INTRODUCTION

This chapter studies the effects of climate change on migration from a legal perspective. In fact, climate change as a cause of migration is a phenomenon that has not been studied very much so far and as yet there are no agreed-upon objectives.

An interesting study was published by the World Bank on 19 March 2018 about the most important social consequences of climate change. According to the data reported in the World Bank's dossier, by 2050 the number of people who will be forced to leave their homeland due to severe phenomena of climate change could reach 143 million. The areas mainly affected by this migration will be Sub-Saharan Africa (86 million), Southern Asia (40 million) and Latin America (17 million).

One of the first questions that should be answered concerns the final destination of these migratory flows:

• – could the climate migrations from the above-mentioned macro-areas be cross-border, involving other states or continents?

• – could this phenomenon significantly involve Europe?

• – if there is no massive influx into Europe, could it be said that the issue of environmental migration is not a priority interest for European policies?

The World Bank's report presents data concerning the main causes of the migration out of developing countries (in particular Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Mexico), which are: (a) temperature increase (global warming); (b) changing amounts of rainfall, either less or more; and (c) rising sea levels.

There are many scientific studies on migration in recent literature, but they generally focus on the cross-border migration of refugees (who leave their country of origin to escape wars and persecution, looking for survival conditions in other states or continents).

Climate migration that is mainly domestic has not been studied extensively. The main reason for this lack of interest, in the author's opinion, is connected to the low interest in the issue from the government institutions and the other actors (NGOs, multinational corporations, etc.) who, in an international scenario, can manage the problem. A lack of interest at the institutional level, demonstrated by the absence of formal and legal acts, inevitably leads to a low scientific research interest.