tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/climate-refugees-30227/articles
Climate refugees – The Conversation
2024-01-24T20:33:54Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219200
2024-01-24T20:33:54Z
2024-01-24T20:33:54Z
The Australia-Tuvalu deal shows why we need a global framework for climate relocations
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<p>The recent climate migration deal signed by Australia and Tuvalu in November 2023 has been touted as providing a “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/tuvalu-climate-change-migration-1.7024777">lifeline</a>” to the people of the South Pacific nation who face existential threats from rising sea levels and climate change.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/tuvalu/australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-treaty">Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty</a> is the world’s first bilateral agreement on climate mobility. Under the treaty, Australia will grant permanent residence to up to 280 Tuvaluans facing dangers posed by climate change each year. </p>
<p>In exchange, Tuvalu will not enter into any security or defence agreements with other countries without Australian approval. In addition, Australia will defend Tuvalu from foreign threats and provide assistance following disasters.</p>
<p>Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the deal groundbreaking and a “<a href="https://twitter.com/AlboMP/status/1722846875655794728">comprehensive partnership</a>” that respected sovereignty. </p>
<p>However, others have criticized it as <a href="https://indepthnews.net/concerns-in-the-pacific-over-neo-colonial-australia-tuvalu-agreement/">neo-colonial</a>, especially for the control it grants Australia over Tuvalu’s security, maritime zones and resources. </p>
<h2>Groundbreaking or neo-colonial?</h2>
<p>There have long been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/10/tuvalu-residency-and-security-treaty-what-is-it-and-why-is-australia-doing-it">heated debates</a> about the idea of such an arrangement, and some see the treaty as an <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-offer-of-climate-migration-to-tuvalu-residents-is-groundbreaking-and-could-be-a-lifeline-across-the-pacific-217514">important step</a>. </p>
<p>As the consequences of climate change become more severe, the international community needs to protect populations who face becoming stateless as their countries literally sink into the ocean. </p>
<p>However, some see this deal as yet another example of western countries exerting colonial influence over others. Former Tuvalu Prime Minister, Enele Sopoaga, turned down a 2019 proposal to offer Australian citizenship to climate refugees from island states in the South Pacific in exchange for granting Australia control of their exclusive economic zones and territorial seas. He called the proposal neo-colonial and an example of “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-18/tuvalu-pm-slams-kevin-rudd-suggestion-as-neo-colonialism/10820176">imperial thinking</a>.” </p>
<p>Sopoaga has reiterated those concerns regarding the Falepili Union and accused the current Prime Minister of <a href="https://www.pacificislandtimes.com/post/where-would-tuvalu-stop-auctioning-its-sovereignty-for-money">auctioning Tuvalu’s sovereignty for money</a>.</p>
<p>There were also concerns about the <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/503354/australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-shameful-former-tuvalu-pm">lack of consultation</a> with Tuvaluans, the use of this treaty to <a href="https://devpolicy.org/the-australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-tuvaluan-values-or-australian-interests-20231115/">counter China’s growing influence</a> in the Pacific and how it is a <a href="https://toda.org/global-outlook/2023/this-is-not-climate-justice-the-australia-tuvalu-falepili-union.html">poor example of climate justice</a>.</p>
<h2>Relocation is understudied</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crsust.2022.100177">Not enough focus</a> has been given to relocation and the topic has been <a href="https://researchinginternaldisplacement.org/short_pieces/planned-relocations-what-we-know-dont-know-and-need-to-learn/">understudied</a>. </p>
<p>The existential dangers posed by climate change are all too real for small island nations like Tuvalu. Many face a real risk of becoming uninhabitable due to climate change. For example, Tuvalu and Vanuatu could be <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-10/sinking-islands-turn-to-court-as-they-fight-for-climate-survival?leadSource=uverify%20wall">completely submerged</a> by the end of this century. </p>
<p>Research shows that more than <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pDR-t1hVApqJiVk6E5DJ7TN0cOtXJiKvS1w8QIP149o/edit#gid=1611800107">400 climate and weather related relocations</a> have taken place globally since 1970 and <a href="https://researchinginternaldisplacement.org/short_pieces/planned-relocations-what-we-know-dont-know-and-need-to-learn/">more will happen in the future</a>. Fiji has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/08/how-to-move-a-country-fiji-radical-plan-escape-rising-seas-climate-crisis">one of the most thorough plans ever devised to tackle planned relocation</a> and identifies the many logistical, financial, social and cultural challenges involved.</p>
<p>Among the complex plans are deeply personal and moral decisions, like what to do with burial sites. These nations are often faced with two traumatic options: let them sink or exhume the remains.</p>
<p>Fiji’s relocation, as well as most others, will be internal. However, the question of international relocation is even more challenging with much higher-level geopolitical challenges and social and economic consequences. </p>
<h2>Sovereignty and disappearing land</h2>
<p>One of the hardest questions is that of sovereignty. Will there be a time when most Tuvaluans live outside Tuvalu? How would those in the diaspora be able to exercise their national rights, if they have them? How can they maintain their distinct nationhood without land? These questions are important, but also hard to answer.</p>
<p>Is a country that no longer has land still sovereign? <a href="https://www.ilsa.org/Jessup/Jessup15/Montevideo%20Convention.pdf">International law defines a sovereign state</a> as having 1) a permanent population, 2) a defined territory, 3) a government, and 4) the capacity to enter relations with other states. </p>
<p>Aware of this, Tuvalu has already amended its constitution to assert that its <a href="https://devpolicy.org/the-australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-tuvaluan-values-or-australian-interests-20231115/">statehood is permanent</a>, so its sovereignty persists despite losing its land to sea-level rise.</p>
<p>They are also developing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/27/tuvalu-climate-crisis-rising-sea-levels-pacific-island-nation-country-digital-clone">a digital nation</a> by recreating its land in the metaverse, archiving its culture and digitalizing its government. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A hilly tropical island surrounded by the ocean" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570998/original/file-20240123-19-ukq6i8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Island nations like Fiji have developed plans to relocate people due to the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<h2>Maritime boundaries</h2>
<p>Maritime boundaries are divisions of Earth’s water surface areas in the context of territorial waters, contiguous zones and exclusive economic zones. The maritime boundaries of small island nations are vast. For example, Tuvalu’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-13/what-happens-to-maritime-boundaries-after-sea-level-rise/10804478">ocean territories cover more than 900,000 square kilometres</a>, which is about the size of Nigeria. </p>
<p>Rising oceans could shrink the maritime zones as an island sinks. There are <a href="https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2022/09/12/-is-climate-change-disrupting-maritime-boundaries-.html">serious implications</a> of this as maritime boundaries determine who has the right to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-13/what-happens-to-maritime-boundaries-after-sea-level-rise/10804478">Pacific fisheries worth billions of dollars</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21550085.2014.926086">Sovereignty and maritime boundaries</a> can be the main challenges that a global governance framework for international relocation can help to address first as those have implications on how planned relocation can unfold. In terms of how the planned relocation itself can take place, there are several ideas:</p>
<p>1) Special visas and treaties that facilitate climate mobility such as the Falepili Union.</p>
<p>2) Leasing territories has been a common solution that small island states have explored, like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/01/kiribati-climate-change-fiji-vanua-levu">Kiribati’s purchase of land in Fiji</a>.</p>
<p>3) Merging of several states, like how <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/6ae3f9d7-4d5f-55ce-bfee-1b124561e486/content">Zanzibar and Tanganyika unified in 1964 to form Tanzania</a>, so people on islands that will be submerged can move to other areas of country.</p>
<p>4) <a href="http://www.qil-qdi.org/sinking-states-the-statehood-dilemma-in-the-face-of-sea-level-rise/">Artificial and floating islands</a> to replace submerged land territory have been contemplated, but the legal status of such islands is highly uncertain and could set dangerous precedents, such as new islands being used to claim territories within the maritime boundaries of others. </p>
<p>All these potential ways to allow for planned relocation come with significant challenges, which is why a global governance framework is required.</p>
<p>Planned relocation and, specifically, international relocation, is one of the biggest challenges of our time as the sovereignty, maritime boundaries and rights of affected nations are all at risk, let alone the lives and futures of millions around the world. Most importantly, significant action to combat the climate crisis is required from all nations so the need for mass plan relocation can be mitigated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvonne Su does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The climate migration deal has been dubbed as offering Tuvaluans a lifeline, but others say it is a neocolonial arrangement that does not tackle rising ocean levels.
Yvonne Su, Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies, York University, Canada
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218509
2023-12-04T19:14:07Z
2023-12-04T19:14:07Z
COP28: with a ‘loss and damage’ fund in place, protecting climate refugees is more urgent than ever
<p>It has taken decades, but the complex and increasingly urgent issue of “<a href="https://www.iom.int/news/thinking-about-tomorrow-acting-today-solutions-address-climate-mobility">climate mobility</a>” has gradually become central to international climate negotiations.</p>
<p>At the <a href="https://www.cop28.com/">COP28 summit</a> currently taking place in Dubai, there are around 25 sessions or side events devoted to the needs and rights of people and communities displaced by climate change.</p>
<p>Day one saw a <a href="https://www.cop28.com/en/news/2023/11/COP28-Presidency-unites-the-world-on-Loss-and-Damage">major breakthrough</a>, with agreement on a “loss and damage” fund to compensate “particularly vulnerable” countries. While questions remain over the long-term sustainability of funding sources and how the fund will be administered, it still represents progress. </p>
<p>But it is unclear how the fund will be integrated with the Global Stocktake – the report card on progress toward Paris Agreement goals. Only clear targets will help ensure meaningful outcomes that “leave no one behind”, in line with the proposed COP28 roadmap to accelerate progress through inclusive climate action. </p>
<p>Embedding the specific issue of climate mobility within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (<a href="https://unfccc.int/">UNFCCC</a>) has never been easy. No consensus has been reached on protecting the citizens of states threatened by the impacts of climate change.</p>
<p>Nor is there much apparent political will to change the definition of “refugee” in the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/1951-refugee-convention">1951 Refugee Convention</a> to include those affected by climate change – or to develop new international law that would protect them. </p>
<p>With the world beginning to witness some of the consequences of this failure, it is important COP28 maintains momentum on an issue that is not going away.</p>
<h2>Questions over the Australia-Tuvalu deal</h2>
<p>The recently signed <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/tuvalu/australia-tuvalu-falepili-union">Falepili Union</a> between Australia and Tuvalu provides a clear example of how thorny the question of climate mobility has already become.</p>
<p>The agreement provides a “pathway” for citizens of Tuvalu affected by climate change to gain citizenship in Australia. But it comes with a series of serious trade-offs for Tuvaluan national sovereignty, making its viability as a model of climate mobility justice questionable.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cop28-climate-summit-just-approved-a-loss-and-damage-fund-what-does-this-mean-218999">COP28 climate summit just approved a 'loss and damage' fund. What does this mean?</a>
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<p>While claiming to offer Tuvaluan people the ability to “move with dignity”, the Falepili agreement also requires Tuvalu to “mutually agree with Australia” any security and defence-related arrangements with other countries. </p>
<p>This is broadly defined to include defence, policing, border protection, cybersecurity and critical infrastructure; all key areas of geopolitical tension with China in the Pacific. </p>
<p>As such, the agreement has been criticised for <a href="https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/good-faith-lacking-in-australia-tuvalu-agreement/">breaching the good faith obligations</a> of states undertaking climate mobility agreements with vulnerable partners. One commentator argued the Falepili Union was:</p>
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<p>dressed up as a bilateral treaty – meaning it works for both countries – [but] should really have been called the Australia Defence Treaty in Tuvalu.</p>
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<h2>Staying with dignity</h2>
<p>Countries at the forefront of climate change – low-lying island states vulnerable to sea level rise, in particular – have long put principles of dignity and equity at the centre of their calls for climate justice.</p>
<p>A significant gap in the Australia-Tuvalu agreement was the <a href="https://toda.org/global-outlook/2023/this-is-not-climate-justice-the-australia-tuvalu-falepili-union.html">lack of consultation with Tuvaluan citizens</a>. Debate in Tuvalu’s parliament raised serious questions about this, as well as the agreement’s approval by cabinet, widespread public confusion, and the lack of an officially released version from the government.</p>
<p>Research has consistently shown communities hit by climate change need not just the opportunity to move with dignity, but also the option to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376172319_Staying_with_Dignity_Climate-related_immobility_in_the_Pacific">stay with dignity</a>. This is particularly true for Pacific peoples and nations, where displacement, planned relocation and migration are becoming stark realities.</p>
<p>Successful strategies for remaining in place when and where possible are already in place around the Pacific. Communities in Samoa, for example, have found <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2022.0392">ways to adapt</a> that minimise both physical risk and cultural harm.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cop28-earths-frozen-zones-are-in-trouble-were-already-seeing-the-consequences-218119">COP28: Earth's frozen zones are in trouble – we're already seeing the consequences</a>
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<h2>Self-determination and climate justice</h2>
<p>With many other climate-vulnerable nations seeking sustainable solutions to their problems, the Australia-Tuvalu agreement risks setting the wrong precedent for bargained, bilateral visa arrangements.</p>
<p>If and when such agreements involve larger, possibly more politically volatile countries, what might be the trade-offs? And what will be the implications for regional and global security?</p>
<p>The “climate refugee” question is already highly political, and has been a challenge to bring into formal agendas since the Paris Agreement in 2015. And while economic loss and damage tends to dominate discussions, non-economic and <a href="https://climateanalytics.org/comment/non-economic-loss-and-damage-insights-from-the-pacific-islands">less tangible loss and damage</a> also needs to be a focus.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cop28-the-climate-summits-first-health-day-points-to-what-needs-to-change-in-nz-218809">COP28: the climate summit’s first Health Day points to what needs to change in NZ</a>
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<p>This encompasses everything from mobility, sovereignty and culture, to health, dignity and social cohesion. All have serious implications for Indigenous peoples – and all communities – whose sense of belonging to their lands is a vital part of identity and wellbeing.</p>
<p>International climate negotiations now need to concentrate on protecting the sovereignty of vulnerable states, and ensuring geopolitical calculations do not trump climate justice for those affected.</p>
<p>Small island states and Pacific peoples have contributed very little to the causes of climate change. But they are at the forefront of the crisis and are among the first to feel the full impacts.</p>
<p>The right of people to decide their own adaptation future, including options to adapt in place, may be addressed at COP28. But these now need to translate into the mechanisms that will support and empower that self-determination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dalila Gharbaoui does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A recently signed Australia-Tuvalu citizenship agreement offers people displaced by climate change a chance to ‘move with dignity’. But staying with dignity has to be an option too.
Dalila Gharbaoui, Postdoctoral Climate Crisis Research Fellow, University of Canterbury
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/210027
2023-08-01T14:44:38Z
2023-08-01T14:44:38Z
Climate change contributes to violence against children – here’s how
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539206/original/file-20230725-27-87y32l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Refugees, some of them children, in Hargeisa, Somaliland. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EDUARDO SOTERAS/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/climate-change-contributes-to-violence-against-children-heres-how-210027&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>Every day of the northern hemisphere’s summer in 2023 seems to bring a calamitous headline about the climate: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2023/jul/17/europe-heatwave-2023-us-asia-heat-extreme-severe-weather-fires-flash-floods-flooding-record-breaking-heat-wave-stress-temperature-red-alert-climate-crisis">heatwaves</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/24/greece-wildfires-corfu-evia-rhodes-heatwave-northern-hemisphere-extreme-weather-temperatures-europe">wildfires</a>, massive <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/icy-water-courses-through-italian-streets-after-dramatic-hailstorm-12925407">hailstorms</a>.</p>
<p>Such scenes are set to become our global reality in the coming years. Scientists paint a <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/resources/spm-headline-statements/">grim picture</a> of how human-induced climate change, combined with wider environmental degradation, will affect us all.</p>
<p>That, of course, includes children. However, research is still in its early stages on how, precisely, both climate change and environmental degradation relate to violence against children.</p>
<p>It is crucial to explore these potential intersections to spur academic and political movement in this area. Findings from such reviews, and further research that may emerge from it, could help to inform policies and interventions that can protect and support children, particularly those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and environmental shocks. </p>
<h2>Our study</h2>
<p>We conducted an <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/zpxc8/">extensive scoping review of the literature</a> on the intersections of climate change, environmental degradation and violence against children, to see what’s known so far and what needs attention.</p>
<p>We explored both direct violence – physical, sexual and emotional – and structural violence; that is, rooted in inequitable and unjust systems and institutions. This approach allowed for a nuanced understanding of the implications for children in all countries. It also meant we could explore the causes and effects of climate change and environmental degradation in relation to systems, institutions, structures, norms and interactions.</p>
<p>The study identified five themes: hazards and disaster risk reduction; gender; climate-induced mobility or immobility; child labour; and health. What emerges clearly is that violence against children is not solely a phenomenon that intensifies during environmental shocks. It is deeply rooted in historical injustices, global systems and structures. That means it disproportionately affects those living in poverty. </p>
<h2>1. Hazards and disaster risk reduction</h2>
<p>Natural hazards, combined with large-scale humanitarian crises, pose immediate risks to health, life, property and the environment. </p>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34247619/">Studies</a> have uncovered how increasing social, economic and emotional pressures in these situations expose children to higher risks of violence. This may occur in their homes or in relief shelters. It may be perpetrated by their peers, or by caregivers forcing them into labour because of the sudden need to rebuild or help make ends meet.</p>
<p>More knowledge is needed to inform integrated and culturally sensitive plans to protect children better from environmental hazards. </p>
<h2>2. Gender</h2>
<p>The effects of climate change and environmental degradation are not gender neutral. They can affect girls and boys differently. There is a <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/4/e004377">growing body of work</a> on gender-based violence and violence against women and girls in relation to climate change. </p>
<p>But this work tends to be centred on issues affecting female adults, conflating the term “gender” with “women”, without sufficient attention to the gendered effects of climate change on female and male children.</p>
<p>Existing <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2022.2095655">research</a> suggests that climate change can potentially exacerbate known drivers of child marriage in low- and lower-middle-income countries. But findings vary significantly by region. For example, there is an <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48584105">observed increase</a> in child marriage motivated by the receipt of a bride price payment in sub-Saharan Africa during sudden periods of drought. In India, though, droughts have led to a decrease in child marriage to delay dowry payments. </p>
<p>Nuanced data about boys’ exposure to various forms of violence in the context of climate change is missing. That’s because studies tend to focus on males as perpetrators but not as victims of violence.</p>
<h2>3. Mobility and immobility</h2>
<p>The number of <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-more-climate-migrants-cross-borders-seeking-refuge-laws-will-need-to-adapt-159673">climate migrants</a> is rising. </p>
<p>Research we reviewed on migration, displacement and relocation due to climate change, natural or human-induced hazards points to increased risks of violence against children within migrating families and higher exposure to it in camps and shelters. Also, separation from families or caregivers renders children and young people extremely vulnerable to violence.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-migration-and-urbanisation-patterns-in-sub-saharan-africa-149036">Climate change, migration and urbanisation: patterns in sub-Saharan Africa</a>
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<p>Meanwhile, immobility – when people cannot or do not want to move – has been associated in some <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/disa.12441">studies</a> with child abuse, injuries and overcrowding in slum areas. </p>
<p>Fear of violence in shelters can lead women to remain at home after natural hazards, increasing children’s risk of harm from the hazard or other forms of violence. </p>
<h2>4. Child labour</h2>
<p>Existing <a href="https://www.ilo.org/ipec/Informationresources/WCMS_651800/lang--en/index.htm">research</a> indicates that child labour increases after natural hazards due to families’ reliance on child work and the absence of strategies to eliminate child labour entirely. Child labour is also prevalent in industries associated with climate change, such as agriculture, fisheries, mining, fashion and tourism. </p>
<p>The extent of child labour in this context, and its link to violence, remains inadequately explored in research, however, due to the hidden nature and contextual specificity of this issue.</p>
<h2>5. Health</h2>
<p>Children’s physical and mental health is affected by climate change. Natural hazards have been <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30274-6/fulltext">linked</a> to poor health outcomes and increased mortality among children, particularly those younger than five.</p>
<p>There is <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20337500/">emerging evidence</a> that mental health issues, stemming from climate and environmental shocks, can lead to increased perpetration of violence against children, including domestic violence. Rising <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519621002783">eco-anxiety</a> among children and youth, caused by awareness of climate change and environmental degradation and fears of its consequences, adds to mental health problems. </p>
<h2>Ways forward</h2>
<p>By shedding light on the magnitude and pathways of these relationships, we want to underscore the urgent need for context-specific approaches and further research. </p>
<p>Understanding these interlinkages is essential for informing policies and interventions that can protect and support children, particularly those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and environmental shocks. By addressing the root causes of violence and prioritising the wellbeing of children in these crises, we can strive towards a safer and more sustainable future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simone Datzberger received funding for this research from UCL Grand Challenges. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jenny Parkes, Lottie Howard-Merrill, and Steven Kator Iorfa do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Exploring the potential intersections between climate change and violence against children is crucial.
