Institute for
Law and Policy
on Climate Mobility

CLIMATE MOBILITY · LAW · POLICY

Climate change is redrawing human habitability. We help law and policy keep up.

Clear, rights-based legal and policy advice on climate mobility, for governments, institutions and the people affected.

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OUR ROOTS

The Institute was born from the Climate Mobility thematic working group of Border Criminologies, at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford.

Our page at Border Criminologies →

WHAT CLIMATE MOBILITY MEANS

The full spectrum of how climate change affects where people can live.

Climate mobility covers temporary and permanent migration, forced displacement, planned relocation, and people who cannot or do not move. Policies that look only at migration miss many of the people affected.

We look through the lens of habitability, which takes us to a different starting point: what is required of law and policy to ensure safe and dignified life and livelihoods. That means helping people stay safely where they can, and move safely and lawfully where they can’t.

What is habitability? →

OUR WORK

The path to climate mobility justice

We work as a backstage catalytic engine for legal and policy reform, so that climate mobility is embedded in durable, fair legal and policy frameworks that outlast political shocks. Our work rests on four pillars.

PILLAR 1

Advance legal and policy foundations

Evidence-based research that gives governments workable legal and policy frameworks for climate mobility.

WHAT WE’RE DOING

PILLAR 2

Influence policy and practice

Working with senior government officials, legal practitioners, NGOs and think tanks on national and international policy and practice.

WHAT WE’RE DOING

  • UK domestic policy.
  • CHOGM 2026, Antigua and Barbuda: an Institute briefing on climate resilient governance, and a panel on the ICJ Advisory Opinion.
  • COP and the G20.

PILLAR 3

Convene and build capacity across the ecosystem

Building climate mobility literacy among the people and institutions who shape the response.

WHAT WE’RE DOING

  • A three-year strategy of convenings, targeted dialogues and bootcamps to improve climate mobility literacy in the UK.
  • A strategy to build capacity across Commonwealth member states and targeted sub-Saharan African states.

PILLAR 4

Narrative change

Demystifying climate mobility through strategic communication and narrative change.

WHAT WE’RE DOING

  • Highlighting climate mobility at London Climate Week, including roundtables with the then Foreign Secretary, David Lammy MP, and panels with senior officials from Pacific Island States.
  • A workshop at TED Countdown 2025 in Nairobi.
  • TEDx talks by the Director, including a second TEDx talk on climate mobility in London in April 2027.
  • Working with Climate Spring to bring climate mobility into UK media.

PUBLICATIONS

Latest from the Institute

Explainers →

POSITION STATEMENT · 2026

Habitability Position Statement

How the Institute thinks, talks about and resolves climate mobility.

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EXPLAINERS · 2026

Climate mobility, explained

Interactive explainers and myth-busters: key terms, the basics, responsibility and the law.

Explore the explainers

BRIEFING · CHOGM 2026

Climate resilient governance: safeguarding habitability across the Commonwealth

The Institute’s briefing for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Antigua and Barbuda, November 2026. Sangeetha Iengar and Aliya Anjarwalla.

EVENTS

Where we’ve been, and where we’re going

Apr 2027

TEDx, London. The Director’s second TEDx talk on climate mobility.

1–4 Nov 2026

CHOGM 2026, St John’s, Antigua and Barbuda. Panel on the ICJ Advisory Opinion at the Commonwealth People’s Forum.

Nov 2026

COP31, Antalya, Türkiye.

2025

TED Countdown, Nairobi. Workshop on tackling climate mobility.

DIRECTOR

Sangeetha Iengar

Award-winning international human rights barrister at Garden Court Chambers, part-time Immigration Judge and non-resident Senior Scholar on climate-related migration at Yale University. Sangeetha is a global thought leader on human rights law, migration, rule of law and climate issues.