Against this background, the ensuing chapter will look at how the dots connected, that is, how the climate change and displacement nexus became progressively recognized and, in parallel, how the impact of climate change on human rights was acknowledged within the UN human rights machinery and subsequently in the climate change framework itself.

The IPCC, established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to assess the information relevant to the scientific basis of the risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impact and possible response strategies, ascertained, in its first assessment report in 1990, that the gravest impact of climate change may be on human migration.