Simone Datzberger, Associate professor, UCL
Jenny Parkes, Professor in Education, Gender and International Development, UCL
Lottie Howard-Merrill, PhD Candidate, UCL
Steven Kator Iorfa, Doctoral Researcher, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197206
2023-03-31T14:56:56Z
2023-03-31T14:56:56Z
The UK’s first climate refugees: why more defences may not save this village from rising sea levels
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514912/original/file-20230313-22-tojj56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C0%2C5175%2C3431&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A view of Fairbourne from above, showing the Mawddach estuary and the mountains of Eryri in the background. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/view-high-vantage-point-over-fairbourne-1475179817">Wozzie/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The impact of rising sea levels on our coastlines can be profound. A natural shoreline can respond to sea level rise and coastal erosion, provided the rise isn’t too rapid. </p>
<p>Given enough time, flora and fauna may have a chance to adapt. But a coastal area which has been heavily developed will respond differently, sometimes with catastrophic impacts on both people and nature. </p>
<p>Fairbourne is a small village on the west coast of Wales and is the first place in the UK to have been assigned the long-term policy of “<a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-12/fairbourne-coastal-risk-management-learning-project.pdf">no active intervention</a>” regarding its coastal defences. That is when a decision is made not to invest in providing or maintaining sea defences. </p>
<p>This has led to Fairbourne’s inhabitants being described as “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220506-the-uk-climate-refugees-who-wont-leave">the UK’s first climate change refugees</a>” by news media. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coastal-erosion-is-unstoppable-so-how-do-we-live-with-it-186365">Coastal erosion is unstoppable – so how do we live with it?</a>
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<p>In the UK, regional <a href="https://naturalresources.wales/flooding/managing-flood-risk/shoreline-management-plans/?lang=en">shoreline management plans</a> (SMPs) are developed for managing coastlines from flood and erosion risk. SMPs consider the potential risks and select from a range of options, consisting of building new sea defences, through to the aforementioned “no active intervention”.</p>
<p>In Fairbourne’s case, the SMP suggests it will neither be safe nor sustainable to remain in the village by around 2054. The intention is for the authorities to monitor and maintain the existing coastal defences in the short and medium term. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the village may be decommissioned, although details are scant on what that means. It remains a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629823000173">contentious</a> issue and the <a href="https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/artificial-reef-tidal-barrage-plan-26091970">community</a> continues to fight for increased support from government organisations. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1620131189305778176"}"></div></p>
<p>At the turn of the 20th century, Fairbourne was just a cluster of houses on the Gwynedd coast at the mouth of the Mawddach estuary. Over the past 100 years, the village has expanded to around 460 properties. It has around 700 inhabitants and is popular with tourists. </p>
<p>Fairbourne is built on a low-lying floodplain. The village lies between cliffs and a natural gravel barrier which houses a sea wall, and is at risk from both coastal and river flooding. As the sea level around the Welsh coast rises, the village is at increased risk from coastal flooding.</p>
<h2>Sea level rise drivers</h2>
<p>There are two main factors which drive global mean sea level rise, both related to climate change. First, the addition of freshwater to our oceans from melting glaciers and ice sheets. And second, the expansion of ocean water as it warms up, which is a consequence of higher atmospheric temperatures. </p>
<p>The global mean sea level <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/chapter-9/">rose higher</a> in the 20th century than in any other century during the last 3,000 years. The rate of global mean sea level rise in 2021 was the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/chapter-9/">highest ever recorded</a>. Uncertainty remains in the projections of future sea level rise but the latest <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/chapter-9/">estimate</a> is that a global rise of up to approximately 1 metre by 2100 is possible. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A series of concrete cubes line a pebble beach." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516343/original/file-20230320-905-aewu6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516343/original/file-20230320-905-aewu6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516343/original/file-20230320-905-aewu6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516343/original/file-20230320-905-aewu6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516343/original/file-20230320-905-aewu6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516343/original/file-20230320-905-aewu6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516343/original/file-20230320-905-aewu6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The gravel barrier between Fairbourne and the sea is dotted with second world war concrete defence blocks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4973146">Mike Searle/Geograph</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The response of a natural gravel barrier coastline to sea level rise is mainly controlled by the amount of nearby sediment and the rate at which the sea level is rising along that section of coast. </p>
<p>Where there is available mobile sediment, a barrier will move towards the land under rising sea levels. This process is called “roll-over”, as sediments are pushed up and over the crest of the barrier towards the land. </p>
<p>However, if the barrier is prevented from moving or if the sea level rises rapidly, more significant structural changes can happen. First, the barrier tends to get steeper, which then promotes more energetic wave breaking. </p>
<p>In time, the barrier crest becomes vulnerable which can lead to it being breached. In the case of Fairbourne, which is behind such a barrier, a breach could result in the village being flooded.</p>
<p>Second, the barrier needs time to adapt to changes in sea level. When the level of the sea rises rapidly, the barrier cannot evolve quickly enough to keep up. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A small blue miniature train travels along a track in front of houses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514963/original/file-20230313-17-ri2btt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514963/original/file-20230313-17-ri2btt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514963/original/file-20230313-17-ri2btt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514963/original/file-20230313-17-ri2btt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514963/original/file-20230313-17-ri2btt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514963/original/file-20230313-17-ri2btt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514963/original/file-20230313-17-ri2btt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Fairbourne Railway is a miniature railway which runs along the coastline.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16801915@N06/28608309993">Reading Tom/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Fairbourne, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02697459.2019.1696145">these factors combine</a> to increase the flood risk to the community. The sediment supply to the gravel barrier is limited. To compound the issue, as the sea level rises, the water becomes deeper which leads to less available wave energy for pushing sediments onshore. </p>
<p>The potential for Fairbourne’s seaward barrier to shift towards the land is limited by the lack of space. The barrier is somewhat trapped between the hard rock of the cliffs and the nearby Afon Mawddach. </p>
<p>What’s more, the existing seawall fixes the crest of the barrier in place and therefore increases its vulnerability. Meanwhile, the sea level continues to rise.</p>
<h2>Adaptation</h2>
<p>Physical and environmental factors aside, sea level rise is a complicated socio-economic issue. Regardless of the financial cost, building coastal defences is not always the best method of adaptation. </p>
<p>The UK’s SMPs provide a strategic approach to coastal management and defence. However, retreating from the coastline, disbanding communities, abandoning homes and decommissioning villages such as Fairbourne really is the ultimate form of adaptation and so requires careful consideration. </p>
<p>Given <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000188">around 10%</a> of the world’s population live in coastal areas fewer than 10 metres above sea level, this is a topic we’re likely to be discussing a lot more in years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sophie Ward received/receives funding from: NERC, European Regional Development Fund, Convex Seascape Survey</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Austin receives funding from: EPSRC, NERC. </span></em></p>
Fairbourne on the west coast of Wales is at risk from both rising sea levels and river flooding.
Sophie Ward, Research Fellow in Physical Oceanography, Bangor University
Martin Austin, Senior Lecturer in Coastal Dynamics, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198847
2023-03-13T12:37:23Z
2023-03-13T12:37:23Z
International law doesn’t protect people fleeing environmental disaster – here’s how it could
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513966/original/file-20230307-24-bns4rj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6232%2C4151&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bangladesh-dhaka-duari-para-on-20211017-2190353321">Martinbertrand.fr/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Researchers have tried for decades to find a relevant legal status for people forced to flee their homes as a result of floods, droughts and storms – calamities which climate change promises to make more severe and commonplace – as well as appropriate laws which might ensure their protection. But climate migrants are sometimes <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/climate-refugees-the-world-s-forgotten-victims/">forgotten</a> among the various flows of people seeking asylum. </p>
<p>To protect climate migrants who were forced to leave their country, some legal scholars have proposed amending the definition of refugee in the Refugee Convention of 1951 to consider environmental degradation <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/698753/EPRS_BRI(2021)698753_EN.pdf">a form of persecution</a>. This would expand eligibility for asylum as a refugee under international law beyond the existing grounds of persecution by religion, race, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinions.</p>
<p>But the principle of <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Migration/GlobalCompactMigration/ThePrincipleNon-RefoulementUnderInternationalHumanRightsLaw.pdf">non-refoulement</a>, mentioned in the refugee convention, already prohibits a host country of returning asylum seekers to somewhere they would not be safe. This could be interpreted as guaranteeing access to an environment offering decent air and clean water according to the <a href="https://www.eea.europa.eu/help/glossary/eea-glossary/environmental-quality">European Environment Agency</a>. </p>
<p>Despite this provision, international law is failing to protect climate migrants, which means that the scope of the refugee convention, however broad, must be widened.</p>
<p>Ioane Teitiota is a citizen of Kiribati, an island nation in the central Pacific Ocean. In 2015, he was denied asylum in New Zealand after floods forced him to flee with his family. He protested to the UN Human Rights Committee, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2020/01/historic-un-human-rights-case-opens-door-climate-change-asylum-claims#:%7E:text=In%202015%2C%20Ioane%20Teitiota's%20asylum,violated%20his%20right%20to%20life.">which ruled</a> that his situation did not constitute an imminent risk to life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A tropical island at high tide with palm trees and a village in the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513967/original/file-20230307-16-xv3j7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513967/original/file-20230307-16-xv3j7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513967/original/file-20230307-16-xv3j7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513967/original/file-20230307-16-xv3j7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513967/original/file-20230307-16-xv3j7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513967/original/file-20230307-16-xv3j7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513967/original/file-20230307-16-xv3j7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kiribati is a low-lying island threatened by rising seas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/village-on-south-tarawa-atoll-kiribati-1250888257">Maloff/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The legal right of the people of Kiribati to seek effective protection from saltwater intruding into farmland, coastal erosion and crop failures as a result of sea-level rise does not exist. New Zealand maintained that it could only reward refugee status to people if the state had failed to respect their fundamental human rights. The effects of climate change are systemic, the argument goes, rather than a personal persecution against Teitiota himself. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the Human Rights Committee said that people who fled their country because of the effects of climate change can argue that their experiences amount to persecution and seek refugee status under the refugee convention. Vulnerable people could also claim that climate change threatens their right to life under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. This includes situations where environmental disasters are interlaced with conflict, leading to water or air being contaminated by chemical weapons.</p>
<p>States might consider asylum claims resulting from climate disasters in the future. But until consensus is reached among scholars or jurists about the legal status of climate migrants, they will probably avoid introducing a broad interpretation of what comprises a climate migrant into international law.</p>
<p>Environmental disasters are unpredictable and the damage they cause can blight a territory for years, taking decades for people to properly recover. The people displaced may need to seek shelter in another country or region while the reconstruction is underway. </p>
<p>Climate change will cause an increasing number of disasters such as floods, droughts and wildfires. Legal solutions, especially in the case of climate change disasters, will be difficult to predict in advance. A firm understanding of what works where climate migrants are forced to settle will be invaluable.</p>
<p>States neighbouring vulnerable countries are more likely to be affected by inflows of climate migrants. By shouldering a disproportionate share of this responsibility, these countries will keep the impasse over the legal status of climate migrants alive on the international stage and have an outsize role in constructing an international consensus around their legal status.</p>
<p>As these countries attempt to acquire funding and build shelters to house migrants, they’ll also be dealing with a rising number of asylum claims. This will inevitably prompt research within the country to determine the most relevant legal status climate migrants need to guarantee their protection. This could attract international recognition as climate change and the entwined refugee crisis escalate.</p>
<p>There was a dramatic spike in 2015 in the number of migrants fleeing war and famine, especially in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Eritrea and migration policy remains a very sensitive and divisive topic of debate as a result.</p>
<p>Preparing the efficient protection of climate refugees is a challenge for the years to come. But in the meantime, people need help. The recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/2/9/turkey-syria-quake-updates">caused</a> several thousand deaths, but may have left millions without homes.</p>
<p>Only the creation of an efficient international framework of laws can guarantee refuge for people fleeing such environmental disasters in future. Building that outcome is likely to begin in the countries nearest to the suffering.</p>
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<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 10,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgiane Noel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Why the UN Refugee Convention should be updated to protect climate migrants.
Morgiane Noel, Ph.D. in Law, Trinity College Dublin
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200894
2023-03-12T12:42:52Z
2023-03-12T12:42:52Z
Fearmongering about people fleeing disasters is a dangerous and faulty narrative
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514294/original/file-20230308-22-k0luiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=163%2C204%2C5299%2C3432&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A placard placed by local activists in Calais, northern France, March 8, 2023. Rhetoric about the threat posed by climate-induced displacement does not accurately portray the reality for most of those affected.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Michel Spingler)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/fearmongering-about-people-fleeing-disasters-is-a-dangerous-and-faulty-narrative" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The death toll from the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria has reached <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64774726">over 50,000 people</a>. <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/putting-commitments-action-earthquake-response-turkey-and-north-west-syria">Over 23 million people</a> have been affected and millions have been displaced from their homes. In Syria alone, an estimated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/12/what-shall-we-do-millions-displaced-in-turkey-and-syria-after-earthquake">5.3 million people have been left homeless</a>.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of the earthquakes, the international community mobilized to offer <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/02/1133177">humanitarian assistance</a> and countries like <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/02/24/canada-will-fast-track-immigration-applications-from-quake-hit-areas-of-turkey-syria.html">Canada</a>, <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/iom-unhcr-welcome-spains-expedited-resettlement-syrian-refugees-turkiye-earthquake-aftermath">Spain</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/12/germany-to-offer-fast-visas-for-turkey-earthquake-victims">Germany</a> are expediting visa applications for those displaced. </p>
<p>However, there are already concerns in Germany that earthquake survivors could become embroiled in <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-syria-quake-survivors-face-delay-for-german-visas/a-64791491">wider anti-immigrant sentiments</a>; especially as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-germany-migration-9422b45ed306a2e426b61749507364b5">Germany struggles to house the over one million Ukrainian refugees</a> in the country.</p>
<p>These developments come at a time when climate and disaster-induced displacement is ascending on the global policy agenda. With climate change predicted to <a href="https://www.preventionweb.net/understanding-disaster-risk/risk-drivers/climate-change">increase the frequency and intensity of disasters</a>, there is mounting concern about how future displacement and migration will be addressed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514295/original/file-20230308-20-3zoxqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young boy in a yellow jacket behind a fence. He is holding an adult's hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514295/original/file-20230308-20-3zoxqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514295/original/file-20230308-20-3zoxqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514295/original/file-20230308-20-3zoxqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514295/original/file-20230308-20-3zoxqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514295/original/file-20230308-20-3zoxqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514295/original/file-20230308-20-3zoxqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514295/original/file-20230308-20-3zoxqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Syrian boy waits to cross into Syria from Turkey near the town of Antakya in southeastern Turkey, on Feb. 21, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Unal Cam)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fearmongering and inaccurate claims</h2>
<p>On Feb. 14, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the international community to take urgent action on climate change. He said that rising sea levels would lead to a “<a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2023-02-14/secretary-generals-remarks-the-security-council-debate-sea-level-rise-implications-for-international-peace-and-security">a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale</a>” and that such a scenario would undermine international peace and stability. </p>
<p>The recognition of the challenges posed by climate-induced displacement is a positive step forward. Yet this framing is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it presents climate migration as a future risk instead of “<a href="https://ecre.org/op-ed-refugees-shouldnt-be-used-as-props-to-alert-to-the-dangers-of-climate-change/">a present reality that needs to be addressed</a>.”</p>
<p>Second, rhetoric about the threat posed by climate-induced displacement does not accurately portray the reality for most of those affected. Climate change often creates <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/climate-change-and-disasters.html">internal displacement</a> before it causes people to be displaced across borders. Of the 23.7 million people displaced by disasters in 2021, <a href="https://www.internal-displacement.org/research-areas/Displacement-disasters-and-climate-change">over 90 per cent (21.6 million) were internally displaced</a> — meaning they did not cross international borders. </p>
<p>Due to the high financial, social and cultural costs of moving, most climate- or disaster-affected households do not have the means to leave their communities. Understandably, some people, like some Pacific Islanders, simply <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-pacific-islanders-are-staying-put-even-as-rising-seas-flood-their-homes-and-crops-195100">do not want to leave their communities</a>. </p>
<p>Third, alarming statistics might attract public and political attention, but sensationalist predictions will not necessarily provoke the right kind of response. Threats of mass climate migration can fuel anti-migrant xenophobia and may result in the further <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/when-climate-change-and-xenophobia-collide">securitization of migration</a>. </p>
<p>Lastly, fearmongering about large movements of climate refugees is inaccurate and claims about the number of people displaced by weather-related events are often <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/opinion-un-is-wrong-to-say-700-million-will-be-displaced-by-drought-104957">dubious</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.09.005">Research</a> has shown that estimates and predictions of people displaced by environmental changes lack any empirical basis. Forecasting is challenging because many developing countries do not have the statistical capacity to monitor migration movements and provide accurate data.</p>
<p>In fact, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/09/climate-crisis-could-displace-12bn-people-by-2050-report-warns">often-quoted claim</a> that there could be one billion climate refugees by 2050 <a href="https://www.academia.edu/7328949/The_one_billion_climate_refugees_that_never_was_INGOs_and_the_human_rights_perspective_to_climate_change_induced_displacement">is false</a>. It’s based on a misunderstanding of <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/colombia/human-tide-real-migration-crisis-christian-aid-report">Christian Aid’s 2007 report</a> that predicted there would be one billion refugees and displaced people <em>in total</em> by 2050. </p>
<p>The one billion number is based on an aggregation of projected displacement by conflict (50 million), natural disasters (50 million), development projects (645 million), climate change-related phenomena (250 million) and political persecution (5 million). So the estimated number of people displaced by climate change-related phenomena is 250 million, not one billion.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514296/original/file-20230308-20-4gv2s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People walk past a series of white tents." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514296/original/file-20230308-20-4gv2s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514296/original/file-20230308-20-4gv2s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514296/original/file-20230308-20-4gv2s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514296/original/file-20230308-20-4gv2s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514296/original/file-20230308-20-4gv2s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514296/original/file-20230308-20-4gv2s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514296/original/file-20230308-20-4gv2s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Families take refuge at a camp after leaving their flood-hit homes in Jaffarabad, Baluchistan province, Pakistan. Most displaced people seek refuge elsewhere in their country or in a neighbouring country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Zahid Hussain)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What’s more, these claims are coming at a time when a significant humanitarian crisis requires countries to open rather than close their doors. Twenty days after the earthquake, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/26/greece-fortifies-border-to-block-refugees-from-turkish-syrian-earthquakes">Greece fortified its land and sea borders with patrols</a> and called for fences, surveillance and for emergency aid to be sent to Turkey and Syria to prevent refugees from migrating to Europe.</p>
<h2>Language matters</h2>
<p>When conveying the gravity of the situation before us, language matters. We must be careful when we describe people displaced by climate and weather-related events. The words we use have implications for how people are treated and perceived. </p>
<p>Intuitively, it makes sense to assume that highlighting the challenge of climate-induced displacement will help capture international attention and foster more humane responses. </p>
<p>However, in a context where states are hardening borders and justifying restrictive border controls in the name of security, alarmist notions of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/suella-braverman-asylum-small-boats-inflammatory-b2295776.html">a mass exodus</a> reproduce narratives that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/05/rishi-sunaks-plan-for-small-boats-will-lock-up-people-fleeing-war">can lead to harsher responses</a>, as we are seeing in the U.K. with their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/05/sunak-to-launch-bill-to-bar-asylum-claims-from-people-arriving-on-small-boats">ban on people arriving on small boats</a> claiming asylum. Narratives of fear risk playing into the hands of the security establishment and anti-migrant groups. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1627720446274568196"}"></div></p>
<p>A <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H755rIfYaj3AoY3zU9m0U75Kl8lDA5cA/view">briefing note</a> created through a collaboration between Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, 350.org, Friends of the Earth U.S., and the Institute for Policy Studies and Climate and Migration Coalition, offers several alternatives to the current securitized framing. </p>
<p>Instead of using the language of a looming future crisis, or deploying alarming statistics, policymakers should adopt value-based language when they talk about climate- and disaster-induced displacement. </p>
<p>Such an approach would move us away from framing migration as a problem and towards recognizing that it is linked to broader political and economic dynamics that shape human mobility. It helps to humanize those affected and shifts focus towards their human rights and providing safe channels for people on the move.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Recognizing the challenges posed by climate-induced displacement is important. But officials must avoid rhetoric about displaced people that can fuel xenophobia.
Yvonne Su, Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies, York University, Canada
Corey Robinson, Lecturer in International Relations, School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199165
2023-02-07T20:22:25Z
2023-02-07T20:22:25Z
The EU shows its weaknesses again amid another looming migration crisis
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508657/original/file-20230207-15-gufqvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4888%2C2749&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Syrian migrants walk along a road after crossing the border between Austria and Germany in October 2015. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2015/12/56ec1ebde/2015-year-europes-refugee-crisis.html">2015 European migration crisis</a> still impacts the European Union today. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2016/08/02/number-of-refugees-to-europe-surges-to-record-1-3-million-in-2015/">More than 1.3 million displaced people sought asylum in the EU</a>, the most since the Second World War. </p>
<p>The EU’s institutions and its antiquated laws for migration, specifically <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/protection/operations/4a9d13d59/dublin-regulation.html">the Dublin Regulation</a>, proved inadequate for the task. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the EU did not learn the lessons from 2015, and is <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1726556/eu-news-migration-crisis-france-germany-mediterranean-crossings-manfred-weber">once again sleepwalking</a> towards another crisis as migrants increasingly cross its borders. This will likely become a <a href="http://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/46630/earthquakes-in-turkey-and-syria-also-affect-millions-of-displaced-people">worsening situation in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria.</a></p>
<p>The EU’s weak response to the 2015 migration crisis stemmed from the inadequacy of the organization to meet large-scale problems.</p>
<p>The EU, rather than being a unified entity, is a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/29/europe/european-union-rule-of-law-analysis-intl-cmd/index.html">confederation of states</a>. Each of these states has its own agenda and perspective. As a result, when a problem of the magnitude of the European migration crisis of 2015 arises, each responds in accordance with their <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/schengen-states-extend-border-checks-ignoring-eu-court/ar-AA14cFG8">own interests</a>.</p>
<p>Hungary <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/world/europe/hungary-croatia-refugees-migrants.html?_r=0">erected a fence</a> along its borders in 2015 to keep migrants out of the country.</p>
<p>Greece, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/23/the-greek-financial-crisis-is-making-its-migration-crisis-worse-the-e-u-must-help/">lacking resources</a> due to the financial crisis plaguing the country, found it difficult to meet its Dublin agreement obligations. </p>
<p>Germany was <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2015/09/18/angela-merkel-europe-refugee-crisis-conscience-369053.html">initially lauded</a> for establishing an open door policy. However, the policy exacerbated the situation over the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-broke-the-eu-migration-crisis-refugees/">long-term</a> by encouraging states to take unilateral action.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A long chain-link fence runs beside a snowy field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508646/original/file-20230207-17-q1exvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508646/original/file-20230207-17-q1exvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508646/original/file-20230207-17-q1exvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508646/original/file-20230207-17-q1exvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508646/original/file-20230207-17-q1exvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508646/original/file-20230207-17-q1exvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508646/original/file-20230207-17-q1exvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hungary’s border fence with Serbia is seen outside the village of Gyala, Serbia, in January 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>EU-Turkey deal</h2>
<p>Only a united response ultimately stemmed migration flows to the continent. In the <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/03/18/eu-turkey-statement/">2016 EU-Turkey deal</a>, the EU agreed to certain political and economic concessions in exchange for Turkish assistance in limiting migration to the EU. The agreement demonstrated the efficacy of EU countries working in concert. </p>
<p>But even though the deal stemmed the flow of migrants, it was never a permanent solution. Tensions between the EU and Turkey predated the agreement. <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/turkey-how-the-coup-failed/">The failed 2016 coup attempt in Turkey</a>, and the resulting suppression in the country, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36861154">exacerbated tensions</a> in EU-Turkish relations.</p>
<p>Rather than using the breathing space created by the 2016 EU-Turkey agreement to establish an effective response, the EU has further fragmented on the issue. Concerns over migration, in fact, played a <a href="https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/">key role</a> in Brexit, the U.K.’s exit from the EU. </p>
<p>Other EU countries refused to accede to any plan that would require them to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/21/eastern-european-leaders-defy-eu-effort-to-set-refugee-quotas">accept migrants</a>. Only on the issue of Ukrainian refugees has the EU acted in concert, although accusations of a <a href="https://www.trtworld.com/europe/hrw-urges-states-to-replicate-ukraine-response-avoid-double-standards-64411">double standard</a> — or worse — persist.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-welcome-to-ukrainian-refugees-unusually-generous-or-overtly-racist-178819">Is the welcome to Ukrainian refugees unusually generous — or overtly racist?</a>
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<h2>Economics, tech, climate</h2>
<p>This fragmentation among EU states is particularly problematic given current global trends. </p>
<p>In the case of the 2015 European migration crisis, journalists and outside observers placed disproportionate emphasis on the role of the Syrian Civil War and conflicts <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/06/afghanistan-refugees-forty-years/">in Afghanistan</a> <a href="https://www.unrefugees.org/news/iraq-refugee-crisis-explained/">and Iraq</a>.</p>
<p>While these conflicts created large numbers of refugees, analysts overlooked two crucial factors: economics and climate change. The reason for this neglect is twofold. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/environmental-disasters-are-fuelling-migration-heres-why-international-law-must-recognize-climate-refugees-173714">Environmental disasters are fuelling migration — here's why international law must recognize climate refugees</a>
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<p>First, conflicts typically <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600701471682">capture the media’s attention</a>. Long-term causes like environmental and economic factors are more difficult to examine in the 24-hour news cycle. </p>
<p>Second, only people fleeing <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/what-is-a-refugee.html">conflict or persecution</a> qualify as refugees under international law.</p>
<p>Economic divides between states will remain a major factor in mass migration. Scholars commonly refer to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z3p4b82/revision/1">push-and-pull factors</a> when examining migration. Push factors, such as conflict, are reasons why people leave a country. The potential for a better life for one’s immediate family is the ultimate pull factor.</p>
<p>Technological developments are further incentivizing economic migration. </p>
<p>The proliferation <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/techland/new-record-62-million-tvs-sold-last-quarter-globally-170386">of television</a> and <a href="https://www.statista.com/topics/1145/internet-usage-worldwide/#topicOverview">the internet</a> is making global disparities between countries more apparent. People seeking better lives are now confronted with the disparity and potential opportunities in real time.</p>
<p>Observers frequently underestimate climate change in their examinations of refugees. Estimates at the higher end of the spectrum, however, place the number of potential climate refugees at <a href="https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazine/2022/there-could-be-1-2-billion-climate-refugees-by-2050-here-s-what-you-need-to-know">1.2 billion</a> people by 2050.</p>
<p>Climate change is also a source of potential conflict and can create traditional refugees. An argument can be made, in fact, that climate change was a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00059.1">direct cause</a> of the Syrian Civil War given severe drought and water shortages.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bare-chested man raises his hands in triumph at the front of a dinghy filled with people wearing life jackets." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508640/original/file-20230207-27-vzxujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C432%2C3755%2C2063&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508640/original/file-20230207-27-vzxujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508640/original/file-20230207-27-vzxujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508640/original/file-20230207-27-vzxujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508640/original/file-20230207-27-vzxujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508640/original/file-20230207-27-vzxujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508640/original/file-20230207-27-vzxujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greek lifeguards help refugees and migrants approach the coast on a dinghy after their trip from the Turkish coast to the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos in December 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Santi Palacios)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Repeating the same mistakes</h2>
<p>The causes for economic and environmental migration are rising. Wealth disparity is set <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/01/1055681">to increase</a> among states. The impacts of climate change are also <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/artificial-intelligence-predicts-climate-change-coming-faster-than-we-recently-thought-new-study-says/ar-AA16UONB">poised to accelerate</a> in the near future, with several of the most vulnerable countries already accounting for a significant number of migrants to the EU.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1622773148897738752"}"></div></p>
<p>The EU demonstrated an ability to act in a <a href="https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/888941.html">unified manner</a> when it involved Ukrainian refugees. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for other mass migrations in the past. </p>
<p>EU leaders are wrongly believing <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/greeces-migration-minister-number-migrants-arriving-country-dropped-dramatically">their individual policies</a>, not COVID-19, accounted for the decline in migrants.</p>
<p>This stance is not only inaccurate, but sets the EU up for failure in the future. Mass migration, and the challenges it poses, are beyond the capabilities of any one EU state. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, EU politicians are ignoring the lessons of the immediate past, and instead repeating the problems of 2015.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Horncastle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The European Union is a confederation of states, each with its own agenda and perspective. As a result, the EU’s responses to migration crises are critically flawed.
