain will abandon Ceuta and Melilla within the next 25 years or so as they become increasingly unsustainable and a security risk.

Famine-driven migration is very different from economic migration - people who are penniless and starving generally don't have the means to pay people smugglers.

HoppityBun · 13/08/2026 10:26

I think it will cause resentment within the UK. When you bear in mind that Wales is experiencing a drought, a quite extraordinary state of affairs, there’s definitely going to be resentment about water resources in one area being piped to another. I know that there is bad feeling about this in certain parts of the country already.

There are going to be people who are moving away from hot areas to cooler areas, either permanently or for the summer season. I already know of people who are moving away from the hot south and east for a few weeks. This isn’t going to go unnoticed in the area they travel to. It’s going to be climate tourism..

ginasevern · 13/08/2026 10:25

Kepler22B · 13/08/2026 10:15

I think as we have seen with Italy and Spain there will be a hard closing of boarders.

And if climate change does become a global disaster then I think the UK will do the same.

If climate change becomes a global disaster and countries are facing water bankruptcy, then hard closing of borders won't last long and will descend into mass bloodshed and anarchy.

OneMoreBanana · 13/08/2026 10:23

SadiraOfTyr · 13/08/2026 10:09

No it won't. Climate change-induced migration will mostly be regional, not global. It will be horrific of course, but I doubt it will result in a mass exodus from the global south to the north.

If whole areas of North Africa become uninhabitable you don't think it will increase population flows to southern Europe?

OP posts:
geniusinajar · 13/08/2026 10:23

Immigration to developed countries increases climate change because their carbon footprint becomes that of a western person. If people were really concerned about climate change, they would want to massively reduce immigration to the west, either that or the developed world has to stop using modern technology and massively reduce consumption and go back to living like our pre-industrial ancestors to reverse climate change.

EmeraldRoulette · 13/08/2026 10:15

Yep, I would like to leave if we have another summer like this

Kepler22B · 13/08/2026 10:15

I think as we have seen with Italy and Spain there will be a hard closing of boarders.

And if climate change does become a global disaster then I think the UK will do the same.

SusanJJ · 13/08/2026 10:11

TBH I think we are all stuffed and there won't be enough resources to share whoever lives where.

SadiraOfTyr · 13/08/2026 10:09

No it won't. Climate change-induced migration will mostly be regional, not global. It will be horrific of course, but I doubt it will result in a mass exodus from the global south to the north.