Kashmiri was only a teenager at the time of the exodus. "We had nothing left to eat. Repeated droughts had made our land useless. We had to flee." That was 25 years ago, when the term environmental refugee was hardly known. Kashmiri and his family left the Thar Desert in Rajasthan and ended up in a camp in Northern India.

Climate refugees are not fleeing war or persecution; they are fleeing an environment that has deteriorated so much that it can no longer support...
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Kashmiri was only a teenager at the time of the exodus. "We had nothing left to eat. Repeated droughts had made our land useless. We had to flee." That was 25 years ago, when the term environmental refugee was hardly known. Kashmiri and his family left the Thar Desert in Rajasthan and ended up in a camp in Northern India.

Climate refugees are not fleeing war or persecution; they are fleeing an environment that has deteriorated so much that it can no longer support them. They try to escape droughts, desertification, rising seas, industrial pollution and natural disasters. There are between 30 and 40 millions of these forced migrants on the planet, and according to experts, their number could rise to 250 millions by 2050.
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