The article addresses climate change and the consequently altered mobility patterns or migrations of people due to environmental factors. It focuses on routing key discussions on environmental re-fugees/migrants in scientific production; the latter is marked by a two-way debate in the academic sphere, in which the differences between the advocates and critics of the environmental refugees/ migrants hypothesis arise from the disciplines of the analysts. In particular, the initial discussions take place in line with the polarized relationship of environmental vs. migration analysis or the “catastrophic vs. the sceptical scenario.” In spite of the indisputable starting point that environmental changes (co)influence migrations, it is advisable to discard simplistic explanations of causality from the very beginning, and position environmental migrations in the context of the complexity and multidimensionality of migration processes, and this is the starting point adopted in the article. Environmental refugees somehow just seem “to be there”, but they are caught between theoretical inconsistencies, which leave the field of their protection vacant, and the environmental changes taking place in their local living spaces.
