environmental migrant

plural environmental migrants

1. A person forced to migrate away from a traditional living area due to local environmental degradation.

   While uncertain and prone to fluctuate according to unpredictable social and policy trends, climate change and other environmental pressures will trigger more mass migration over the coming decades, with an estimated 25 million to 1 billion environmental migrants expected by 2050.

   2021 January 13, Corey J.A. Bradshaw et al., “Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future”, in Frontiers in Conservation Science