James Horncastle, Assistant Professor and Edward and Emily McWhinney Professor in International Relations, Simon Fraser University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192469
2022-11-09T15:06:39Z
2022-11-09T15:06:39Z
The unfairness of the climate crisis — Podcast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493637/original/file-20221105-27172-i10fuq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=172%2C206%2C5578%2C3483&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Millions have lost their homes in flooding caused by unusually heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan this year that many experts have blamed on climate change. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Fareed Khan)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Join us <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/the-unfairness-of-the-climate-crisis">on this episode of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a> as we speak with researcher and migration expert Yvonne Su about climate-induced migration, the ways in which the climate crisis should factor into refugee claims and the burden of care that is owed to displaced people. </p>
<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/411550b5-dc14-4ca7-9469-5e35e4393a93?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Recently, there have been some troubling images coming out of Pakistan, where <a href="https://theconversation.com/pakistans-floods-are-a-disaster-but-they-didnt-have-to-be-190027">devastating floods have taken the lives of more than 1,500 people and displaced close to 8 million</a>. The floods have also submerged farmlands and spread waterborne illnesses. In total, it is estimated that the floods have so far impacted over 33 million people. </p>
<p>So the picture is bleak. </p>
<p>And a lot of this suffering can be linked to human-induced climate change. </p>
<p>In other words, the global climate crisis has been driven by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation by western states. Meanwhile, some populations continue to bear the brunt of the impact. Given this, <a href="https://theconversation.com/loss-and-damage-who-is-responsible-when-climate-change-harms-the-worlds-poorest-countries-and-what-does-compensation-look-like-192070">do the United Nations and those states who have contributed most to the problem have the moral responsibility to protect and compensate those most harmed by climate change?</a></p>
<p>This month, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/cop27-climate-change-summit.html">leaders from over 190 countries gather in Egypt for COP27, the United Nations Climate Change Conference</a>. Previous UN climate change summits have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/16/indigenous-climate-activists-cop26-endangers-native-communities">criticized by Indigenous and environmental activists who say the so-called solutions coming out of them have done more harm than good. </a></p>
<p>Will this year be different? Will leaders be paying attention to real solutions for people in Pakistan that are being displaced right now?</p>
<p>Join us as we speak with Yvonne Su, Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies at York University. Yvonne specializes in migration, including climate change-induced displacement <a href="https://theconversation.com/wildfire-and-flood-disasters-are-causing-climate-migration-within-canada-167730">both globally and in Canada</a>. She has a PhD in Political Science and International Development from the University of Guelph and a Masters in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492398/original/file-20221029-38660-skfves.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents navigate the Solimoes River with difficulty due to the current severe drought, in Tefe, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 20, 2022. Months after enduring floods that destroyed crops, thousands of families in the Brazilian Amazon are now dealing with severe drought. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Listen and Follow</h2>
<p>You can listen to or follow <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>. <a href="mailto:theculturedesk@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationCanada">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theconversation">TikTok</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mCusEDZ62fY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">the Season 4 Trailer for Don’t Call Me Resilient.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Also in The Conversation</h2>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pakistan-floods-will-rich-nations-ever-pay-for-climate-loss-and-damage-190127">Pakistan floods: will rich nations ever pay for climate loss and damage?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/loss-and-damage-who-is-responsible-when-climate-change-harms-the-worlds-poorest-countries-192070">Loss and damage: Who is responsible when climate change harms the world's poorest countries?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cop27-which-countries-will-push-to-end-fossil-fuel-production-and-which-wont-193471">COP27: Which countries will push to end fossil fuel production? And which won't?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/wildfire-and-flood-disasters-are-causing-climate-migration-within-canada-167730">Wildfire and flood disasters are causing 'climate migration' within Canada</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/un-ruling-could-be-a-game-changer-for-climate-refugees-and-climate-action-130532">UN ruling could be a game-changer for climate refugees and climate action</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-canadian-senator-aims-to-end-the-widespread-financial-backing-of-fossil-fuels-192827">A Canadian senator aims to end the widespread financial backing of fossil fuels</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Sources</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102638">The unbearable heaviness of climate coloniality by Farhana Sultana</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.academia.edu/26646243/Should_We_Bring_Back_Climate_Refugees_">Should we bring back climate refugees? By Yvonne Su</a></p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.411">Climate change communication and Indigenous publics</a> by
Candis Callison</p>
<h2>Transcript</h2>
<p>For an unedited transcript of this episode, go <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/the-unfairness-of-the-climate-crisis">here</a>. </p>
<p><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient was produced in partnership with the Journalism Innovation Lab at UBC and with a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Does the Global North have a moral responsibility to protect and compensate those in the Global South that disproportionately bear the brunt of climate change devastation?
Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient
Ollie Nicholas, Assistant Producer/Journalism Student, Don't Call Me Resilient
Dannielle Piper, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient, The Conversation
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182920
2022-08-23T16:11:31Z
2022-08-23T16:11:31Z
Why we should abandon the concept of the ‘climate refugee’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479898/original/file-20220818-459-4smnq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C4354%2C2903&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fleeing to safety after a cyclone hits Bangladesh.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abir Abdullah / EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is entirely reasonable to assume that as climate change intensifies, it will result in more human migration and displacement. Images of Bangladeshis seeking refuge from the latest cyclone or Californians fleeing suburban wildfires affirm a sense that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/aug/18/century-climate-crisis-migration-why-we-need-plan-great-upheaval">climate change is driving the next great migration</a>. And yet the great paradox of climate migration is that there is no such as thing as a “climate migrant” or “climate refugee”.</p>
<p>These are socially constructed categories. They may appear to reflect the world as it is. But when we peel back their veneer, we find, instead, a world of power and vested interests. Diagnosing this power is a matter of pressing urgency for anyone concerned with the politics of climate change today.</p>
<p>The main issue is climate change itself. When the impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather or wildfires, are used to explain socio-political phenomena like migration, they obscure the underlying historical conditions of those they affect. </p>
<p>Take, for example, coastal Bangladesh. For decades, shrimp farming and, more recently, soft-shell crab farming have radically transformed the region. Promoted by institutions like the <a href="https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/370411468207868169/bangladesh-shrimp-culture-project">World Bank</a>, these are forms of economic development that have earned Bangladesh much needed foreign currency. But they have also <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anti.12421?casa_token=gdSQDEjMtB8AAAAA%3AXc5MOhK2q55wo-jf7phMqJgbJwMzZyh3ckmoqJDKOrkwh2pmC98kVyIVluEflsKJN_Qgc82dKGQAtQ">devastated the coastal environment</a>, dispossessed local smallholders of land, and forced generations of rural people into precarious forms of wage labour.</p>
<p>People in wealthier countries might demand their governments do more to ensure “climate justice” in places like Bangladesh. But when we say rural-to-urban migration in Bangladesh is down to climate change, we diminish this important history.</p>
<p>This is why we should be extremely wary of categories like “climate migrant” and “climate refugee”, which are designed to draw our attention away from historical explanations. When, for example, the World Bank claims that <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29461">143 million people</a> are expected to become “internal climate migrants” by 2050, it leaves little room for more nuanced historical accounts of migration. </p>
<p>The World Bank wants us to believe that climate change is the most pressing threat facing the world’s most precarious people and that it will force millions from their homes. However, by fostering this belief, the World Bank masks how its policies have rendered precarious the very people it now claims to be helping.</p>
<h2>Factors beyond climate change</h2>
<p>Or take a different example, that of suburban California. There is no denying that <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe6417">climate change</a> can explain the increasing frequency of wildfires that routinely wreak havoc on the state’s suburbs. Nor can it be denied that many Californian homeowners are now <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/16/homeowners-relocating-because-of-climate-change-wildfires-flooding.html">selling up and moving</a> to cooler places. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479901/original/file-20220818-22-7y5lte.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Suburban house with large fire in background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479901/original/file-20220818-22-7y5lte.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479901/original/file-20220818-22-7y5lte.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479901/original/file-20220818-22-7y5lte.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479901/original/file-20220818-22-7y5lte.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479901/original/file-20220818-22-7y5lte.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479901/original/file-20220818-22-7y5lte.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479901/original/file-20220818-22-7y5lte.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wildfire burns through California suburbia in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David A Litman / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But when we explain wildfire and the resulting migration in terms of climate change alone – when we label this “climate migration” – we tell <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-blame-california-wildfires-on-a-perfect-storm-of-weather-events-86128">only half the story</a>. Just as important is the history of home ownership in the state. </p>
<p>The uncomfortable fact is that the suburban landscape in California, however normalised it now appears, is the culmination of settler colonial history, white flight from city centres, <a href="https://theconversation.com/california-needs-to-rethink-urban-fire-risk-starting-with-where-it-builds-houses-88825">lax planning laws</a> and a dominant <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0263276404046059">car culture</a>. </p>
<p>It is also the result of an economic model in which homeowners are now expected to meet the costs of old age, education and health care by selling up the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781935408345/family-values">family home</a>. No wonder people are liquidating their only asset and moving out of harm’s way. </p>
<p>To say this migration is because of climate change obscures the fact that it is white suburban families who tend to have <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/">accrued enough wealth over the generations</a> to move away from hazards like floods and fires. </p>
<p>This becomes even more apparent when we consider how the same choices were unavailable to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/magazine/why-new-orleans-black-residents-are-still-under-water-after-katrina.html">black people fleeing New Orleans</a> after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As this example illustrates, when social outcomes like migration are explained in terms of climate change we are invited to disremember the history of racism in America. </p>
<h2>The ‘other’ of climate change</h2>
<p>In his classic work <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/57454/orientalism-by-edward-w-said/9780141187426">Orientalism</a> the late literary scholar Edward Said developed his concept of “the other”. Said’s reading of European literature and art is tremendously important because it explains how 19th-century European attitudes were made possible. </p>
<p>Central to Said’s thesis is that Europe denied this other its own history. He sought to show how generations of European writers, artists, statesmen and conquerors imagined Europe’s other living in a realm outside history. </p>
<p>Orientalism was, for Said, not a form of knowledge that simply documented the reality of life in the Orient. It was an extension of European imperial power in which non-Europeans were said to be part of nature rather than western European humanity. It allowed Europe to believe it had a moral duty to intervene in the lives of the other, to modernise the other by bringing it into the folds of history.</p>
<p>We might say the same today about the figure of the climate migrant or refugee – what I have termed “<a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786614506/The-Other-of-Climate-Change-Racial-Futurism-Migration-Humanism">the other of climate change</a>”. The circumstances we face today with climate change are, of course, dramatically different than those that prevailed during the 19th century. </p>
<p>Still, constructs like climate migrant and climate refugee are analogous to the power that was the focus of Said’s criticism. These categories are used to define vast numbers of people, including millions of the world’s poorest, in terms of climate, as opposed to history. They render the history of places secondary to climate change, and in doing so, undermine the right people have to represent themselves on their own terms.</p>
<p>The power I am describing is not universal in form, nor does it serve a singular set of interests. Bangladesh and California are not remotely equivalent. Yet in both cases, when climate change is used to explain socio-political phenomena like migration, social inequality is naturalised.</p>
<p>When we see categories like climate migrant and climate refugee in use today, we should treat them not as innocent descriptors of reality. Instead, they should alert us to the presence of an insidious power whose origins are European. Rather than accept these terms at face value, we might instead ask ourselves: who does the idea of the climate migrant, or climate refugee, really serve?</p>
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 10,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Baldwin's book The Other of Climate Change: Racial Futurism, Migration, Humanism is available from Rowman and Littlefield. He has no other interests to disclose. </span></em></p>
When climate change is used to explain migration, social inequality is naturalised.
W. Andrew Baldwin, Associate Professor in Human Geography, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182766
2022-05-18T05:40:45Z
2022-05-18T05:40:45Z
Lismore faced monster floods all but alone. We must get better at climate adaptation, and fast
<p>Australia is no stranger to disasters like droughts, floods, bushfires and heatwaves. The problem is, they’re going to get worse. And then worse again. As the global temperature ratchets up, these disasters will grow in <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/factsheets/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Regional_Fact_Sheet_Australasia.pdf">size, frequency and intensity</a>. We will have to get much better at adapting, and do this even as we phase out fossil fuels to stop climate change getting worse. </p>
<p>Climate adaptation is about working with our new reality, rather than clinging to the way things were done in the past. We must accept our climate and environment has already changed, with more major upheavals on the way. If we don’t, we’ll be caught napping by “unprecedented” events which just keep on coming.</p>
<p>While local and state governments have led the way on climate adaptation to date, we have much more to do, as the worrying lack of preparation for the floods that devastated Lismore makes clear. </p>
<h2>Do both: climate adaptation and emissions reduction</h2>
<p>Many people believe climate adaptation is a red herring, diverting resources and attention away from emissions. </p>
<p>This is simply not true. We must <a href="https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/climate-adaptation-vs-mitigation-why-does-it-matter">do both</a>. The world has already warmed 1.2°C since the industrial age began, and is heating up by just under <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature#:%7E:text=According%20to%20NOAA's%202020%20Annual,more%20than%20twice%20that%20rate.">0.2°C per decade</a>. There is also a lag time between fossil fuels burned today and the extra warming this causes. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/4-ways-we-can-change-our-behaviour-to-adapt-to-the-climate-crisis-177628">4 ways we can change our behaviour to adapt to the climate crisis</a>
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<p>Climate change is already here, and will only intensify. We must urgently slash emissions while also helping our communities be ready. The good news is adaptation often <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-ii">helps lower emissions</a>, and vice versa. </p>
<p>It can be hard to picture what climate adaptation looks like. So take the hard-hit town of Lismore as an example. Official warnings <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/04/trauma-disbelief-and-plenty-of-ideas-shared-at-nsw-flood-inquiry-hearing-in-lismore">did not reach</a> this Northern Rivers community. When these monster floods hit, these communities were largely left to save themselves. If it hadn’t been for neighbours undertaking rooftop rescues, the death toll <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2022/03/12/residents-abandoned-epic-floods/164700360013488#mtr">would likely</a> have been much higher. In the aftermath, many residents have been living in tents and caravans while struggling to find affordable housing. </p>
<p>To be ready for the next floods, Lismore <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-simply-havent-got-it-in-me-to-do-it-again-imagining-a-new-heart-for-flood-stricken-lismore-178982">would benefit</a> from: </p>
<ul>
<li>rebuild using flood-resistant designs and materials</li>
<li>coordinating community preparations</li>
<li>exploring land-swap or changing land-use planning for high-risk areas</li>
<li>better coordination between government agencies</li>
<li>better warnings delivered sooner.</li>
</ul>
<p>As soon as you consider the problem, it becomes clear there is no silver bullet. We need to plan ahead of time, rather than try to scramble to respond to disasters as they grow in size and frequency. Preparing and planning saves lives and <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/climate-adaptation">cuts costs</a>. </p>
<p>Drawing on local community strength is vital, as the Northern Rivers has shown Australia. But it is not enough by itself. Movements like <a href="https://www.resilientbyron.org">Resilient Byron</a> and <a href="https://lismore.nsw.gov.au/resilient-lismore-helping-hands-website">Resilient Lismore</a> show how locally led adaptation can assist communities. They could do more, with directed long-term investments and support. </p>
<h2>What have we done so far?</h2>
<p>The knowledge we already have about surviving in the world’s most arid inhabited continent is a start. First Nations communities have a sophisticated understanding of caring for country, while Australian farmers are among the best <a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/FpOZCJypGYhqN14NpsVPn_-?domain=oecd-ilibrary.org">climate-risk managers</a> globally, after a <a href="https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/other-products/learning-from-history/">rocky start.</a> </p>
<p>To date, most government-led climate adaptation happens at local and state levels. Highly innovative approaches have come from local governments, such as a <a href="https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/recovery-and-resettlement-following-the-2011-flash-flooding-in-th">council-led land-swap</a> to get people permanently out of flood plains in the Lockyer Valley. Victoria’s state government has a climate adaptation <a href="https://www.swclimatechange.com.au/cb_pages/adaptation_pathways.php">program</a> to help the natural resources sector prepare for possible futures, while Queensland has a <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/67301/qld-climate-adaptation-strategy.pdf">strategy</a> for local governments to find the greatest risks to coastal areas and plan for adaptation. </p>
<p>While these are welcome, we must do much more at a national level. In this area, we seem to be going backwards. In 2007 the federal government <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-ranks-last-out-of-54-nations-on-its-strategy-to-cope-with-climate-change-the-glasgow-summit-is-a-chance-to-protect-us-all-169627">invested heavily</a> in climate adaptation, but these initiatives were progressively dismantled after the 2013 election. Today, disaster spending is focused on recovery rather than preparation. While that might be <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-shows-voters-favour-financial-relief-after-disasters-but-we-need-climate-action-too-179028">politically rewarding</a>, it is extraordinarily expensive. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-simply-havent-got-it-in-me-to-do-it-again-imagining-a-new-heart-for-flood-stricken-lismore-178982">'I simply haven’t got it in me to do it again': imagining a new heart for flood-stricken Lismore</a>
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</p>
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<p>On a national scale, our current <a href="https://www.awe.gov.au/science-research/climate-change/adaptation/strategy">climate adaptation strategy</a> lacks clear targets and timelines. Not only that, it does not connect the dots between the levels of adaptation required and different scenarios for cutting emissions. We hope the new framework being produced by the <a href="https://recovery.gov.au/about-us/governance-and-reporting/strategies-and-frameworks">National Reconstruction and Recovery Agency</a> will better incorporate adaptation.</p>
<h2>What does well-adapted look like?</h2>
<p>Our political parties differ substantially on climate adaptation efforts. Liberal and National Party policies barely mention climate adaptation. Labor has <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-the-major-parties-rate-on-climate-policies-we-asked-5-experts-181790">disaster preparation policies</a>, such as up to A$200 million per year on disaster prevention and recovery, while the Greens are <a href="https://greens.org.au/sites/default/files/2022-04/Greens-2022-Plan--Powering-Past-Coal-and-Gas.pdf">most ambitious</a> with plans to both slash emissions and boost adaptation through initiatives such as making housing better able to cope with floods and cyclones.</p>
<p>Climate adaptation <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/saving-lives-and-livelihoods-the-benefits-of-investments-in-climate-change-adaptation-and-resilience">pays dividends</a> – regardless of who takes government. Active climate adaptation <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/Economics/deloitte-au-dae-economic-reality-check-minderoo-foundation-17012022.pdf">would save</a> Australia A$380 billion in gross domestic product over the next 30 years. </p>
<p>We cannot let climate adaptation be the plaything of day-to-day politics. To have any chance of success, we need a robust bipartisan strategy. We should look to countries such as the UK which has <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/part/4">laws requiring</a> a national climate risk assessment every five years as well as a program coordinating and reporting adaptation actions across the country.</p>
<p>There is support for these measures in Australia, with <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Polling-Climate-change-risk-and-adaptation-PDF.pdf">72% of us</a> in favour of introducing national climate risk assessments giving our state and local governments access to up to date information on flood projections, neighbourhoods most vulnerable to heatwaves and expected levels of sea level rise. Crucially, this would let us pick out the best ways we could adapt. </p>
<p>Australia also needs a national climate adaptation hub, a one-stop shop offering advice to all levels of government, communities, non-governmental organisations and the private sector on the adaptation strategies available and ways to scale up the best approaches. </p>
<p>We must act now to make the best of the future coming towards us. We know a great deal about what we’ve set in motion by heating up our planet. Now we must prepare for what this brings. And we have to <a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/93hYCOMxVEHpVQQQVckhBr0?domain=authors.elsevier.com">do it together</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182766/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johanna Nalau receives funding from Australian Research Council. She is also a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Working Group and the Co-chair of Science Committee in the World Adaptation Science Program, United Nations Environment Programme.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Melville-Rea is affiliated with an independent think tank, the Australia Institute.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prof Mark Howden is a Vice Chair of the IPCC Working Group II.</span></em></p>
We can’t let communities face climate change alone. We must get better at adapting to the new climate, and do it before disasters not during.
