Phew, is it just me, or is it getting pretty hot in here?

The world is really starting to feel the effects of climate change. 2041 is a particularly brutal year: so many disasters happen all at once that many of them don’t even make it onto the front page of your news site.

The disasters displace millions of people. In the US, droughts and hurricanes force people north. Many of them lose their homes and livelihoods. Bangladesh has become largely uninhabitable due to constant flooding. Failing fish stocks in the tropics lead to near-starvation among communities that depend on fishing to survive, and force people into cities. Plans have been made for large parts of Hong Kong, Miami, Lagos and Manhattan to be abandoned to the rising sea water.

R.E.M.’s classic song “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” is the most listened-to song of the year.

Millions want to resettle in more protected places. Most resettle in their own country, but many also cross borders in an attempt to give their families a better life.

How should society respond?

• There are just too many people to assimilate all of them. Let’s build refugee camps in unpopulated areas.
• Every country should have to accept a number of refugees proportional to their historical carbon emissions.
• Let’s create a new visa scheme allowing refugees to resettle if they take a job building green infrastructure.
• Send them back. Migrants should be settled internally, somewhere else in their own country.
• Refugees are valuable, especially in rich countries with ageing populations. Welcome them and build new housing for them in cities.

As climate change leads to rising sea levels and extreme events like repeated heatwaves, droughts and floods, many parts of the world are becoming harder to live in, forcing people to leave their homes. Over a billion people live in areas exposed to land degradation or climate-related sea-level rise. Most of this migration will happen within countries, not between countries.