Skip Nav Destination
New York Times: In January a small community in the US received a federal grant of $48 million to help its residents relocate from an island in Louisiana. Their home, Isle de Jean Charles, has been shrinking over the past half century and is now less than 10% of its original size. Because of rising sea levels due to climate change, the island floods frequently and the bridge connecting it with the mainland is often impassable. Most of the residents are Native American and have lived there for generations. Although some of the roughly 60 residents are happy to leave, many are determined to stay. The resettlement plan, the first of its kind in the world, is only just getting under way and faces any number of obstacles. Yet the residents of Isle de Jean Charles represent just a handful of the estimated 50 million to 200 million people that are expected to be displaced all over the world by 2050 because of climate change. As such, the plan may serve as a global model for the growing wave of refugees who will be forced to flee their homes not for political reasons but for environmental ones.
![]()
First federal grant awarded to relocate climate change refugees in the US Free
3 May 2016