Johanna Nalau, Research Fellow, Climate Adaptation, Griffith University
Hannah Melville-Rea, Research Fellow, Climate Resilience, Environmental Arts & Humanities, New York University
Mark Howden, Director, ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/173714
2022-01-13T19:48:52Z
2022-01-13T19:48:52Z
Environmental disasters are fuelling migration — here’s why international law must recognize climate refugees
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440721/original/file-20220113-27-1jjcje5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C91%2C4604%2C3044&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman wades through mud to collect items from her home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The devastation brought by hurricanes Eta and Iota in Honduras in November 2020 contributed to a sharp rise in northward migration. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Moises Castillo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When hurricanes Eta and Iota barrelled into Central America in November 2020, they flooded towns and cities, caused catastrophic losses in the agricultural sector and contributed to food insecurity. In all, <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/guatemala/central-america-hurricanes-eta-iota-6-months-operation-update-mdr43007">4.7 million Hondurans were affected</a>, and tens of thousands decided to leave, forming <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/26/the-spiralling-crisis-pushing-hondurans-to-flee-north">migrant caravans</a> in a desperate attempt to rebuild their lives in the United States. </p>
<p>Scientists ultimately linked that record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season to climate change, making it clear that climate change is already influencing migration. </p>
<p>My research studies the relationships between law, people and the environment. In refugee law, people become refugees when they have a well-founded fear of persecution in their country of origin. Persecution is currently limited to grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. That means when people move due to environmental degradation or disaster, they are not, in the legal sense of the word, “refugees.” </p>
<p>But international refugee and human rights law can no longer place the focus solely on social and political persecution. It must be overhauled to consider climate change and include “deadly environments” as a form of persecution. </p>
<p>The concept of deadly environments accounts for the social, political and ecological conditions that force someone to move. Including it in legal definitions would establish the environment as contributing to conditions of human rights deprivation and persecution.</p>
<h2>Deadly environments absent in refugee law</h2>
<p>The World Bank estimates that without radical and concerted efforts to slow climate change, <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/36248">216 million</a> people will be displaced within their own countries by 2050. With the scale of climate-induced migration, it’s <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-climate-refugees-are-coming-countries-and-international-law-arent/">inevitable</a> that millions will seek refuge across borders, even if they are <a href="https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/highlights/is-it-time-for-canada-to-open-its-doors-to-climate-migrants-4345242">invisible to refugee law</a>. </p>
<p>Migration researchers agree that it is often inaccurate to link migration choices to a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Forced-Migration-Current-Issues-and-Debates/Bloch-Dona/p/book/9781138653238">single event</a>. It has become common to examine climate change as one in a nexus of factors, including <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/5c2f54fe4.html">violence, conflict and disaster</a>. </p>
<p>The uncertain speed of climate disruptions complicates matters further. Their onset can be slow, like ongoing droughts that cause food insecurity, or fast, like hurricanes and floods that destroy homes and crops.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman sits outside a small brick house in a chair with a toddler on her lap, while a man walks towards her carrying a bowl of corn, and another walks past her carrying tall stalks of corn." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440724/original/file-20220113-13-yxaiii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440724/original/file-20220113-13-yxaiii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440724/original/file-20220113-13-yxaiii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440724/original/file-20220113-13-yxaiii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440724/original/file-20220113-13-yxaiii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440724/original/file-20220113-13-yxaiii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440724/original/file-20220113-13-yxaiii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents of a drought-affected region of China were relocated to new homes in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region in October 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Given this, how can we define people who have been displaced by climate? There is no internationally accepted definition of climate-impacted migrants. </p>
<p>The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers uses the term “<a href="https://carl-acaadr.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CARL-Climate-Migration-Report-FINAL-AB-1.pdf">climate migrant</a>,” whereas a report by the White House uses “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Report-on-the-Impact-of-Climate-Change-on-Migration.pdf">climate change related-migration</a>” as an umbrella term. Some use the term <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315638843-1">environmental migrants</a>, others use <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12193">environmentally displaced peoples</a>. Like some other adamant outliers, I use the phrase <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315109619">climate refugees</a> to underscore the agency of those seeking refuge. </p>
<p>The debate over definitions misses the point. As British geographer Calum T. M. Nicholson explains, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12062">the key issue is not the cause of movement, but the rights violations suffered by migrants</a>.” </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FSheet38_FAQ_HR_CC_EN.pdf">Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights</a>, climate change impacts the human rights to life, self-determination, development, health, food, water and sanitation, adequate housing and cultural rights. One only need to think about the 400,000 livestock herders in <a href="https://www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/21_0318_Local_integration_in_Ethiopia.pdf">Southern Ethiopia</a> who were displaced by climate-related drought between 2015 and 2019. They continue to require assistance for food, water and shelter. </p>
<h2>Deadly environments and border practices</h2>
<p>Shifting the focus to deadly environments makes it clear that they are produced not only by climate change, but also by the practices upheld along borders. </p>
<p>The Transnational Institute, an international research and advocacy institute, reports that the world’s wealthiest countries <a href="https://www.tni.org/en/publication/global-climate-wall">spend more on militarizing their borders than they do on responding to the climate crisis</a>. This often includes building walls, developing surveillance technologies and hiring armed border guards. According to the institute, rich countries are building a “global climate wall” to keep out people forced to migrate due to climate change with deadly consequences.</p>
<p>In her book <em><a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-death-of-asylum">The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago</a></em>, Alison Mountz, a geographer at Wilfrid Laurier University, describes the steady development of asylum processing in places far away from physical borders, such as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/15/australia-8-years-abusive-offshore-asylum-processing">Australia’s offshore processing camps</a> in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Mountz argues that the growth of offshore detention centres contributes to the physical deaths of asylum-seekers, as well as their political deaths, as news of drowned migrants becomes mundane and normalized.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A backlit photo of the border wall with the silhouettes of six people walking along a ridge with the river below." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440725/original/file-20220113-13-1m7tl2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440725/original/file-20220113-13-1m7tl2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440725/original/file-20220113-13-1m7tl2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440725/original/file-20220113-13-1m7tl2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440725/original/file-20220113-13-1m7tl2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440725/original/file-20220113-13-1m7tl2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440725/original/file-20220113-13-1m7tl2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A pair of migrant families from Brazil passes through a gap in the border wall to cross from Mexico into Yuma, Ariz., in June 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Eugene Garcia)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/">UN International Organization for Migration</a> (IOM) has documented the deaths of nearly 46,000 migrants en route to safety since 2014. An estimated 23,000 have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. </p>
<p>The border-crossing between the United States and Mexico is particularly deadly, with 2,980 deaths recorded since 2014. <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/americas">According to the IOM</a>, the “main direct causes of death identified in this area are drowning … and deaths caused by harsh environmental conditions and lack of shelter, food and water.”</p>
<p>International refugee and human rights law must be urgently overhauled to recognize deadly environments as sites of persecution.</p>
<h2>Towards a new protection regime</h2>
<p>The United Nations Refugee Agency has already established links between climate change and persecution. It finds that when a state is unwilling to respond to humanitarian needs that are the result of climate change, there is a “<a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/5f75f2734.html">risk of human rights violations amounting to persecution</a>.” </p>
<p>Deadly environments, including those transformed by climate change whether suddenly or over long periods of time, need to be considered sites of persecution. Their presence should trigger state obligations to provide protection for peoples forcibly displaced by climate change. </p>
<p>Central to this effort is establishing relationships among law, humans and the environment. This is one step towards recognizing that people displaced by climate change are, in fact, refugees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel L. Huizenga receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>
International refugee law must be overhauled to consider climate change and include “deadly environments” as a form of persecution.
Daniel L. Huizenga, Postdoctoral Fellow, Human Geography, University of Toronto
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/169007
2021-10-18T12:13:01Z
2021-10-18T12:13:01Z
How ‘managed retreat’ from climate change could revitalize rural America: Revisiting the Homestead Act
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426300/original/file-20211013-19-lw5pvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3493%2C2334&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Small inland towns can offer a haven for people escaping coastal climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/fans-walk-down-the-street-to-the-baseball-hall-of-fame-news-photo/53310479">Ezra Shaw/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Southern Italy’s rural Calabria region announced an <a href="https://portale.regione.calabria.it/website/portaltemplates/view/view.cfm?">innovative project in 2021</a> to breathe new life into its small towns. It plans to offer young professionals thousands of dollars if they move in and commit to launch a business, preferably a business the community needs.</p>
<p><a href="https://findingnwa.com/incentive/">Northwest Arkansas</a> has a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/realestate/bentonville-arkansas-moving-incentive.html">similar program</a> to draw new residents to rural towns like Springdale by offering US$10,000 and a mountain bike. <a href="https://www.livelincolncounty.com/free-lots-residential/">Lincoln, Kansas</a>, is offering free land to remote workers who are willing to relocate and build a home there.</p>
<p>These efforts take advantage of the growing work-from-home culture to try to revitalize rural communities that are in decline. </p>
<p>They may also hold a key to coping with anticipated domestic climate migration as storms and wildfires exacerbated by climate change make parts of the country unlivable.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://eeb.utoronto.ca/profile/brooks-daniel-r/">professors and</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?%20user=33XezsEAAAAJ&hl=en">authors focused on sustainability</a>, we see ways in which projects like these might help solve both the challenge of rural population loss and the likely acceleration of migration from climate-insecure cities. While this proposal may not be viable for every community, we believe it would benefit many towns seeking to reverse population loss and rejuvenate their economies. </p>
<h2>Opportunities in climate migration</h2>
<p>Global climate change presents an immediate problem. Millions of people worldwide will be at risk from sea level rise over the next two generations, while others will be driven away from regions of prolonged heat, drought and the threat of wildfires. </p>
<p>With people likely to move from at-risk places into nearby cities, those cities will likely see their public services stressed, their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227436">housing prices rise and their labor markets tighten</a>, potentially displacing lower-income residents.</p>
<p>This presents an opportunity for some rural areas to encourage new residents to move in.</p>
<p><iframe id="qHYRo" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qHYRo/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>From 1953 to 2003, the U.S. rural population declined from <a href="http://www.prb.org/Articles/2003/%20FiftyYearsofDemographicChangeinRuralAmerica.aspx">36% of the population to 21%</a>. By 2050, <a href="https://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/EIG-2020-DCI-Report.pdf">fewer than 13%</a> of Americans are likely to live in rural areas based on current trends. The decline of small farms and rural manufacturing has reduced employment opportunities for educated youth, driving many to leave. <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/fa3419a2-d019-11e8-a9f2-7574db66bcd5">Four-fifths of rural counties</a> have fewer businesses today than in 2008.</p>
<p>In some areas this trend has become a downward spiral. Population and business losses reduce tax bases, impoverishing public services, making communities less attractive for new residents and leaving fewer opportunities for local kids who want to stay. This pattern can contribute to feelings of insecurity, political polarization and a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12408">decline of trust in democratic institutions across rural America</a>. </p>
<p>Given the right support, community leaders may be able to reenergize their towns by encouraging people displaced by climate disasters to move in.</p>
<h2>A new homesteading movement</h2>
<p>“Managed retreat” is a proactive concept – it involves rebuilding in safer locations before disasters hit. That includes reinventing, reconfiguring and reconstructing housing and commerce. It could also mean creating networks of reinvigorated small towns, particularly those not far from the amenities and services of a sizable city.</p>
<p>Successful recovery and reinvention start with a community-supported plan for the future, including opportunities for in-town housing space, commercial opportunities and upgraded public services.</p>
<p>One way to encourage interest from investors and future residents is to focus on climate-friendly infrastructure powered by renewable energy. Areas rich in wind, sunlight and forests can update their zoning rules to encourage renewable energy investment, along with nonindustrialized food production, such as organic farms. </p>
<p>Developing high-tech greenhouses, such as those populating farmlands across Europe, for example, could support new jobs and provide fresh produce. The coal country town of Morehead, Kentucky, for instance, is supporting a hydroponic greenhouse that’s now producing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/06/dining/hydroponic-farming.html">nearly 3 million pounds of beefsteak tomatoes</a> a year.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young man runs past a county courthouse." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426302/original/file-20211013-15-1ola72v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426302/original/file-20211013-15-1ola72v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426302/original/file-20211013-15-1ola72v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426302/original/file-20211013-15-1ola72v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426302/original/file-20211013-15-1ola72v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426302/original/file-20211013-15-1ola72v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426302/original/file-20211013-15-1ola72v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ability to work from home has made small towns an option for more young people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-latino-man-in-blue-sweatshirt-runs-by-small-royalty-free-image/948013420">Patrick Fraser via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>To support revitalization and smooth the transition for new residents, we suggest that the federal government could finance a sequel to America’s 1862 <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/homestead-act#background">Homesteading Act</a>, which encouraged people to settle and develop the American West.</p>
<p>This strategy would require new funding or shifting funds from agencies – such as the <a href="https://www.rd.usda.gov">U.S. Department of Agriculture</a>, <a href="https://www.eda.gov">Economic Development Administration</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/climate/flooding-relocation-managed-retreat.html">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> and <a href="https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/comm_planning/communitydevelopment">Department of Housing and Urban Development</a> – toward improving public services and incentivizing commerce and industry, along with housing grants.</p>
<p>Federal efforts to <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-ways-biden-can-help-rural-america-thrive-and-bridge-the-rural-urban-divide-150610">expand rural broadband access</a> can lift another barrier to bringing in young workers excited about working from home, as well as entrepreneurs with the expertise necessary to make these projects and other new businesses succeed in sustainable ways.</p>
<p>If government assistance programs support the aspirations of rural towns’ grassroots leadership, these efforts could come to be viewed with trust rather than suspicion. </p>
<p>This is a way for communities that have lost their tax base to recruit new tax-paying citizens. There can be downsides – change can be difficult for some communities, the investment can cause concern and it <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/07/moving-incentives-are-overhyped/619543/">might not work as quickly</a> <a href="https://money.howstuffworks.com/does-paying-people-to-move-to-state-no-one-really-knows.htm">or effectively</a> as the community hopes. For rural towns close to cities, there can also be concerns about gentrification if <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/09/truckee-housing-zoomtown/,%20https://www.rmpbs.org/blogs/news/more-mountain-towns-taking-drastic-measures-to-address-housing-shortage/">remote workers drive up housing prices</a>. But there are many communities, particularly across the rural South and Midwest, that could benefit from the influx of new residents and skills while the people relocating can find safer new homes. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, local incentive programs for relocation expanded dramatically during the pandemic. Small American cities are offering financial incentives to young people with particular expertise and families to relocate. <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/369763">Some of these</a> include <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/31/6-us-cities-and-states-that-will-pay-you-to-move-there.html">relocation expenses, housing subsidies and reduction of student loan burdens</a>. </p>
<p>No single rural center can provide all the benefits of larger urban centers, but networks of revitalized towns could start to compensate.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Preparing now</h2>
<p>Climate change poses unprecedented challenges for U.S. population mobility. At the same time, America needs to renew and transform declining rural regions.</p>
<p>Waiting until disaster strikes becomes expensive and chaotic. Revitalizing rural communities now could alleviate migration pressures and help restore the cooperative and supportive ways of rural life. It can be a win-win proposal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169007/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
If rural communities plan carefully – and some already are – they can reinvent themselves as the perfect homes for people fleeing wildfire and hurricane zones.
Hillary A. Brown, Professor of Architecture and Director of the Urban Sustainability Program, City College of New York
Daniel R. Brooks, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/167730
2021-09-20T13:56:28Z
2021-09-20T13:56:28Z
Wildfire and flood disasters are causing ‘climate migration’ within Canada
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420557/original/file-20210910-19-6alez3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C9%2C6461%2C4252&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Properties destroyed by the Lytton Creek wildfire on June 30 are seen as a cloud produced by the fire rises in the mountains above Lytton, B.C. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Summer 2021 saw a succession of record breaking disasters. Wildfires raged in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/opinion/greece-fires-climate-change.html">Greece</a>, <a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/08/07/turkeys-deadly-fires-raise-the-heat-for-erdogan">Turkey</a>, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/us/california-wildfires-heat-updates.html">United States</a> and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8070896/canada-wildfires-climate-change/">Canada</a>. Floods hit <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57858829">western Europe</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58056667">China</a> and have caused hundreds of casualties. Unprecedented rainfall <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/greenland-summit-rain-1.6147508">on the summit of Greenland also triggered massive ice melts</a>. </p>
<p>The release of the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment report</a> confirmed our worst fears about human-induced climate change. The report predicts a worst case scenerio of <a href="https://fortune.com/2021/08/09/un-ipcc-climate-report-how-bad-is-climate-change-scientists-warning-minimize-damage-worst-case-scenario/">4.5 C warming by 2100</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-things-to-watch-for-in-the-latest-ipcc-report-on-climate-science-165430">5 things to watch for in the latest IPCC report on climate science</a>
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<p>Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, called the report “a code red for humanity.” And he’s right, the report issues a stark warning — “unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5 C or even 2 C will be beyond reach.” </p>
<p>Climate change is already affecting every region on earth and the changes are expected to be widespread, rapid and intensifying. The results of the IPCC assessment likely has many Canadians asking, what does this mean for Canada? </p>
<h2>An influx of climate refugees?</h2>
<p>After the IPCC reports release headlines read things like “<a href="https://vancouversun.com/opinion/pete-mcmartin-historic-human-tsunami-likely-in-canadas-future">Historic human tsunami likely in Canada’s future</a>” and “<a href="https://www.deseret.com/2021/8/13/22617380/climate-change-wildfires-floods-natural-disasters-lead-to-climate-migration-refugees">The great climate migration is happening and you might be the next to move</a>.”</p>
<p>A <em>Vancouver Sun</em> article used unreliable estimates of the number of “climate refugees” to make its point. The article read “there can be as many as one billion environmental migrants by 2050,” which is a statistic that is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL10710325">widely misquoted</a> and <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/apps/njlite/srex/njlite_download.php?id=5866">often attributed to the UN International Organization of Migrants (IOM)</a>. In a <a href="https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/mecc_outlook.pdf">2014 report by the IOM</a> to address estimates of climate or environmental migrants. It stated that there was “great uncertainty about the figures,” and noted that the forecasts for the number of environmental migrants vary widely — <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2019/11/unpacking-sanders-climate-refugee-statistic/">by as much as a factor of 40 — or between 25 million and one billion</a>. </p>
<p>Structing an article around an influx of climate refugees may create fear for some Canadians. The reality is however, that the majority of displaced peoples do not cross borders, and one of the largest categories of displaced peoples is <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html">internally displaced peoples</a>. One could conclude that those displaced by the consequences of climate change will also likely be internally displaced. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People walk along a beach with bags on their heads and belongins in their arms after being rescued from a flooded area" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421210/original/file-20210914-19-wfm0d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421210/original/file-20210914-19-wfm0d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421210/original/file-20210914-19-wfm0d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421210/original/file-20210914-19-wfm0d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421210/original/file-20210914-19-wfm0d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421210/original/file-20210914-19-wfm0d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421210/original/file-20210914-19-wfm0d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In June 2021, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees said that conflicts and the impact of climate change were among the leading sources of new flows of refugees and internally displaced people in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Climate migration within Canada</h2>
<p>Another common climate change concern for Canadians is <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/16/opinion/canadas-domestic-climate-refugees">climate migration within our country</a>. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html">Climate migrants</a> are people who may be displaced by wildfires or floods or choose to move away from disaster-prone regions. As one headline states: “<a href="https://vancouversun.com/news/climate-displacement-a-growing-concern-in-b-c-as-extreme-weather-forces-residents-out-of-their-homes">Climate displacement a growing concern in B.C. as extreme weather forces residents out of their homes</a>.” </p>
<p>Many saw <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfire-lytton-residents-return-home-1.6096115">the destruction of Lytton, B.C.,</a> by wildfires this summer as an example of what our future holds if serious action is not taken to reduce the impacts of climate change. As the frequency and intensity of disasters increase, the idea of moving to escape the consequences of climate change feels more real. And for some it is already happening. </p>
<p>In 2019, Georgia Fisher told the <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/16/opinion/canadas-domestic-climate-refugees"><em>National Observer</em></a>: “I just moved east along with my partner and infant daughter, after about 15 years in Alberta… I wouldn’t have begun to consider this move if it weren’t for last summer and all the smoke.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white picket fence is all that remains after a fire tore through a property" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420558/original/file-20210910-23-16dz6m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420558/original/file-20210910-23-16dz6m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420558/original/file-20210910-23-16dz6m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420558/original/file-20210910-23-16dz6m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420558/original/file-20210910-23-16dz6m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420558/original/file-20210910-23-16dz6m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420558/original/file-20210910-23-16dz6m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Damaged structures are seen in Lytton, B.C., in July after a wildfire destroyed most of the village.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
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<h2>Moving for climate change</h2>
<p>For Canadians who may want to move proactively, the environmental policy and sustainability of their new home will be an important factor. </p>
<p>An Angus Reid Institute survey conducted on Aug. 16, with a representative sample of 1,511 Canadians, found that 76 per cent of Canadians say environmental policy and sustainability are a priority when considering where to live, with 45 per cent considering it an essential or high priority. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="graph showing priority of environmental policy when considering where to live" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420525/original/file-20210910-16-1du15kx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420525/original/file-20210910-16-1du15kx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420525/original/file-20210910-16-1du15kx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420525/original/file-20210910-16-1du15kx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420525/original/file-20210910-16-1du15kx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420525/original/file-20210910-16-1du15kx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420525/original/file-20210910-16-1du15kx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">How much of a priority the environmental policy and/or sustainability of an area is to Canadians when considering where to live.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Yvonne Su)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>People in British Columbia, Ontario, Québec and the Atlantic provinces were more likely to prioritize environmental policy and sustainability in considering where to live than people who live in the Prairies.</p>
<p>Differences also existed between age groups — 19 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 18 and 34 indicated that the environmental policy and/or sustainability of an area is an essential priority when considering where to live, while those aged 55+ were more likely to say it is a high priority (34 per cent).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="graph showing priority of environmental policy when considering where to live" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420526/original/file-20210910-25-2qpd1r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420526/original/file-20210910-25-2qpd1r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420526/original/file-20210910-25-2qpd1r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420526/original/file-20210910-25-2qpd1r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420526/original/file-20210910-25-2qpd1r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420526/original/file-20210910-25-2qpd1r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420526/original/file-20210910-25-2qpd1r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The age breakdown of answers to the question ‘How much of a priority, if at all, is environmental policy and/or sustainability of an area when considering where to live?’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Yvonne Su)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The impact of these findings</h2>
<p>So what do these findings mean? There are calls for stronger policies to address climate change and <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_628654.pdf">promote green jobs</a>. Advocacy groups are asking political parties to stop working for the interest of the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/opinion-oates-election-greenwashing-1.6146254">oil and gas industry</a> and instead work for Canadians. </p>
<p>In response to the IPCC’s sixth assessment, the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wilkinson-climate-report-1.6135502">Liberal government argued</a> that revenue generated by the Trans Mountain pipeline will help Canada achieve its climate objectives. Academic research into the financial impact of fossil fuel divestment has found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2020.1806020">divestment does not result in financial harm to investors</a>. </p>
<p>While fighting climate change may start at home, through recycling programs and sustainable purchasing, it may soon grow into moving to cities and towns where a more sustainable lifestyle is achievable. So while academic studies are behind on addressing whether climate migration is inevitable in Canada, wildfires, floods and other disasters are already forcing people to flee. </p>
<p>We need to act fast, politicians need to implement environmental policies that will fill their constituents desire for living in a community that has good environmental policy and sustainability practices, or they will go and find it somewhere else.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvonne Su does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
76 per cent of Canadians say environmental policy and sustainability is a priority when considering where to live.
