11 July, 2025

If ever there was any doubt of the manifold, interlinked and cataclysmic impacts climate change could have on the economy, society and livelihoods, look to recent events which put the human rights and economic issues to the fore.  

On human rights, look to Tuvalu and the fact that a third of the nation’s citizens entered a ballot to relocate to Australia under the world’s first climate-linked visa scheme. Tuvalu, an island nation facing rising seas that threaten to erase it from the map, now has an agreement with Australia offering up to 280 citizens a year the chance to move. For many, this is about survival, and the heartbreaking choice between ancestral lands and future security.  

As Mishcon de Reya’s recent work on this topic highlights, climate change is set to be one of the biggest human rights issues of our time. Millions are already being displaced by floods, droughts, and storms, with projections of over 140 million climate migrants by 2050.  

On the financial side, see an in-depth report in the FT of how climate change is shaking the foundations of global finance. This year, the US Federal Reserve warned that entire regions could soon become uninsurable and unmortgageable, with banks and insurers pulling out of high-risk areas. Allianz’s Günther Thallinger called it a “systemic risk that threatens the very foundation of the financial sector”, warning that the economic value of entire regions could “vanish from financial ledgers” almost overnight. Inevitably, this will have an impact on where people want and choose to live and work in the decades ahead.  

Unlike past financial crises triggered by market failures, this one is driven by something different: the irreversible destruction of land, livelihoods, and homes. The human and economic costs of climate change are converging with consequences we are only beginning to grasp. The Australian-Tuvalu visa agreement points to a degree of forward thinking (albeit on a small scale) that many governments would do well to adopt, as the impact of climate migration and climate-related economic impacts start to affect nations around the world.  

By Sirisha Venkatesh