Yvonne Su, Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies, York University, Canada
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146905
2020-10-07T14:15:37Z
2020-10-07T14:15:37Z
Climate migration: what the research shows is very different from the alarmist headlines
<p>Predictions of mass climate migration make for attention-grabbing headlines. For more than two decades, commentators have predicted “waves” and “rising tides” of people forced to move by climate change. Recently, a think-tank report warned the climate crisis could <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/09/climate-crisis-could-displace-12bn-people-by-2050-report-warns">displace 1.2 billion people</a> by 2050. Some commentators now even argue that, as the New York Times noted in a recent headline “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html">The Great Climate Migration Has Begun</a>”, and that the climate refugees we’ve been warned about are, in fact, <a href="https://africatimes.com/2019/12/24/africas-climate-refugees-are-already-here-and-there/">already here</a>. </p>
<p>These alarming statements are often well-intentioned. Their aim is to raise awareness of the plight of people vulnerable to climate change and motivate humanitarian action on their behalf. But such headlines aren’t always accurate – and rarely achieve their intended effect.</p>
<p>Our main concern is that alarming headlines about mass climate migrations risk leading to more walls, not fewer. Indeed, many on the right and far right are now setting aside their <a href="https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/nationalising-the-climate-is-the-european-far-right-turning-green/">climate denialism</a> and linking climate action to ideas of <a href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/far-right-climate-change-orban-wilders-salvini-eco-fascism">territory and ethnic purity</a>. In this context of growing <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/when-climate-activism-and-nationalism-collide/">climate nationalism</a>, even the most well-intentioned narratives risk feeding <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-migration-proved-too-political-for-the-paris-agreement-and-rightly-so-52133">fear-based stories of invasion</a> when they present climate migration as unprecedented and massive, urgent and destabilising. </p>
<p>The risk is only made worse when headlines point to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1068/a45388">racialised populations</a> from the global south as on their way to the European Union, the US or Australia: places already in the grips of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1748048518802237">moral panics about migration</a>.</p>
<p>We do not deny that climate change influences migration. We cannot ignore the damage done to communities around the world by rising sea levels, worsening droughts and catastrophic forest fires. These raise new and serious challenges we must contend with. Yet the above narratives are misleading and damaging, when the concept of human mobility requires a deeper and more nuanced approach. It’s important we take these harsh realities seriously but avoid being too alarmist or seeing everything as being determined by the climate. </p>
<p>In general, we are concerned by the inaccurate portrayal of migration. People have always moved under the combined influences of changing environments, economies and sociopolitical dynamics. Climate migration is neither new nor extraordinary. It is not even that different from other forms of migration – climate migrants still tend to move to places they know or have connections to through their social networks.</p>
<p>These are key aspects of the idea of “climate mobilities”, which we developed in a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0633-3?fbclid=IwAR0-BfcKJbf6ChiSQo0LgsoA6TZMqfUrSNsX-G_RMq0aE2nfqn_2-_TrnXA">Nature Climate Change</a> commentary with 31 co-authors including anthropologists, geographers and political scientists. We point to how mobility in the context of climate change is highly diverse – what the vast body of empirical research on the subject has shown is far different from the image of mass movements of people moving abroad. </p>
<p>Instead, we see highly varied and fragmented climate-related journeys. For instance, climate mobility can take the form of short-term, short-distance movements, rural-to-urban migration, or <a href="https://www.fmreview.org/syria2018/farbotko">voluntary immobility</a>. Contrary to the alarmist rhetoric of mass international migration, most movements <a href="https://www.internal-displacement.org/internal-displacement">do not involve crossing a border</a>. For instance <a href="https://www.internal-displacement.org/research-areas/displacement-in-a-changing-climate">a million Somalians</a> were internally displaced by a drought in 2016-17 – this dwarfs the numbers involved in any international climate migration.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362133/original/file-20201007-22-1oostuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women and their babies walk across a dry desert." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362133/original/file-20201007-22-1oostuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362133/original/file-20201007-22-1oostuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362133/original/file-20201007-22-1oostuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362133/original/file-20201007-22-1oostuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362133/original/file-20201007-22-1oostuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362133/original/file-20201007-22-1oostuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362133/original/file-20201007-22-1oostuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2016 drought also displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Ethiopia – but again, almost all stayed within the country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/unicefethiopia/31199949331/in/album-72157660029753816/">UNICEF Ethiopia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fully understanding climate mobilities requires a broader evidence base than is typically used. Many problematic narratives rely mainly on quantitative modelling, reading peoples’ experiences only through that lens. More <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/gere.12355">research collaboration</a> with the social sciences and humanities would improve our understanding, as these disciplines can provide a sensitivity to context that models alone will never achieve.</p>
<h2>Affected people are telling their own stories</h2>
<p>As we turn to a more diverse set of perspectives, affected people must themselves be included. They are already telling <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/423210/pacific-climate-warriors-call-for-a-just-recovery">their own stories</a>, in their own words. It’s crucial that we listen, especially when they contradict our research findings and personal intuitions. Listening to Pacific Islanders, for example, tells us that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/may/16/one-day-disappear-tuvalu-sinking-islands-rising-seas-climate-change">easy tales of “sinking islands”</a> aren’t the whole story. Activists throughout the region have distilled their message of themselves as powerful actors in the fight for climate justice (and against climate migration) in the catchcry: “We are not drowning, we are fighting”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361370/original/file-20201002-20-93v33t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Protesters hold up signs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361370/original/file-20201002-20-93v33t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361370/original/file-20201002-20-93v33t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361370/original/file-20201002-20-93v33t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361370/original/file-20201002-20-93v33t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361370/original/file-20201002-20-93v33t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361370/original/file-20201002-20-93v33t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361370/original/file-20201002-20-93v33t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘We are not drowning, we are fighting’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Carol Farbotko</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Halfway across the world, interviews with <a href="https://icld.se/en/publications/faye-ribot-turner-2019-climate-change-is-not-the-cause-migration-is-not-the-problem-local-representation-and-precarious-young-farmers-leaving-senegal/">young farmers in Senegal living in precarious situations</a> found that, while climate change does threaten their livelihoods, it is not their key concern, and they do not see migration as a problem. They want stronger local government, more local economic opportunities and the choice to migrate regardless of cause, if it can mean a better life for them and their families.</p>
<p>Finally, research and reporting on climate migration needs to better consider destination areas. Policymakers throughout the global north are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/18/home-office-policies-based-anecdotes-prejudice-damning-report">notoriously incapable</a> and reluctant to take the complex realities of migration into account, to the point of sometimes <a href="https://crisismag.net/2020/05/09/fund-but-disregard-the-eus-relationship-to-academic-research-on-mobility/">disregarding the research they fund</a>. Instead they justify anti-immigration policies such as the UK’s “hostile environment” by presenting the interests and desires of “native” populations as competing with those of new arrivals. </p>
<p>These narratives of inevitable economic and cultural conflict need to be challenged. For this, we can draw on a <a href="https://acssmigration.wordpress.com/report/">large body of work</a> that shows migrants aren’t all rich and successful, or poor and excluded, and that successful projects take these differences into account, listen to migrants themselves and promote open dialogue with established populations. </p>
<p>Building an open, diverse, and accepting society in times of crisis and change is a difficult task. We should take care not to make it harder by promoting fear-based stories of climate migration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Durand-Delacre receives funding from the Cambridge Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carol Farbotko receives funding from Australian Research Council LP170101136 </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christiane Fröhlich receives funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under research agreement No. 822806.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ingrid Boas receives funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO, Grant Number: 451-16-030); a Veni project on environmentally-related mobility in the digital age.</span></em></p>
Climate migrants still tend to move to places they know or have connections to through their social networks.
David Durand-Delacre, PhD Candidate in Geography, University of Cambridge
Carol Farbotko, Human Geographer, University of the Sunshine Coast
Christiane Fröhlich, Research Fellow, German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Ingrid Boas, Associate Professor, Wageningen University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/145776
2020-09-25T13:32:21Z
2020-09-25T13:32:21Z
How many people will migrate due to rising sea levels? Why our best guesses aren’t good enough
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359637/original/file-20200923-17-1aj7d88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C108%2C2074%2C1269&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many villages in coastal Bangladesh are struggling with erosion of land, homes and crops.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An article in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2010.0291">2011</a> shocked many by suggesting that up to 187 million people could be forced to leave their homes as a result of two metres of sea level rise by 2100. Almost a decade on, some of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12808-z">latest estimates</a> suggest that as many as 630 million people may live on land below projected annual flood levels by the end of the century.</p>
<p>The idea that rising seas will force millions to move, unleashing a refugee crisis like no other, has now become commonplace. It’s a narrative that the media are <a href="https://theconversation.com/chasing-dinghies-media-must-remember-asylum-seekers-are-human-beings-not-just-a-good-story-144303">fond of</a>, but that does not mean it is based on evidence.</p>
<p>The potential scale of sea level rise is becoming clearer, but this does not necessarily translate into population movements. Everything we have learned so far suggests that decisions to migrate are far more complex than a simple flight response.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abb398">our new review article</a>, we looked at 33 different studies that have estimated how sea level rise will affect migration patterns. Reliable estimates are important to help support vulnerable populations, but there is deep uncertainty around the amount of people who will be exposed to rising seas, and how they will respond.</p>
<h2>Trapped populations</h2>
<p>We looked carefully at the methods and data sets of these studies to try and tease out uncertainties. One issue plaguing their estimates is assumptions about the number of people who will be living in vulnerable low-lying areas in the future.</p>
<p>Most of the studies we reviewed did note that the connections between migration and sea level rise are incredibly complex. Every person directly affected isn’t guaranteed to move away as a result. People may be just as likely to try and protect their homes against the water, by building sea walls or elevating their houses.</p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/2014EF000278">impossible</a> to predict how each person will respond, and there are countless reasons why someone might choose to stay in the place they call home rather than move or seek shelter elsewhere. Those who may be forced to migrate and resettle due to climate change receive far <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0197918319831952">more attention</a> than those left behind. These so-called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-017-1007-6">“trapped” populations</a> can be just as vulnerable as those on the move, if not more so.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A wooden sailboat rests on a green bank next to a palm tree which has been overwhelmed by the rising water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359643/original/file-20200923-23-ba51r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359643/original/file-20200923-23-ba51r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359643/original/file-20200923-23-ba51r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359643/original/file-20200923-23-ba51r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359643/original/file-20200923-23-ba51r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359643/original/file-20200923-23-ba51r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359643/original/file-20200923-23-ba51r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Despite flooding and erosion, many of the Bangladeshis we interviewed said they cannot or do not want to leave their home villages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Research suggests that the decision to stay or leave will have as much to do with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0443-2">emotional</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2020.100237">social</a> pressures as financial or practical reasons. People may feel afraid or find it unbearable to leave, while others lack the necessary support. Many may feel obliged to stay due to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/apv.12231">binding social ties and reponsibilities</a>.</p>
<p>How the health and wellbeing of those staying behind will be affected by rising seas is poorly investigated. More research is needed to understand the realities of staying put, for those who choose to stay and those who are unable to leave.</p>
<h2>Where do we go from here?</h2>
<p>Research on sea level rise and migration has often tried to obtain global estimates of those likely to be affected. These are useful for drawing attention to the potential scale of future impacts, but they lack local insights that could help make the picture clearer for different areas.</p>
<p>Rising sea levels are just one of the many ways climate change is remaking our world. Understanding how sea level rise interacts with other environmental changes, such as increased temperatures and changing rainfall patterns will be important, but this stretches the ability <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8050131">to predict exact migration numbers</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young girl stands on a concrete bank as a red, wooden boat returns from fishing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359645/original/file-20200923-24-7lpvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359645/original/file-20200923-24-7lpvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359645/original/file-20200923-24-7lpvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359645/original/file-20200923-24-7lpvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359645/original/file-20200923-24-7lpvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359645/original/file-20200923-24-7lpvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359645/original/file-20200923-24-7lpvqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young girl watches as a group of men return home from a fishing trip.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite all the unknowns, we do know that coastal changes wrought by climate change will be significant, and they require action now. That means devising measures to prevent or reduce inundation, figuring out how to live with the water, and planning for successful ways to migrate and resettle. Evaluating options, developing scenarios, and making decisions around this must happen now, rather than waiting for the issue to become more urgent.</p>
<p>It is just as important to avoid repeating <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/31/how-helpful-is-the-term-climate-refugee">myths</a> around climate change triggering vast flows of people from the so-called “Global South” seeking refuge in the so-called “Global North”. We do know that people will not inevitably flee across borders in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.24043/isj.120">warming world</a>. Where migration does happen, movements within countries <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0578-2">are often neglected</a> on the likely flawed assumption that most migrants are crossing borders.</p>
<p>The narratives create unnecessary concern while shifting focus away from what really matters – helping vulnerable people. Not only do these myths reproduce xenophobic and outdated <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci9060103">colonial power relations</a> based on unfounded arguments, but they also create unnecessary fear and hostile environments for migrant populations around the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson works for UNU-EHS. She currently receives funding from GIZ for the IMPACT project. She is also affiliated with the Lancet Countdown and University of Sussex, and is an editorial board member for Climate and Development and UCL Open: Environment. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Celia McMichael receives funding from The Australian Research Council and National Geographic, and internal funding from The University of Melbourne. She works on the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change (on which this article is based). She is a Senior Lecturer at The School of Geography at The University of Melbourne. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ilan Kelman receives funding from research councils in the UK and Norway, as well as from the Wellcome Trust (which funded the Lancet Countdown project on which this article is based) and internal UCL funding. He is also Professor II at the University of Agder in Norway and co-directs the non-profit organisation Risk RED (Risk Reduction Education for Disasters).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shouro Dasgupta receives funding from EU H2020 projects as well as internal funding from Fondazione CMCC funding. Shouro is a co-author of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change 2020 report. He is a Researcher at CMCC and a Lecturer at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice.</span></em></p>
Rising sea levels are as likely to trap people as they are to force them to move.
Dr Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, Senior Researcher, Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), United Nations University
Celia McMichael, Senior Lecturer in Geography, The University of Melbourne
Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, UCL
Shouro Dasgupta, Lecturer in Environmental Economics, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/136029
2020-04-15T14:28:25Z
2020-04-15T14:28:25Z
Coronavirus shows we are not at all prepared for the security threat of climate change
<p>How might a single threat, even one deemed unlikely, spiral into an evolving global crisis which challenges the foundations of global security, economic stability and democratic governance, all in the matter of a few weeks?</p>
<p>My research on threats to national security, governance and geopolitics has focused on exactly this question, albeit with a focus on the disruptive potential of climate change, rather than a novel coronavirus. In recent work alongside intelligence and defence experts at the think-tank Center for Climate and Security, I analysed how future warming scenarios could disrupt security and governance worldwide throughout the 21st century. Our culminating report, <a href="https://climateandsecurity.org/a-security-threat-assessment-of-global-climate-change/">A Security Threat Assessment of Global Climate Change</a>, was launched in Washington just as the first coronavirus cases were spreading undetected across the US.</p>
<p>The analysis uses future scenarios to imagine how and where regions might be increasingly vulnerable to the resource, weather and economic shocks brought about by an increasingly destabilised climate. In it, we warn:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even at scenarios of low warming, each region of the world will face severe risks to national and global security in the next three decades. Higher levels of warming will pose catastrophic, and likely irreversible, global security risks over the course of the 21st century.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Little did we know when writing these words and imagining the rapidly evolving shocks to come, that a very similar test of our global system was already brewing as governments sputtered to contain the damage of COVID-19.</p>
<p>Over the first few crucial weeks of this crisis, we’ve seen world leaders take a number of actions that indicate how climate shocks could destabilise the world order. With climate change disasters, as with infectious diseases, rapid response time and global coordination are of the essence. At this stage in the COVID-19 situation, there are three primary lessons for a climate-changing future: the immense challenge of global coordination during a crisis, the potential for authoritarian emergency responses, and the spiralling danger of compounding shocks.</p>
<h2>An uncoordinated response</h2>
<p>First, while the COVID-19 crisis has engendered a massive public response, governments have been largely uncoordinated in their efforts to manage the virus’s spread. According to Oxford’s <a href="https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/research-projects/oxford-covid-19-government-response-tracker">COVID-19 Government Response Tracker</a>, countries vary widely in the stringency of their policies, with no two countries implementing a synchronised course of action.</p>
<p>While traditionally a great power like the US might step forward to direct a collective international response, instead the Trump administration has repeatedly chosen to blindside its allies with the introduction of new limitations on trade and movement of peoples. This mismanagement has led to each nation going on its own, despite the fact that working together would net greater gains for all. As the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/world/europe/coronavirus-leadership-trump.html">New York Times’s Mark Landler</a> put it, the voices of world leaders are forming “less a choir than a cacophony”, leading to mixed global messages, undetected spread, and ongoing fights over limited resources.</p>
<p>In the face of climate change, such a lack of coordination could be be highly destabilising to world social and economic order. The mass displacement of people, the devaluation of assets, rising seas and natural disasters will call for shared practices and common decency in the face of continued tragedy. Many climate impacts will raise new questions the world has yet to answer. What do we do with nation-states that can <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/may/16/one-day-disappear-tuvalu-sinking-islands-rising-seas-climate-change">no longer reside in their homeland</a>? How do we compensate sectors for ceasing harmful practices such as fossil fuel extraction and deforestation, especially where national economies may depend on them? </p>
<p>We also face new global governance questions around the use of risky geoengineering technologies, which can be deployed unilaterally to alter local climates, but with the potential for vast unintended regional or even global consequences. These are challenges which, like climate change itself, can only be solved collectively through <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-need-to-get-involved-in-the-geoengineering-debate-now-85619">coordinated policies and clear communication</a>. The sort of wayward responses and lack of leadership in response to COVID-19 would only lead to further destruction of livelihoods and order in the decades to come.</p>
<h2>Authoritarian agendas</h2>
<p>This historic moment is also offering new opportunities for leaders to further dangerous, illiberal agendas. Authoritarians have long used emergency situations as a pretext to further curtail individual rights and consolidate personal power against backdrops of real or imagined public danger. We’ve seen these actions spiral worldwide in the past month in autocracies and backsliding democracies, alike. </p>
<p>President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines has given security services the directive to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/dead-duterte-warns-violating-lockdown-200401164531160.html">open fire on protestors</a> while Vladimir Putin is deploying mass surveillance technologies and new criminal penalties to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/01/825329399/moscow-launches-new-surveillance-app-to-track-residents-in-coronavirus-lockdown?t=1585910941227">monitor the Russian population</a>. Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán has forced new emergency powers through parliament that muzzle political opposition and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/04/europe-hungary-viktor-orban-coronavirus-covid19-democracy/609313/">allow for his indefinite rule</a>. Even the supposed democratic bastions of the US and the UK are seeing worrying signs of autocratic policies, as surveillance drones are deployed to monitor citizens, scientific expertise is undermined, and open-ended <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/coronavirus-suspects-may-be-detained-under-uk-emergency-powers">emergency powers</a> are granted to police forces for undetermined time frames.</p>
<p>A warming world will only result in more disaster-related events for power-hungry leaders to take advantage of in the years ahead. From the nationalisation of resources to the deployment of militaries in response to climate shocks, it can be all-too-easy for public safety needs to bleed into personal political opportunities. The second-order effects of climate change, from supply chain instability to the migration of peoples, will also provide authoritarian leaders more fodder for their ethno-nationalist ideologies, which inflame divisions in society and could help broaden their personal appeal. Without clear and sturdy limits on executive power, the disruptive impacts of climate change will be used to further chip away at democratic freedoms across the world.</p>
<h2>Overlapping shocks are the new normal</h2>
<p>Finally, this situation is teaching the globalised world new lessons on the devastating consequences of compounding shocks. Managing a deadly global pandemic is bad enough, even before you layer on the massive unemployment, trade disruptions and economic shutdown that its mitigation sets in motion. </p>
<p>The months ahead will bring about additional crises – some related to the pandemic, like a massive uptick in public debt used to bail out national economies. But other near-term shocks may themselves be climate change-induced, from new forecasts for <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/noaa-predicts-widespread-us-river-flooding-this-spring">large-scale floods this spring</a> in the central US, to a prospective repeat of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/08/22/europe-see-third-major-heat-wave-this-year-temperatures-soar-france-scandinavia/">2019’s severe summer heat waves</a> across Europe. </p>
<p>These disasters have the potential to strike just at the time when people are being advised to shelter inside, many in at-risk areas and without adequate indoor cooling. Overlapping, historic shocks like this are becoming the new normal in our climate-changed era. As public disaster response budgets spiral and loss of life mounts each year, governments will continue to struggle to contain their compounding damage.</p>
<p>Scientists and security professionals alike have long warned about the devastating potential of climate change, alluding to how it might rattle our global governance systems to breaking point. But few could have expected that the fissures in our institutions would be revealed so soon, let alone on such a disturbingly large scale.</p>
<p>We can treat the current global crisis as a sort of “stress test” on these institutions, exposing their vulnerabilities but also providing the urgent impetus to build new resilience. In that light, we could successfully rebound from this moment with more solid global security and cooperation than we knew going into it. Decision-makers should take a hard look at their current responses, problem-solving methods, and institutional design with future climate forecasts like our <a href="https://climateandsecurity.org/a-security-threat-assessment-of-global-climate-change/">Threat Assessment</a> in mind. </p>
<p>We know that even steeper and more frequent global shocks are in store, particularly without serious climate change mitigation efforts. What we don’t yet know is whether we’ll repeat current patterns of mismanagement and abuse, or if we’ll chart a more proactive and resilient course through the risks that lie ahead.</p>
<hr>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/imagine-newsletter-researchers-think-of-a-world-with-climate-action-113443?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Imagineheader1136029">Click here to subscribe to our climate action newsletter. Climate change is inevitable. Our response to it isn’t.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136029/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Guy is a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Climate and Security.</span></em></p>
If the pandemic is a sort of climate ‘stress-test’, the world is failing it.
Kate Guy, PhD Candidate and Lecturer in International Relations, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127764
2019-12-13T12:08:03Z
2019-12-13T12:08:03Z
This Bangladeshi man’s story shows why linking climate change with conflict is no simple matter
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306677/original/file-20191212-85381-z6hbpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2995%2C1694&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Muzaffar's life story illustrates the complex linkages between climate change and conflict.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-not-a-key-cause-of-conflict-finds-new-study-94331">Sudan</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/link-between-climate-change-and-armed-conflict-is-exaggerated-new-study-67182">Syria</a> to <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2014/06/will-climate-change-spark-conflict-in-bangladesh/">Bangladesh</a>, climate change is often presented as a powerful and simple root cause of violent conflict and mass migration.</p>
<p>These narratives <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12106">can be dangerous</a>. Directly linking climate change with aggression and mass migration risks dehumanising those vulnerable to environmental stresses, and casts their attempts to escape a problem caused by mainly rich nations as a security threat. It promotes fear and isolation, rather than compassion and assistance. It also frames conflicts as <a href="https://theconversation.com/link-between-climate-change-and-armed-conflict-is-exaggerated-new-study-67182">“natural”</a>, ignoring myriad preventable causes.</p>
<p>The truth is more complicated than a hotter planet inevitably meaning more violence, war and chaos. Research uncovering the individual life experiences of vulnerable people on the ground show that the link between climate and conflict is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-016-0379-z">not simple, nor linear</a>. A destabilising climate merely adds extra pressure to a great many pre-existing difficulties.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-016-0379-z">My research in Bangladesh</a>, and the story of one man in particular – 55-year-old Muzaffar from Babupur <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/VoetxwusaJexmeo6A">in the north-east of the country</a> – perfectly illustrates this complexity. In order to truly defend his future, and that of countless others in similar positions, we must understand and tackle structural and social causes of conflict.</p>
<p>Muzaffar’s story begins like so many others here: with a difficult past. Poverty forced Muzaffar to work as a child and he never had a chance to attend school. The day he got a family of his own, his main concern was putting food on the table.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SEX_VP8c6VM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>At the time, food in the area was scarce due to the lack of rain and, as the local climate became less stable, his village <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12665-016-5829-5">struggled increasingly with drought</a>. It was difficult to make money in the village, so Muzaffar decided to leave his wife and eight children behind and migrated to the capital, Dhaka.</p>
<p>Here, he worked as a day labourer in the harbour, carrying sand and stones on his head. Unable to afford a house, he lived in a shared dormitory shed made of tin, and full of mosquitoes and ants.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I suffered a lot. We were about 50-60 people stuck in there … As I was not educated I could not really change my profession or build up a career. I just made sure to care for my family. That was all that kept me going.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>After deciding to return home, Muzaffar settled down close to a pond on government-owned land. The local government reassured him that he could stay there. However, powerful men, who had already filed a claim to the land in the local court, showed up one day planting trees next to his house – a common land-grabbing strategy in the area. Muzaffar described their encounter:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I told the man … If you win, you will get the land, but for now I will not allow you to plant trees on my land. You can plant [your trees] in the open land instead … They did not want to listen and kept on planting trees.</p>
<p>So after a while I went over there to reason with him and pulled away his hand to stop him. He stood up abruptly, and hit me with his spade. I tried to protect myself with my hand, but it cut straight through my hand into my face, here, right next to my eye.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306698/original/file-20191212-85422-4cixhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306698/original/file-20191212-85422-4cixhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306698/original/file-20191212-85422-4cixhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306698/original/file-20191212-85422-4cixhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306698/original/file-20191212-85422-4cixhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306698/original/file-20191212-85422-4cixhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306698/original/file-20191212-85422-4cixhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muzaffar tenderly held his granddaughter’s hand throughout our conversation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Muzaffar fainted as soon as the spade hit his head. His landless indigenous neighbours tried to help him and put him into a taxi to the hospital but his attackers tried to stop him from getting into the vehicle. They would not allow the taxi to leave until Muzaffar’s uncle screamed: “If you want him dead, you better kill him now!”.</p>
<p>The police came to the village to investigate what had happened, but Muzaffar could not afford the payment or bribe commonly required for their service. Unable to pay the police, the case is still running in the regional high court, decades later. In the words of Muzaffar, “he who is poor cannot afford to pay the price for justice”.</p>
<p>Thankfully, Muzaffar’s life took a positive change. He did not get justice in court, but a few years ago a local NGO gave him a few goats and a sheep, and Bangladesh’s largest NGO gave him a cow. Muzaffar decided to sell his animals, using the money to get a loan, buy a harvester machine, and start a small business. </p>
<p>These days he keeps livestock, harvests other people’s land, rents out his machine, and does share cropping – a collective form of agriculture in which a landowner allows people to farm their land in return for a share of the crops. He has already started to pay back his loans. His eyes were filled with pride during my last visit as he shared the news that his youngest daughter had just finished her bachelor’s degree.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306693/original/file-20191212-85428-forln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306693/original/file-20191212-85428-forln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306693/original/file-20191212-85428-forln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306693/original/file-20191212-85428-forln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306693/original/file-20191212-85428-forln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306693/original/file-20191212-85428-forln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306693/original/file-20191212-85428-forln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The life stories of people facing climate change in Bangladesh can be dark, but success stories such as Muzaffar’s exist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Others, of course, are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01436591003701141">not so lucky</a>. Some are unable to pay their loans, some are forced to sell their land and assets to pay them off – and some lose their livelihoods or end up in jail.</p>
<h2>Complex causes</h2>
<p>The loss of natural resources in the area due to climatic stress played a role in the conflict Muzaffar faced. However, so did land politics and power dynamics, social stigmatisation, discrimination, and the legacy of colonialism.</p>
<p>Muzaffar was poor. He was landless. He was not protected by the law. The justice system made it easy for those with more power to take his land. The men who attacked him had powerful connections in the village.</p>
<p>Many of these power relations, both in <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/31346/">Bangladesh</a> and elsewhere, owe their existence to decisions made during colonial rule. For example, while colonial laws governing the division of land no longer apply, they entrenched inequality in access to resources and influence that still persists today, giving rise to conflict that may never had occurred had countries developed autonomously.</p>
<p>Muzaffar is a man of working age, but many in similar positions suffer added structural barriers. <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-migration-in-bangladesh-one-womans-perspective-107131">Women</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-bangladeshi-woman-can-tell-you-how-real-climate-change-is-68212">elderly</a>, and <a href="https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/content/dam/gb/reports/stop_the_war_on_children_report_2019.pdf">children</a> suffer more from the <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32596-6/fulltext">impacts</a> of both <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/12/why-do-humanitarian-crises-disproportionately-affect-women/">conflict</a> and <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-health/climate-change-exposes-future-generations-to-life-long-health-harm-idUKKBN1XN2WQ">climate change</a>. Unless we address the social power structures responsible for these inequalities, they will continue to be disproportionately affected.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306694/original/file-20191212-85376-3nylta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306694/original/file-20191212-85376-3nylta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306694/original/file-20191212-85376-3nylta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306694/original/file-20191212-85376-3nylta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306694/original/file-20191212-85376-3nylta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306694/original/file-20191212-85376-3nylta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306694/original/file-20191212-85376-3nylta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The link between climate change and conflict has long been disputed in academia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/we-need-to-do-more-to-understand-how-climate-change-and-conflict-are-linked-heres-why/">surprisingly little empirical evidence</a> of how social, psychological, financial, geographical, and political factors contribute to conflict, and how climate change interacts with them. We need much more diverse and interdisciplinary research to better understand how to protect vulnerable people from both conflict and climate change.</p>
<p>Arenas such as COP25, the latest iteration of the UN’s annual climate change summit, <a href="https://unfccc.int/process/bodies/constituted-bodies/executive-committee-of-the-warsaw-international-mechanism-for-loss-and-damage-wim-excom/areas-of-work/non-economic-losses">have the capacity</a> to advance these research efforts. Our children recognise the urgency and are demanding that we <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/23/greta-thunberg-full-speech-to-mps-you-did-not-act-in-time">look at the science</a>. It is time to listen.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/imagine-newsletter-researchers-think-of-a-world-with-climate-action-113443?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Imagineheader1127764">Click here to subscribe to our climate action newsletter. Climate change is inevitable. Our response to it isn’t.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127764/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Directly linking climate change with aggression and mass migration risks dehumanising those vulnerable to environmental stresses. Mufazzar’s story does the opposite.
Dr Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, Senior Researcher, Institute for Environment and Human Security, United Nations University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127681
2019-12-03T14:35:56Z
2019-12-03T14:35:56Z
Climate, not conflict, drove many Syrian refugees to Lebanon
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303225/original/file-20191122-74593-1copphe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C1532&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Refugees in the city of Qab Illyas in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley dig their own water wells.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hussein A. Amery</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People who fled Syria in recent years are often viewed as war refugees because of the violence that has engulfed much of the country since 2011. </p>
<p>But those from the northern and northeastern parts of Syria may more accurately be viewed as climate refugees, fleeing not a worsening conflict but an increasingly severe drought. </p>
<p>I have been studying various aspects of <a href="https://hass.mines.edu/project/amery-hussein/">water and food security in the Middle East</a> for a long time. Now I have begun a new project studying the social and economic conditions needed to repatriate rural refugees to the farming communities in Syria. </p>
<p>My recent interviews with Syrian refugees who now live in Lebanon reveal that climate is a major obstacle for many people when they consider returning to their homeland.</p>
<p>In Syria, most farming relies on rain, not irrigation, which makes it vulnerable to climate change. Many refugees from the Raqqa region tell a similar story: As one told me, “The land has been giving less and less.” </p>
<p>The reason, they told me, is that it rains far less than it used to when they were young farmers, and rainfall is less predictable. </p>
<p><iframe id="VYiWe" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/VYiWe/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Increasing drought</h2>
<p>Historically, northern Syria has been a productive agricultural area, making up part of the fabled Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, where humans first began farming around 9,000 B.C. An <a href="https://ipad.fas.usda.gov/highlights/2009/05/Syria/">estimated 75 percent of Syria’s wheat production</a> is in northern and northeastern parts of the country: Al Haksa, Ar-Raqqa, Aleppo and Dayr Az Zawr provinces.</p>
<p>In general, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/middle-east-a-geographical-study/oclc/1007924650">precipitation is highest in the coastal areas</a> in the west of the country and along the Turkish border to the north. Usually, there is enough rain to support rain-fed farming and pastureland for sheep and goat herders. Rainfall decreases farther east and south in the country.</p>
<p>In the last few centuries, the country’s drought cycle has become more frequent, from having a drought once every 55 years, to every 27 years, to every 13. Now, droughts happen <a href="https://lb.boell.org/sites/default/files/uploads/2010/12/drought_in_syria_en.pdf#page=5">every seven or eight years</a>.</p>
<p>The poorest peasants of the Raqqa region are hit the hardest because they do not have many assets to sell in times of drought – nor any surplus grains to save for the next planting season. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303227/original/file-20191122-74584-ps4je3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303227/original/file-20191122-74584-ps4je3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303227/original/file-20191122-74584-ps4je3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303227/original/file-20191122-74584-ps4je3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303227/original/file-20191122-74584-ps4je3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303227/original/file-20191122-74584-ps4je3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303227/original/file-20191122-74584-ps4je3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303227/original/file-20191122-74584-ps4je3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Syrian refugee children play on a hill above their refugee camp in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Syria-Human-Rights/5128275260d64ed1b8f92e9b8fc90990/5/0">AP Photo/Bilal Hussein</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>People start to move</h2>
<p>There is not a direct, immediate relationship between <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2016.06.005">changing climate and the drive to migrate</a>. The climate can change slowly, and people don’t usually respond instantly when circumstances shift. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/20581831.2016.1149355">Thousands of Syrians</a> have been leaving northern and northeastern parts of the country over the past 20 years or so.</p>
<p>As the severe drought of 2006 to 2011 hit, the number of emigrants rose. A 2011 study found that Syrian households had <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/18929">lost 19.5% of their income</a> as a result of droughts and other environmental factors – and that rain-dependent farmers were hit harder than farmers who relied on irrigation.</p>
<p>The vast majority of Syrians who left northern and northeastern Syria are farmers and unskilled workers. Many of them were drawn, on a permanent or seasonal basis, to the Bekaa Valley, a large agricultural area in eastern Lebanon. The valley enjoys a moderate Mediterranean climate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303226/original/file-20191122-74593-ieao5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303226/original/file-20191122-74593-ieao5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303226/original/file-20191122-74593-ieao5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303226/original/file-20191122-74593-ieao5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303226/original/file-20191122-74593-ieao5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303226/original/file-20191122-74593-ieao5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303226/original/file-20191122-74593-ieao5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303226/original/file-20191122-74593-ieao5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This car, pictured with the author at right, is a mobile store that travels to different refugee camps to do business.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hussein A. Amery</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A rise in refugees</h2>
<p>In 2011, before the Syrian civil war broke out, up to <a href="https://www.lb.undp.org/content/dam/lebanon/docs/CrisisPreventionRecovery/SupplementArticles/16Supp/PEACE%20BUILDING2%2016%20july%202017%20p4.pdf">one million Syrians</a> were believed to be working in Lebanon. </p>
<p>When the violence started, those established settlers drew in relatives and neighbors. Official numbers say there are <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria/location/71">close to a million Syrian refugees</a> also in Lebanon now, in addition to the million workers there before the war. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/04/world/middleeast/syrian-refugees-one-million.html">Lebanese government and U.N. officials</a> believe the actual number is <a href="http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/133338">closer to one and a half million refugees</a>. That means Syrians make up over one-quarter of Lebanon’s population.</p>
<p>In my recent interviews with Syrian refugees in the Bekaa Valley, I learned why they had left their homes and what it might take for them to be ready to go back. The refugees I spoke with came from farming backgrounds. Many were from the city of Raqqa and nearby villages. </p>
<p>A few, especially those from southwestern Syria, spoke of bumper crops and routine farming challenges like varying harvests and the costs of seeds, fertilizer and livestock fodder. However, farmers who came from northern and northeast areas such as Raqqa and nearby towns and villages were almost unanimous in describing how hard farming had become over the last 20 years.</p>
<p>The refugees attributed this to government agriculture policies that changed in the face of drought. The Syrian government reduced the amount of land that could be planted with cotton and sugar beets, water-intensive crops that earn farmers a lot of income. The government tried to boost farmers’ income by selling drought-resistant cotton seeds and sprinkler systems, which conserve water and boost yields. </p>
<p>However, refugees told me, farmers were already financially squeezed from lower yields due to the drought. Most were small-scale farmers, or didn’t own the land they worked, so they could not earn enough to purchase the technology.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303228/original/file-20191122-74593-rjnii0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303228/original/file-20191122-74593-rjnii0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303228/original/file-20191122-74593-rjnii0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303228/original/file-20191122-74593-rjnii0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303228/original/file-20191122-74593-rjnii0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303228/original/file-20191122-74593-rjnii0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303228/original/file-20191122-74593-rjnii0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303228/original/file-20191122-74593-rjnii0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These Syrian refugees are leaving Lebanon to return to their homes. The vast majority are staying behind in Lebanon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Lebanon-Syrian-Refugees/bb99b87396b44258ba1a40e84015928c/10/0">AP Photo/Bilal Hussein</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Heading home?</h2>
<p>Many refugees told me that even if their home region became physically safe to return to, they would not go back. They feared they would be unable to eke out a living from the increasingly arid land. </p>
<p>If they did return, they would also be faced with needing to repair war-damaged wells and irrigation canals and restore services from veterinary experts and farmers’ suppliers, who were driven away by war. Almost all of this infrastructure <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/syria/publication/the-toll-of-war-the-economic-and-social-consequences-of-the-conflict-in-syria">remains unrepaired</a>. </p>
<p>Together, the drought and the war’s destruction mean it’s unlikely that many of these refugees will leave Lebanon anytime soon – if at all. The Syrian civil war may end one day, but the land’s problems will remain.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127681/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hussein A. Amery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Both drought and violence drove many Syrians out of their homes; even if the war ends, the continuing difficulty of farming will make it hard for them to return.
Hussein A. Amery, Professor of International Studies, Colorado School of Mines
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/119414
2019-11-28T09:41:01Z
2019-11-28T09:41:01Z
Climate refugees: why we can’t yet predict where millions of displaced people will go
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287087/original/file-20190806-84240-1v5j5nf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">gregorioa / shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the near future, global warming is expected to create millions of <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-will-displace-millions-in-coming-decades-nations-should-prepare-now-to-help-them-89274">climate refugees</a>, and individuals and organisations are already searching for ways to help them. Some ideas are obvious, such as <a href="http://theport.ch/home/the-port-2017/">improving conditions in refugee camps</a>.</p>
<p>But there are also more high-tech projects such as using algorithms to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2016.05.400">forecast where displaced people will travel to</a>. Such forecasts are crucial. They can help support organisations prepare in the right places, they can evaluate current policy (by assessing a counterfactual “what if” scenario) and they can also help predict refugee populations in remote or dangerous areas where there is little empirical data.</p>
<p>So we can predict where climate refugees will go, right?</p>
<p>No. Despite bold and excitable claims that refugee forecasting is <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613531/big-tech-firms-are-racing-to-track-climate-refugees/">largely resolved</a>, we are not convinced. As computer scientists who work on this exact problem, such claims seem like a painful example of running before we can walk. </p>
<p>Almost four years ago, we started to research how people fled from armed conflicts. Many people were displaced due to the Arab Spring and the Syrian War, but little work had been done to predict where they could end up. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287531/original/file-20190809-144868-cc2rwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287531/original/file-20190809-144868-cc2rwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287531/original/file-20190809-144868-cc2rwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287531/original/file-20190809-144868-cc2rwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287531/original/file-20190809-144868-cc2rwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287531/original/file-20190809-144868-cc2rwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287531/original/file-20190809-144868-cc2rwq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Africa’s Sahel region contains many of the world’s most climate-vulnerable people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">mbrand85 / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With our colleague David Bell, we created a tool that could help, and published our work in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-13828-9">Nature Scientific Reports</a>. Our tool represents every person as an independent agent, and then uses simple rules-of-thumb derived from scientific insights – for instance “people tend to avoid travelling through mountains when it is raining” – to determine when they will move next, and to where.</p>
<p>This is different from “machine learning” approaches, which use historical data to “train” the algorithm to generate rules and thus predictions. So, for example, machine learning might be given this sort of data: “the number of people that arrived in a refugee camp close to a mountainous area in a conflict that occurred perhaps many years ago, or more recently but in a different country.” The main issue is that historical data used for machine learning is always quantitative, and never is about the conflict that the simulation is directly developed for.</p>
<p>To see how our method worked in practice, we tested our tool against <a href="http://data2.unhcr.org/">UNHCR data</a> from three recent conflicts in Burundi, the Central African Republic and Mali. Our tool correctly predicted where more than 75% of the refugees would go.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287515/original/file-20190809-144843-1ywvcgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287515/original/file-20190809-144843-1ywvcgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287515/original/file-20190809-144843-1ywvcgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287515/original/file-20190809-144843-1ywvcgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287515/original/file-20190809-144843-1ywvcgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287515/original/file-20190809-144843-1ywvcgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287515/original/file-20190809-144843-1ywvcgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287515/original/file-20190809-144843-1ywvcgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=700&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Network models for (a) Burundi, (b) Central African Republic and (c) Mali. Conflict zones (red circles), refugee camps (dark green circles), forwarding hubs (light green circles) and other major settlements (yellow circles).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-13828-9">Suleimenova et al (2017)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have since applied our analysis to refugees fleeing conflict in South Sudan, as part of the <a href="http://hidalgo-project.eu">HiDALGO</a> project. In this study, forthcoming in the <a href="https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/19675">Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation</a>, we also looked at how policy decisions like border closures affected the movement of refugees into neighbouring countries, such as Ethiopia or Uganda. </p>
<p>We found there was indeed a link – closing the Uganda border in our model causes 40% fewer “agents” to arrive in camps after 300 days, and that effect lingers even after we reopened the border on day 301. Our tool correctly predicted where 75% of the refugees would actually go in real life.</p>
<p>But doing a correct “retrodiction” in these historical cases does not mean that you can do a forecast. Forecasting where people will go is much harder than predicting a historical situation, for three reasons.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304017/original/file-20191127-112499-3e7uee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304017/original/file-20191127-112499-3e7uee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304017/original/file-20191127-112499-3e7uee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304017/original/file-20191127-112499-3e7uee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304017/original/file-20191127-112499-3e7uee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304017/original/file-20191127-112499-3e7uee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304017/original/file-20191127-112499-3e7uee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304017/original/file-20191127-112499-3e7uee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A school in Uganda for refugees from war in South Sudan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roberto Maldeno / flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<ol>
<li><p>Every model makes assumptions. For instance, a model that forecasts where refugees go might makes assumptions about their mode of transport, or the likelihood that they stay overnight in a place where violence has previously occurred. When forecasting, we need to know what happens when we give these assumptions a little shake (we examine this in the <a href="http://www.vecma.eu">VECMA project</a>). The less evidence we have for an assumption, the more we need to shake it and analyse how our model responds. Machine learning models generate implicit (and ill-justified) assumptions automatically when they are trained – for example, chosen destinations correlate with the stock value of company X. In agent-based models, these assumptions come from physical factors like the presence of mountains or armed groups, and are explicitly testable. </p></li>
<li><p>Forecasting one thing requires you to forecast many other things as well. When we forecast how people escape conflict, we must forecast how the conflict will evolve. And that could depend on future market prices, weather/climate effects, or political changes, all of which would need forecasting too. To be clear: we did not require any of these models when we validated our predictions against a historical situation, so we are building new models just to make forecasts possible.</p></li>
<li><p>Forcibly displaced people are usually fleeing from unexpected and disruptive events. Here the data upon which the machine learning algorithms are “trained” is incomplete, biased or often non-existent. We argue that agent-based models are more effective because they do not need training data, and benefit from understanding the processes that drive forced displacement.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So we have not cracked it.</p>
<p>Yes, forecasting is hard. We do not yet know where climate refugees and other forcibly displaced people are going. We still need huge supercomputers just to <a href="http://www.ecmwf.int/">forecast next week’s weather</a>. </p>
<p>So it pays to be suspicious of the idea that refugee forecasting is already solved, especially if linked to claims that the “<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613531/big-tech-firms-are-racing-to-track-climate-refugees/">next frontier</a>” for computer scientists is in (controversially) <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/6619/paying-refugees-to-train-algorithms-is-a-bad-idea?zd=2&zi=fkiiasta">extracting data from vulnerable refugees</a> who are often unaware of the privacy and security risks. Given how hard it remains to predict where the millions of climate refugees will go, the “next frontier” is still the last frontier.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119414/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek Groen receives funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 800925 (VECMA) and 824115 (HiDALGO).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span> Diana Suleimenova receives funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.</span></em></p>
Beware those who say it is a solved problem.
Derek Groen, Lecturer in Simulation and Modelling, Brunel University London
Diana Suleimenova, PhD Researcher, Computer Science, Brunel University London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/121525
2019-09-06T11:14:05Z
2019-09-06T11:14:05Z
How climate change is driving emigration from Central America
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291186/original/file-20190905-175663-5sdx69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A farmer carries firewood during the dry season in Nicaragua, one of the Central American countries affected by a recent drought.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciat/6887922896/in/photolist-pR68Ea-gch1rZ-buEpvj-bHzbdr-gch5hU-SaSJT1-Rtctoq-Jo7ZpV-uMre5E-uQ4mKR-HdPNfB-tSKaLW-LyHeez-HwK7aY-LrMzsF-c4NTDj-25QT5HB-2dEB31M-7usyGC-Ydykff-YdykdG">Neil Palmer for CIAT/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Clouds of dust rose behind the wheels of the pickup truck as we hurtled over the back road in Palo Verde, El Salvador. When we got to the stone-paved part of the road, the driver slowed as the truck heaved up and down with the uneven terrain. Riding in the back bed of the truck, Ruben (not his real name) and I talked while we held on tight, sitting on sacks of dried beans that he was taking to market. </p>
<p>“It doesn’t come out right,” he said, “it just doesn’t pay anymore to work the land. I take out a loan for seed, and then I can’t count on making it back to pay off my debt.”</p>
<p>Ruben told me then, for the first time, that he planned to save up his money to migrate out of El Salvador. His story is playing out across Central America among many migrants and would-be migrants.</p>
<p>When I spoke with Ruben, it was 2017, nearly 20 years after I had first spent time in his community, a coffee cooperative in El Salvador’s central highlands founded in the 1990s. Over those two decades, the cooperative’s hopes and dreams of a sustainable livelihood producing coffee for a global market have been dashed. </p>
<p>Rising global temperatures, the spread of crop disease and extreme weather events have made coffee harvests <a href="https://www.nri.org/publications/working-paper-series/4-coffee-and-climate-change/file">unreliable</a> in places like El Salvador. On top of that, <a href="https://asu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/market-shocks-and-climate-variability-the-coffee-crisis-in-mexico">market prices</a> are unpredictable.</p>
<p>In the back of the pickup truck that day, we talked about gangs too. There was increasing criminal activity in the town nearby, and some young people in the town were being harassed and recruited. But this was a relatively new issue for the community, layered on top of the persistent problem of the ecological crisis. </p>
<p>As a cultural anthropologist who studies factors of displacement in El Salvador, I see how Ruben’s situation is reflective of a much broader global phenomenon of people leaving their homes, directly or indirectly due to climate change and the degradation of their local ecosystem. And as environmental conditions are projected to get worse under current trends, this raises unresolved legal questions on the status and security of people like Ruben and his family. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290579/original/file-20190902-175710-1mwipmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290579/original/file-20190902-175710-1mwipmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290579/original/file-20190902-175710-1mwipmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290579/original/file-20190902-175710-1mwipmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290579/original/file-20190902-175710-1mwipmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290579/original/file-20190902-175710-1mwipmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290579/original/file-20190902-175710-1mwipmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290579/original/file-20190902-175710-1mwipmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This man lives in the Dry Corridor on the Pacific Coast of Central America, an area that has suffered high rates of poverty and malnutrition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/breadfortheworld/8203342813/in/photolist-au4agR-bfCkgP-9pNrrL-au499H-9pNrvd-bfCfQP-au6PiN-au4a2p-YSf2Kt-9pNsd1-bbdGKa-dx41hN-duUh24-25eZ6X8-2aAW1gh-wAFkB5-Q5S6Xi-QvPJQk-PUDqLn-NRk9vk-NNxeUG-PUCR5V-NRjYDg-NNvoRJ-PUCFtF-PvYQTu-PRSDnY-FkJJrS-2gqysPq-2gqyqJy-2gqyAgA-2gqykzf-GGxMaV-2gqywC8-2gqyqvt-2gqyc9T-2gq6k9W-2gpssPj-2gps6Q9-2gpssHY-2gprxLK-2gprV9a-2gprxFj-2gprxCt-2gpj78u-2gpjuu9-2gpjusa-2gpjuhA-2gpebTx-2g8GcGZ">Todd Post/Bread for the World Institute</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Land and livelihood</h2>
<p>Migration from Central America has gotten a lot of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2017/12/07/rise-in-u-s-immigrants-from-el-salvador-guatemala-and-honduras-outpaces-growth-from-elsewhere/">attention</a> these days, including the famous migrant <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/root-migration-climate-change-caravan-central-america">caravans</a>. But much of it focuses on the way migrants from this region – especially El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras – are driven out by <a href="https://academic.oup.com/rsq/article/33/3/34/2797909">gang violence</a>, <a href="https://theglobalamericans.org/2019/04/the-cost-of-systemic-corruption-in-honduras-migration-north/">corruption</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/nicaragua">political upheaval</a>.</p>
<p>These factors are <a href="http://www.internal-displacement.org/publications/understanding-and-estimating-displacement-in-the-northern-triangle-of-central-america">important</a> and require a response from the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/claims-from-central-america.html">international community</a>. But displacement <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08072019/climate-change-migration-honduras-drought-crop-failure-farming-deforestation-guatemala-trump">driven by climate change</a> is significant too.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eDrEpj_sHBI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The migrant exodus from Central America includes many people impacted by climate change, although other factors play a part as well.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The link between environmental instability and emigration from the region became apparent in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Earthquakes and hurricanes, especially <a href="http://hurricanescience.net/history/storms/1990s/mitch/">Hurricane Mitch</a> in 1998 and its aftermath, were ravaging parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. </p>
<p>Many people from El Salvador and Honduras lived in the U.S. at the time, and the Bush administration granted them <a href="https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-tps-elsalvador-honduras-haiti/">Temporary Protected Status</a>. In this way, the government of the United States recognized the inhumanity of sending people back to places struggling with ecological disaster.</p>
<p>In the years since those events, both rapid-onset and long-term environmental crises continue to <a href="http://www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/20181213-slow-onset-intro.pdf">displace people</a> from their homes worldwide. Studies show that displacement often happens indirectly through the impact of climate change on <a href="https://www.nri.org/publications/working-paper-series/4-coffee-and-climate-change/file">agricultural livelihoods</a>, with some areas pressured more than others. But some are more dramatic: Both Honduras and Nicaragua are among the top 10 countries <a href="https://germanwatch.org/sites/germanwatch.org/files/Global%20Climate%20Risk%20Index%202019_2.pdf">most impacted by extreme weather events</a> between 1998 and 2017. </p>
<p>Since 2014, a serious drought has decimated crops in Central America’s so-called <a href="http://www.fao.org/emergencies/crisis/dry-corridor/en/">dry corridor</a> along the Pacific Coast. By impacting smallholder farmers in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-elsalvador-drought/salvadoran-farmers-lament-brutal-drought-hope-for-recovery-idUSKBN1KG2RE">El Salvador</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/central-america-drying-farmers-face-choice-pray-rain-or-leave-n1027346">Guatemala and Honduras</a>, this drought helps to drive <a href="https://econpapers.repec.org/article/sprclimat/v_3a140_3ay_3a2017_3ai_3a3_3ad_3a10.1007_5fs10584-016-1863-2.htm">higher levels</a> of migration from the region. </p>
<p>Coffee production, a critical support for these countries’ economies, is especially vulnerable and sensitive to weather variations. A recent <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coffee-rust-battle-intensifies/">outbreak of coffee leaf rust</a> in the region was likely <a href="https://2012-2017.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/may-19-2014-usaid-texas-am-invest-5-million-combat-coffee-rust-crisis">exacerbated by climate change</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://time.com/5346110/guatemala-coffee-escape-migration/">fallout</a> from that plague combines with the recent <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-centralamerica-immigration-coffee/coffee-slump-reaps-bitter-harvest-for-central-american-migrants-idUSKCN1TS2QB">collapse in global coffee prices</a> to spur desperate farmers to give up. </p>
<h2>Compounding factor</h2>
<p>These trends have led experts at the World Bank to claim that around <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/983921522304806221/pdf/124724-BRI-PUBLIC-NEWSERIES-Groundswell-note-PN3.pdf">2 million people</a> are likely to be displaced from Central America by the year 2050 due to factors related to climate change. Of course, it’s hard to tease out the “push factor” of climate change from all of the other reasons that people need to leave. And unfortunately, these phenomena interact and tend to exacerbate each other.</p>
<p>Scholars are working hard to assess the scale of the problem and study ways people can <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0088463">adapt</a>. But the problem is challenging. The number of displaced could be even higher – up to almost <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/983921522304806221/pdf/124724-BRI-PUBLIC-NEWSERIES-Groundswell-note-PN3.pdf">4 million</a> – if regional development does not shift to more <a href="https://ccafs.cgiar.org/news/central-americas-climate-smart-agriculture-strategy-contains-key-recommendations-ccafs-future#.XWUp8pNKgWo">climate-friendly and inclusive models</a> of agriculture. </p>
<p>People who emigrate from Central America may not always fully realize the role climate change plays in their movement, or think of it as the final trigger given all the other reasons they have to flee. But they know that the crops fail too often, and it’s harder to get clean water than it used to be.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xem9EvvkJSc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Environmental factors are playing more and more of a role in Central Americans’ decisions to leave home.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seeking a protected status</h2>
<p>Ruben recently contacted me to ask for a reference to a good immigration lawyer. He and his daughter are now in the United States and have an upcoming hearing to determine their status. </p>
<p>Just as he predicted a few years ago, Ruben couldn’t make a living in El Salvador. But he may find it hard to live in the U.S. too, given the mismatch between refugee law and current factors causing displacement.</p>
<p>For several years now, scholars and legal advocates have been asking <a href="https://www.fmreview.org/peopletrafficking/romer">how to respond</a> to people displaced by environmental conditions. Do <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328261364_Possible_Framework_for_Climate_Change_IDP's_Disaster_and_Development_Induced_Displacement_and_Resettlement_Models_and_their_Integration">existing models</a> of humanitarian response and resettlement work for this new population? Could such persons be recognized as in need of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-9930.2008.00290.x">protection under international law</a>, similar to political refugees? </p>
<p>Among the most complicated political questions is who should step up to deal with the harms of climate change, considering that wealthier countries pollute more but are often shielded from the worst effects. How can <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/nzjel20&id=112&men_tab=srchresults">responsibility be assigned</a>, and more importantly, what is to be done? </p>
<p>In the absence of coordinated action on the part of the global community to mitigate ecological instability and recognize the plight of displaced people, there’s a risk of what some have called “<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/06/1041261">climate apartheid</a>.” In this scenario – climate change combined with closed borders and few migration pathways – millions of people would be forced to choose between increasingly insecure livelihoods and the perils of unauthorized migration. </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121525/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miranda Cady Hallett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Poverty and violence are often cited as the reasons people emigrate from Central America, but factors such as drought, exacerbated by climate change, are driving people to leave too.
Miranda Cady Hallett, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Human Rights Center Research Fellow, University of Dayton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120396
2019-09-04T22:06:39Z
2019-09-04T22:06:39Z
Climate change, poverty and human rights: an emergency without precedent
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290997/original/file-20190904-175700-gnge0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1298%2C749&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Julia Aylen wades through waist-deep water carrying her pet dog as she is rescued during Hurricane Dorian in Freeport, Bahamas. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Tim Aylen</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hurricane Dorian has devastated communities in the Bahamas, putting the human dimensions of climate change at the forefront of the news as the world grapples with the ongoing failure of many governments to effectively decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Two recently released climate reports by the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/SP/Pages/Welcomepage.aspx">United Nations Human Rights Council</a> provide insights into future challenges. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://undocs.org/en/A/74/161">July 2019 Safe Climate report</a> by David Boyd, the special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, clarifies the obligations of states to protect human rights from climate harms. The report also confirms the existing responsibility of businesses to respect human rights, especially as they pertain to climate change.</p>
<p>An earlier <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Poverty/A_HRC_41_39.pdf">report on climate change and poverty</a>, released in June 2019, was written by Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. This report draws attention to the disproportionate and devastating impact of unmitigated climate change on those living in poverty.</p>
<p>Both reports point out that urgent action is needed by governments. Our research suggests that international human rights law may already offer useful tools to prevent and remedy climate injustice, including the responsibilities of business enterprises as reinforced in the Boyd report.</p>
<p>The Alston report classifies the human rights impacts of climate change as a climate apartheid in which the rich would “<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/06/1041261">pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer</a>.” The scale of this climate emergency very much depends on the level of effort the global community puts into mitigation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290765/original/file-20190903-175673-1bbg3oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290765/original/file-20190903-175673-1bbg3oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290765/original/file-20190903-175673-1bbg3oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290765/original/file-20190903-175673-1bbg3oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290765/original/file-20190903-175673-1bbg3oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290765/original/file-20190903-175673-1bbg3oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290765/original/file-20190903-175673-1bbg3oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290765/original/file-20190903-175673-1bbg3oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Syrian refugee walks through the snow at an informal settlement camp in Lebanon, which experienced its harshest winter in years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UNHCR/Diego Ibarra Sánchez</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A 1.5-degree increase above pre-industrial levels may expose an additional 457 million people to <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Poverty/A_HRC_41_39.pdf">climate-related risks including sea level rise, flooding, droughts, forest fires, damage to ecosystems, food production and the availability of drinking water</a>.</p>
<p>A two-degree increase would put an additional 100 million to 400 million people at risk of hunger, and one billion to two billion may not have access to adequate water. A total of 140 million people in the poorest parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America could be displaced by climate change by 2050. </p>
<p>Both reports detail incidents of permanent climate loss and damage which exceed our financial and technological capacities to restore. Our recent research documents existing incidents of loss and damage in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2019.1640105">small, vulnerable countries</a>. As we concluded in another recent contribution to <em>Climate Policy</em>, those harmed by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2019.1630353">human-induced climate change will increasingly seek restitution from those who have contributed to the harm suffered</a>. </p>
<h2>Scale of impact</h2>
<p><a href="https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/NDCStaging/Pages/All.aspx">Current mitigation commitments</a> will still result in a three-degree or higher rise in global temperatures. Nationally determined commitments (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement leave a significant gap. Many countries are <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/">not yet on target to meet their existing NDC commitments</a>.</p>
<p>The scale of the overall impact, even at 1.5 degrees, is unprecedented. Climate change will exacerbate existing poverty and inequality between developed and developing countries, and also within countries. </p>
<p>The inequity of this disproportionate impact is exacerbated by the fact that those living in poverty have contributed — and will continue to contribute — the least to the problem. The poorest half of the global population is responsible for only 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, a person in the top one per cent (which includes most middle class citizens in developed countries) is on average responsible for <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/extreme-carbon-inequality">175 times more emissions than a person in the bottom 10 per cent</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285799/original/file-20190726-43126-1n2emtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=39%2C0%2C4368%2C2909&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285799/original/file-20190726-43126-1n2emtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=39%2C0%2C4368%2C2909&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285799/original/file-20190726-43126-1n2emtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285799/original/file-20190726-43126-1n2emtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285799/original/file-20190726-43126-1n2emtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285799/original/file-20190726-43126-1n2emtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285799/original/file-20190726-43126-1n2emtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285799/original/file-20190726-43126-1n2emtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sandbags on the seashore in Bangladesh to protect houses from rising sea levels due to climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seeking climate justice</h2>
<p>Climate justice has been <a href="https://sdg.iisd.org/news/aosis-chair-urges-increased-focus-on-loss-and-damage-at-cop-24/">a constant refrain by many vulnerable, developing countries</a> during climate negotiations. However, as developed countries grew rich by <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Poverty/A_HRC_41_39.pdf">burning an irresponsible amount of fossil fuels</a>, international human rights law has failed to determine the responsibility of wealthier countries to provide assistance to developing countries for climate action. Meanwhile, almost no attention has been paid to understanding how <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2974768">the independent responsibilities of business to respect human rights apply in the climate context</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LdSzRLJt0TU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Benjamin Schachter, Human Rights Officer, talks about how climate change disasters affect people’s lives.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, while it is clear that developed countries are largely responsible for historic emissions, some of the major emitters listed in Richard Heede’s groundbreaking report are <a href="http://climateaccountability.org/pdf/MRR%209.1%20Apr14R.pdf">located in the global South</a>, including countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, India, Venezuela, Mexico, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Algeria. This activity accumulated vast wealth for these industries and countries (or at least their governments), but has contributed to <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/">devastating climate-induced impacts for others</a>.</p>
<p>The Alston report suggests that the only way to address the human rights dimensions of climate crisis is for states to effectively regulate businesses and for those harmed by climate change to successfully sue responsible companies in court. The implication is that in the absence of regulation, businesses do not have a responsibility to reduce emissions.</p>
<p>Yet, the UN’s “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/ClimateChange/KeyMessages_on_HR_CC.pdf">Key Messages on Climate Change and Human Rights</a>” states that “businesses are also duty-bearers and must be accountable for their own climate impacts.” </p>
<p>Similarly, the 2018 statement on climate change of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressly notes that “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23691&LangID=E">corporate entities are expected to respect Covenant rights regardless of whether domestic laws exist or are fully enforced in practice</a>.”</p>
<p>Various other initiatives have grappled with business responsibilities, including the <a href="https://climateprinciplesforenterprises.org">2018 Principles on Climate Obligations of Enterprises</a>. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://undocs.org/en/A/74/161">the Safe Climate report</a> goes further, stating that businesses “must adopt human rights policies, conduct human rights due diligence, remedy human rights violations for which they are responsible, and work to influence other actors to respect human rights where relationships of leverage exist.” These responsibilities includes the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from activities, products and services, minimizing emissions from suppliers and ensuring those impacted can access remedies.</p>
<p>The devastating impacts of climate change on those already living in poverty are increasingly difficult or impossible to avoid. Given the failure of many states to meet their own obligations, it is crucial that the responsibility of businesses to respect human rights be taken seriously by those advocating for climate action. Businesses, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23930&LangID=E">as organs of society</a>, must ratchet up their existing responsibilities to alleviate increasing climate impacts on those who can least afford to bear them. </p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Benjamin receives funding from the Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship. She is a member of the UNFCCC Compliance Committee (Facilitative Branch) and the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara L Seck has received funding from the Centre for International Governance Innovation for research on business responsibilities for human rights and climate change, and from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for research on business responsibilities for human rights. She Is a member of the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meinhard Doelle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The effects of climate change will disproportionately affect the world’s poorest, risking the lives and health of millions of people located mainly in the Global South.
Lisa Benjamin, Assistant Professor Lewis & Clark Law School (Fall 2019), Lewis & Clark
Meinhard Doelle, Professor, Dalhousie University
Sara L Seck, Associate Professor, Dalhousie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/117122
2019-07-03T14:29:21Z
2019-07-03T14:29:21Z
Climate crisis: migration cannot be the only option for people living on ‘drowning’ islands
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280457/original/file-20190620-149806-1vqq59v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/panoramic-aerial-shot-christmas-island-lagoon-1404574331?src=5twBbg98Obegn9ptZhZLow-1-2&studio=1">RWBrooks/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The evidence of the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0143-3">climate crisis</a> is now undeniable. But state responses to climate change often have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3451587.pdf?casa_token=RBsjrwxQI5oAAAAA:ZR8vCHd6NGCwnk9XaieeoriB9m4IkAiBRyKq7S-RdxX10yyAJSmPmb2aV06SCaAxQNitsnJnupdRT1kM0h6BMnU44L7nYrVnmm5BHKcha6yMOBEkMQHY">social and political</a> motivations, rather than addressing the realities of this threat. Since the 1980s, preventative action has been internationally stifled by the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2011.01199.x?journalCode=utsq20">industrial agenda</a> of a conservative political agenda which has maintained <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fossil-fuel-subsidies-pentagon-spending-imf-report-833035/">intensive subsidies</a> to the fossil fuel industry.</p>
<p>There has been a backlash against this lack of impetus in recent times by groups such as <a href="https://rebellion.earth/">Extinction Rebellion</a>, which highlights the need for significant action by wealthy <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3629/a2898d4dc51902de3b8bd6b1c3b553fe7fff.pdf">Global North</a> states. These wealthy, industrialised nations – and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change">about 100 corporations</a> largely headquartered within them – have been the largest drivers of climate change via fossil fuel emissions, while baulking at global agreements to provide meaningful <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/planetpolicy/2018/12/06/its-deja-vu-all-over-again-climate-finance-at-cop24/">climate aid</a> to developing countries.</p>
<p><a href="http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1437001/1/KelmanSIDSCCFinalSubmitted.pdf">The idea</a> of drowning or sinking islands has long existed as a way to describe future risks that small island states must confront. But the reality is that these threats affect life in such places today. Many small islands states have chosen to reintroduce previously unpopular resettlement and <a href="https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/geoj.12032">migration policies</a> in the face of climate change. </p>
<p>This is the story of Kiritimati (pronounced Ki-ri-si-mas) in the Pacific – the <a href="https://www.sea.edu/spice_atlas/kiritimati_atlas/Kiritimati_Christmas_Island_The_People">largest</a> coral atoll in the world. A closer look at the story of this particular island sheds light on the issues facing those living on such islands all around the world, and the inadequacy of current international policy.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274634/original/file-20190515-60554-1my08c1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274634/original/file-20190515-60554-1my08c1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274634/original/file-20190515-60554-1my08c1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274634/original/file-20190515-60554-1my08c1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274634/original/file-20190515-60554-1my08c1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274634/original/file-20190515-60554-1my08c1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274634/original/file-20190515-60554-1my08c1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Washing hangs in Kiritimati.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Becky Alexis-Martin</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Kiritimati</h2>
<p>Kiritimati has a dark past of British colonialism and nuclear weapons testing. It gained independence from the UK on July 12 1979, when the Republic of Kiribati was established. Now a complex threat is appearing over the horizon.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-atomic-history-of-kiritimati-a-tiny-island-where-humanity-realised-its-most-lethal-potential-114870">The atomic history of Kiritimati – a tiny island where humanity realised its most lethal potential</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Raised no more than two metres above sea level at its highest point, Kiritimati is one of the most <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/IJCCSM-01-2017-0012">climate vulnerable</a> inhabited islands on the planet. Inadequate action is being taken to protect the people who live there. It is at the centre of the world, yet most people could not pinpoint it on a map, and know little about the <a href="https://blog.britishmuseum.org/object-journeys-working-with-the-kiribati-community-in-the-uk/">rich culture</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Kiribati">traditions</a> of its people. </p>
<p>This culture may be set to disappear. <a href="https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:5903/Online_No_20_Kiribati_Report_161207.pdf">One in seven</a> of all movements in Kiribati – whether between islands or internationally – are attributed to environmental change (14%). And a 2016 <a href="https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:5903/Online_No_20_Kiribati_Report_161207.pdf">UN report</a> has shown that half of households have already been affected by sea level rise in Kiritimati. Rising sea levels also pose challenges to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pacific-radioactive-waste">storage of nuclear waste</a> on small island states – a hangover from the island’s colonial past.</p>
<p>Those who have moved become <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718517301732">climate change refugees</a>: people who has been forced to leave their home due to the effects of severe climate events and to rebuild their lives in other places, having lost their culture, community, and decision-making power.</p>
<p>This problem will only intensify. Since 2008, intensifying storms and weather-related events have displaced more than 24m people around the world annually, and the World Bank <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/20/621782275/the-refugees-that-the-world-barely-pays-attention-to">estimates</a> that another 143m people will be displaced by 2050 in just three regions: sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UE2_maYEqF8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In Kiritimati, a few mechanisms have been created to help islanders. For example, the Kiribati government has implemented a programme, “<a href="http://www.climate.gov.ki/category/action/relocation/">Migration with Dignity</a>”, with the aim of creating a skilled workforce able to find good employment abroad. The government has also purchased 6,000 acres on Fiji in 2014 to try and ensure <a href="http://www.devpolicy.org/kitibatis-land-purchase-in-fiji-does-it-make-sense-20160111/">food security</a> as the environment changes.</p>
<p>New Zealand has also created an annual opportunity lottery called the <a href="https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-a-visa/visa-factsheet/pacific-access-category-resident-visa?fbclid=IwAR3AinhCf9d_3NFSNaWFDZ2RWjY42igIcBTm5OWAGv8D1g3atv4Vjb_R5o8">Pacific Access Ballot</a>. This lottery is presented as a way for 75 Kiribati citizens per year to resettle in New Zealand. But <a href="https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/353493/nz-immigration-launches-annual-pacific-access">quotas</a> are not being filled. Understandably, people do not want to leave their homes, families and lives. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/555421468204932199/pdf/labour-mobility-pacific-possible.pdf">World Bank</a> and the UN, meanwhile, have argued that Australia and New Zealand should improve mobility for seasonal workers and allow open migration for citizens of Kiritimati, in light of climate change affects. But seasonal work is often menial and offers few prospects for a better life. </p>
<p>While well-intentioned international policy is predominantly focused simply on relocation, rather than providing adaptive capacity and <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11111-018-0295-5.pdf">long-term support</a>, these options still do not offer true self-determination for the people of Kiritimati. They tend to commodify people, reducing their relocation to reemployment plans. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274633/original/file-20190515-60567-44rpfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274633/original/file-20190515-60567-44rpfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274633/original/file-20190515-60567-44rpfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274633/original/file-20190515-60567-44rpfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274633/original/file-20190515-60567-44rpfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274633/original/file-20190515-60567-44rpfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274633/original/file-20190515-60567-44rpfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Palms blow in the wind, Kiritimati.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Becky Alexis-Martin</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It also means that beneficial local projects, such as the <a href="http://www.mfed.gov.ki/sites/default/files/Kiribati-Aviation-Investment-Program_Environmental-Management-Plan-Cassidy-International-Airport_23-October-2013_opt_0.pdf">new airport</a>, a permanent housing programme and a new <a href="http://macbio-pacific.info/2018/04/kiritimati-charts-new-course-blue-planning-marine-tourism/">marine tourism</a> strategy could soon become redundant. Realistic and affordable strategies to reclaim and maintain the island’s land are needed to prevent migration from becoming a necessity. </p>
<h2>Rising up</h2>
<p>Encouraging the population to migrate is of course the option with the lowest costs. But we should not fall into the trap of thinking it is the only option. We don’t need to allow this island to drown. </p>
<p>This is not just a human issue – abandoning this island to the sea would also eventually condemn a bird species found nowhere else on earth, the <a href="http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/22714802">bokikokiko</a>, to global extinction. Other small island states whose existence is threatened by rising sea levels are also home to species at risk of extinction. The Marshall Islands, for example, are home to the coconut crab, which can only be hunted and eaten by the local inhabitants.</p>
<p>International aid could resolve many future problems and preserve this astonishing and beautiful place for humans, nonhuman animals and plants, but the lack of support from wealthy nations makes options like this difficult for residents of small island states to consider. Artificial islands have been created in <a href="https://www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/island-vacations/dubai-man-made-islands-facts">Dubai</a> – why not here? Many other <a href="https://timeforgeography.co.uk/videos_list/coasts/hard-engineering-approaches-coastal-management/">hard engineering</a> options exist, such as <a href="http://www1.umassd.edu/euro/resources/imagesessays/waterfortificationsofthedutchrepublic.pdf">coastal fortification</a> and <a href="https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/rising-sea-levels-and-alternative-strategies">land reclamation</a> technologies. Such options could protect the homeland of the Kiritimati people while also enhancing the resilience of these places – if international aid were more readily and <a href="http://www.climatedevlab.brown.edu/home/putting-our-money-where-our-mouth-is-financing-loss-and-damage">consistently available</a> from the nations that have driven this climate crisis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280466/original/file-20190620-149847-1htpqs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280466/original/file-20190620-149847-1htpqs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280466/original/file-20190620-149847-1htpqs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280466/original/file-20190620-149847-1htpqs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280466/original/file-20190620-149847-1htpqs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280466/original/file-20190620-149847-1htpqs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280466/original/file-20190620-149847-1htpqs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Dubai coastline, United Arab Emirates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dubai-coastline-united-arab-emirates-aerial-365501231?src=V71QMUGDvIakKOtl7gObxg-1-0&studio=1">Mario Hagen/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the time of writing, there is neither an internationally recognised definition of the <a href="https://undocs.org/A/CONF.231/3">climate refugee</a>, nor are they covered by the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/1951-refugee-convention.html">UN 1951 Refugee Convention</a>. This maintains a <a href="https://www.uea.ac.uk/law/research/international-law-blog/-/asset_publisher/bS26fAaA3cQa/blog/cfp-rectifying-the-protection-gap-for-climate-refugees-where-next-?inheritRedirect=false&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uea.ac.uk%2Flaw%2Fresearch%2Finternational-law-blog%3Fp_p_id%3D101_INSTANCE_bS26fAaA3cQa%26p_p_lifecycle%3D0%26p_p_state%3Dnormal%26p_p_mode%3Dview%26p_p_col_id%3Dcolumn-3%26p_p_col_count%3D1">protection gap</a>, as environmental degradation is not defined as “persecution”. This is despite climate change arising due to the <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072343">complacency</a> of <a href="https://www.climate-change-performance-index.org/">industrialised nations</a>, as well as their negligence in combating its stark consequences.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/">UN Climate Action Summit</a> on September 23 2019 may begin to address some of these <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718517301732">challenges</a>. But for the millions of people who live in places that are threatened by climate change, the question is about environmental and climate justice. This question should be not just about whether climate change hazards are being addressed – but why those who want to continue to live on small island states often do not have the resources or autonomy to address climate change and other <a href="http://www.millennium-project.org/15-global-challenges/">global challenges</a> themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Becky Alexis-Martin receives funding from the NCCF and BNTVA for her Nuclear Families and Atomic Atolls research projects. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathon Turnbull receives funding from the ESRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Malin receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the CSU Water Center, the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, the Rural Sociological Society, and CSU School of Global Environmental Sustainability.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Dyke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Migration offers a fix for the islands ‘drowning’ as a consequence of the climate crisis – but are there better alternatives?
Becky Alexis-Martin, Lecturer in Political and Cultural Geographies, Manchester Metropolitan University
James Dyke, Senior Lecturer in Global Systems, University of Exeter
Jonathon Turnbull, PhD candidate in Geography, University of Cambridge
Stephanie Malin, Associate Professor of Sociology, Colorado State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/119074
2019-06-23T19:10:33Z
2019-06-23T19:10:33Z
Inequality and climate change: the rich must step up
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280096/original/file-20190618-118505-14vqt9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C24%2C2755%2C1819&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tourism, that quintessentially elitist pursuit, is now responsible for almost 8 percent of global CO₂ emissions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://Unsplash.com/photos/Iqs4tpxXyng">Blake Barlow/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the beginning, the issue of inequality with respect to the impacts of climate change and the global response has been a recurring theme in international climate negotiations. Emerging and developing countries have been sought spur the developed world into acknowledging its greater burden of responsibility and, accordingly, its obligation to make a larger contribution to the shift toward a low-carbon economy. The concept of climate justice emerged from this debate, inspiring the legal principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” (CBDR).</p>
<p>The CBDR principle is recognised, among others, by the United Nations bodies charged with overseeing the negotiations – hence the effort at COP24 to translate the pledges enshrined in the <a href="https://www.vie-publique.fr/focus/decrypter-actualite/qu-est-ce-que-accord-paris.html">Paris Agreement</a> into specific, measurable commitments, particularly in relation to the financial transfers between the global North and South. This is the famous <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/l20f_0.pdf">“100 billion dollars”</a> a year that developed countries set as their collective target for 2020, with the aim of helping the countries of the Global South take measures to cut emissions and adapt to a changing climate.</p>
<h2>Unequal CO<sub>2</sub> emissions</h2>
<p>The complexity of the relationship between inequality and climate change is also linked to the scope of analysis we choose to adopt. Taking a simple approach, we can identify inequality in terms of carbon emissions on the one hand, and the inequality in terms of impacts on the other. The emissions gap can be measured at multiple levels.</p>
<p>At the country level, China recently became the world’s biggest CO<sub>2</sub> emitter, responsible for a startling 26% of global carbon emissions. Africa still has the lowest emissions of any continent, but this masks a great deal of variation between countries, with South Africa by far the largest emitter.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280097/original/file-20190618-118501-agfkph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280097/original/file-20190618-118501-agfkph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280097/original/file-20190618-118501-agfkph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280097/original/file-20190618-118501-agfkph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280097/original/file-20190618-118501-agfkph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280097/original/file-20190618-118501-agfkph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280097/original/file-20190618-118501-agfkph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280097/original/file-20190618-118501-agfkph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Annual share of CO₂ emissions by country (2016).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Our World in Data</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the individual level, the richest 10% produce around half of all CO<sub>2</sub> emissions deriving from consumption, according to a 2015 estimate by <a href="https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-fr.pdf">Oxfam</a>. When we look at per-capita data for the entire globe, the contrasts become even more striking. The <a href="https://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/extreme-carbon-inequality-why-the-paris-climate-deal-must-put-the-poorest-lowes-582545">Oxfam study</a> also indicates that the lifestyles of the wealthiest Americans are 10 times more emissions-intensive than those of China’s richest.</p>
<p>In the United States, as the share of national income enjoyed by the top 10% grew between 1997 and 2012, there was a corresponding increase in emissions levels. Moreover, inequalities in consumption tend to encourage the formation of carbon-intensive habits: we know that the compulsion to imitate socially prestigious behaviours is one of the <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class">key drivers</a> of consumption patterns, and the result of this social mimicry is escalating carbon emissions, as more and more people base their aspirations on the lives of the richest 1%.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280099/original/file-20190618-118526-bgur60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280099/original/file-20190618-118526-bgur60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280099/original/file-20190618-118526-bgur60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280099/original/file-20190618-118526-bgur60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280099/original/file-20190618-118526-bgur60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280099/original/file-20190618-118526-bgur60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280099/original/file-20190618-118526-bgur60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280099/original/file-20190618-118526-bgur60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Country ranking by per-capita CO₂ emissions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oxfam</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tourism, a quintessentially elitist activity, is now responsible for <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800916308345">almost 8%</a> of global CO<sub>2</sub> emissions, and the sector’s growth is outpacing all efforts to curtail its impacts. It seems quite clear that highly unequal societies, where economic, cultural, and political power is disproportionately held by the rich, tend to incubate conditions that foreshadow a dangerously carbon-intensive future.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, other mechanisms are also at work. Inequality erodes social cohesion and undermines individual willingness to engage in collective action. It weakens the sense of social responsibility that is so vital to foster demand for pro-environmental policies, as we are seeing at the moment with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-strikes-researcher-explains-how-young-people-can-keep-up-the-momentum-113594">climate protests</a> taking place across Europe.</p>
<p>From a technological perspective, economists <a href="https://econpapers.repec.org/article/eeeecolec/v_3a70_3ay_3a2011_3ai_3a11_3ap_3a2201-2213.htm">Francesco Vona and Fabrizio Patriarca</a> have demonstrated how high inequality hampers the development and adoption of new green technologies, as such innovations are accessible to fewer people. Similarly, Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty have proposed a <a href="http://www.ledevoir.com/documents/pdf/chancelpiketty2015.pdf">consumption-based emissions inequality index</a> to measure differences between income deciles within each country – thus shifting the focus from the national to the individual level. They argue that in a globalised economy it makes more sense to consider the quantity of emissions “consumed” (through the products we buy and the services we use) than to talk about emissions “produced”.</p>
<p>When we adopt this consumption-based approach, the map of emissions inequality reveals some arresting contrasts. A clear gap emerges between the North and South, but also between the world’s wealthiest <a href="https://www.inegalites.fr/La-mesure-des-inegalites-qu-est-ce-qu-un-decile-A-quoi-ca-sert">10%</a> and everybody else.</p>
<h2>Unequal exposure to climatic hazards</h2>
<p>Differing degrees of vulnerability to the impacts of climate change are strongly correlated with existing patterns of income inequality. Individual and societal exposure to the hazards of a warming climate varies widely, not only between developed and developing countries (a gap we have known about for a long time), but also between different groups within a country.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280100/original/file-20190618-118505-1jhxh87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280100/original/file-20190618-118505-1jhxh87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280100/original/file-20190618-118505-1jhxh87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280100/original/file-20190618-118505-1jhxh87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280100/original/file-20190618-118505-1jhxh87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280100/original/file-20190618-118505-1jhxh87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280100/original/file-20190618-118505-1jhxh87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280100/original/file-20190618-118505-1jhxh87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One extra day where the temperature exceeds 33°C has a strong adverse effect on household income in Vietnam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">De Laubier el al. (2019)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280101/original/file-20190618-118526-t7trjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280101/original/file-20190618-118526-t7trjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280101/original/file-20190618-118526-t7trjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280101/original/file-20190618-118526-t7trjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280101/original/file-20190618-118526-t7trjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280101/original/file-20190618-118526-t7trjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280101/original/file-20190618-118526-t7trjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280101/original/file-20190618-118526-t7trjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One extra day where the temperature exceeds 33°C also has an impact on the gap between Vietnamese income quartiles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">De Laubier el al. (2019)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the United States, for example, the effects of climate change are disproportionately felt by the least privileged, and so climate becomes another conduit for <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/node/696077.full">reinforcing existing inequalities</a>.</p>
<p>A similar but much more pronounced effect can be observed in an emerging country like Vietnam, which is doubly vulnerable due to its high proportion of agricultural employment and elevated susceptibility to the hazards of climate change. We have demonstrated this in the larger context of a project carried out by the French Development Agency (AFD), <a href="https://vn.ambafrance.org/800-jeunes-reunis-pour-le-lancement-de-gemmes-Vietnam">GEMMES Vietnam</a>, which presents a systematic analysis of the “socio-economic impacts of climate change and adaptation strategies in Vietnam.”</p>
<p>We found that one additional day per year where the temperature exceeds 33 °C seems to have a strong adverse effect on both the <a href="https://www.afd.fr/sites/afd/files/2019-03-02-55-35/Impacts%20of%20Climate%20Events%20in%20Vietnamese%20Agriculture.pdf">technical efficiency of rice cultivation</a> and <a href="https://www.afd.fr/en/impacts-extreme-climate-events-technical-efficiency-vietnamese-agriculture">household income</a>, widening the gap between income quartiles (the population having been divided into four income groups) irrespective of occupation. This highlights that exposure to climatic hazards is unequal.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274445/original/file-20190514-60554-1nwds0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274445/original/file-20190514-60554-1nwds0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274445/original/file-20190514-60554-1nwds0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274445/original/file-20190514-60554-1nwds0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274445/original/file-20190514-60554-1nwds0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274445/original/file-20190514-60554-1nwds0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274445/original/file-20190514-60554-1nwds0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rice cultivation in Vietnam is especially sensitive to temperature variations, with a direct impact on the incomes of rice growers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/rice-planting-37212694">Beboy/Shutterstock</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Climate change not only increases the exposure of the most vulnerable to the ensuing climatic hazards, but it also heightens their sensitivity to its adverse effects and diminishes their capacity to adapt and recover following an extreme climate event.</p>
<p>All indications seem to point to the need to promote more restrained consumption patterns among the wealthy alongside the more general principle of reducing inequalities, if we are to have any hope of meeting the objectives set out in the Paris Agreement. Unless we address inequality and curb the excessive emissions generated by the lifestyles of the rich, there is a risk that efforts to live up to the Paris Agreement will lead to a breakdown in the social bond.</p>
<p>In other words, the responsibility to cut carbon emissions must be shouldered by the highest-income countries, and by the most privileged social groups in certain emerging and developing nations. Achieving this goal will require a drastic contraction of consumption habits. The surest path to meeting the COP21 objectives is by tackling inequality and strengthening the social bond – especially if we are to achieve the most ambitious goal of capping the average global temperature rise at just 1.5 °C.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119074/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
In the face of climate change, the poorest are suffering from the excess emissions of CO₂ linked to the lifestyle of the richest. It is time to act, in the name of climate and social justice.
Anda David, Chargée de recherche, Agence française de développement (AFD)
Étienne Espagne, Économiste, Agence française de développement (AFD)
Nicolas Longuet Marx, Project Officer for Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Agence française de développement (AFD)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/115887
2019-06-05T22:55:08Z
2019-06-05T22:55:08Z
Understanding the human side of climate change relocation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276883/original/file-20190528-42556-42lf93.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C64%2C2017%2C1468&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">High tide at Nukatoa Island, in the Takuu Atoll, Papua New Guinea. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NukutoaHighTide.JPG">Richard Moyle</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change is expected to have a striking impact on vulnerable communities, especially in coastal regions where sea-level rise and increased climatic events will make it <a href="http://mudancasclimaticas.cptec.inpe.br/%7Ermclima/pdfs/destaques/sternreview_report_complete.pdf">impossible for some people to remain on their land</a>. </p>
<p>In Papua New Guinea (PNG), the <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/caring-our-common-home-caritas-state-environment-report-oceania-2015">Carteret Islands are facing intense environmental degradation</a>, coastal erosion and food and water insecurity due to anthropogenic climate change and tectonic activity. </p>
<p>Since 1994, the islanders of the seven atolls, lying only 1.2 metres above sea level, have already lost about <a href="https://www.newday.com/sites/default/files/resources/4.%20Carterets%20Relocation%20Program.pdf">50 per cent of their land</a>. Traditional food sources have become scarce, <a href="https://www.book2look.com/embed/9781134485123">regularly placing the islanders in situations of near famine</a>. The communities also face severe water shortages due to prolonged droughts and sea-level rises that affect their freshwater supply. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276873/original/file-20190528-42588-s70pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276873/original/file-20190528-42588-s70pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276873/original/file-20190528-42588-s70pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276873/original/file-20190528-42588-s70pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276873/original/file-20190528-42588-s70pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276873/original/file-20190528-42588-s70pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276873/original/file-20190528-42588-s70pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Carteret Islands make up a low-lying atoll in the South Pacific Ocean.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mr Minton/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2005, having gained worldwide media attention for their plight, the Carteret islanders were named the world’s first “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/nov/25/science.climatechange">climate refugees</a>,” a label inspired by <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-guide-to-the-geneva-convention-for-beginners-dummies-and-newly-elected-world-leaders-72155">those who seek asylum under the Geneva Convention</a>. </p>
<p>Fourteen years later, the islanders are still struggling, and their struggles have become emblematic of the international community’s lack of consideration for climate injustice. My research and recording of their story informs us on the realities of climate change, the consequences of our way of life and the political construction of climate vulnerability.</p>
<h2>Political struggles</h2>
<p>The Carteret islanders’ situation can be partly explained by political struggles. The recent civil war (1988-1998) has blurred the separation of powers between the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, <a href="http://www.unesco.org/education/edurights/media/docs/600e78096209b63b86f0135f52694b257b4b0c0e.pdf">which governs the islands</a>, and the Papua New Guinea central government. With the country’s complex societal structure — based on clans, tribes and ethnic links — and <a href="https://www.transparency.org/country/PNG">rampant corruption</a>, the provincial and national states have been incapable of addressing the plight of Carteret islanders. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://displacementsolutions.org/files/documents/BougainvilleResettlementInitiative-MeetingReport.pdf">representative of the autonomous region has admitted</a> the administration has invested little time and money in the Carteret Islands due to their small socio-economic capacity. Meanwhile, <a href="https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/46028/LESSONS%20FROM%20CONTEMPORARY%20RESETTLEMENT%20IN%20THE%20SOUTH%20PACIFIC.pdf">the central government has been squeamish</a> about meddling in provincial affairs.</p>
<p>The political and social structures are sources of conflict among civil servants in Papua New Guinea, generating <a href="https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/46028/LESSONS%20FROM%20CONTEMPORARY%20RESETTLEMENT%20IN%20THE%20SOUTH%20PACIFIC.pdf">friction and “malfeasance” in the administrations</a> and ultimately hindering the relocation process because of poor governance. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330689229_Migration_as_Adaptation_in_'Disappearing_states'_Examining_Socio-Political_Adaptation_Strategies_in_the_Sinking_Islands_of_the_Pacific">In a 2018 interview</a>, Tracy Mann, director of the international NGO Climate Wise Women, said: “There has never been, nor do I expect in the near future, any government will to support real relocation for the Carteret Islands.” </p>
<p>The autonomous government did make a few relocation attempts in 1984 and 1997, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00049182.2016.1267603">poor planning and a lack of resources</a> contributed to their failure. Local communities now have little trust in their governments, which they perceive as an “<a href="http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/soz/ab6/ag_faist/downloads/workingpaper_102_boege.pdf">alien external force</a>.” Most political authority lies with the Council of Elders, an official local governing authority in Papua New Guinea.</p>
<p>Fed up with waiting, the Council of Elders created a local NGO, Tulele Peisa (“Sailing the waves on our own”), in 2007 with the aim to overcome the state’s inability to protect them.</p>
<h2>Overcoming political marginalisation</h2>
<p>In 2009, Tulele Peisa released a <a href="https://www.newday.com/sites/default/files/resources/4.%20Carterets%20Relocation%20Program.pdf">plan to relocate</a> 1,700 islanders to Bougainville Island, some 83 kilometres from the Carteret Islands. But political, financial and land-related issues have hindered their progress. The project could cost an estimated <a href="https://www.wti.org/research/publications/1147/climate-change-and-human-mobility-in-the-pacific-region-plans-policies-and-lessons-learned/">US$5.3 million</a>, and with limited help from the provincial and federal governments, Tulele Peisa is struggling. </p>
<p>“You have a bunch of Melanesian politicians who don’t really care all that much about the islanders, with a culture of corruption, a limited land base, and you see that it’s a lot of obstacles in the way of viable resettlement,” Scott Leckie, founder and director of the Geneva-based NGO Displacement Solutions and one of Tulele Peisa’s international partners, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330689229_Migration_as_Adaptation_in_'Disappearing_states'_Examining_Socio-Political_Adaptation_Strategies_in_the_Sinking_Islands_of_the_Pacific">told me in 2018</a>.</p>
<p>“The sad brutal truth of this situation: it is hard, it is expensive and it is daunting,” he said. </p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/123440564" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ursula Rakova, leader of Tulele Peisa, speaks about the disruption of climate change and the Carteret Islands resettlement program.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ursula Rakova, who leads Tulele Peisa, has accused the country’s civil servants of <a href="http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/soz/ab6/ag_faist/downloads/workingpaper_102_boege.pdf">embezzling US$615,000 of government funding meant for the organization</a>. “There seems to be a complete disregard for public services for the people,” said Mann, the NGO’s director.</p>
<h2>Land lacking</h2>
<p>Adding to a difficult political situation is the challenge of finding land in the Pacific Ocean. Not only is it limited, but customary ownership is prominent in the region — up to <a href="https://publications.iom.int/books/assessing-evidence-migration-environment-and-climate-change-papua-new-guinea">97 per cent of the land in Papua New Guinea</a> can’t be bought or sold. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.equatorinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/case_1473429470.pdf">Tulele Peisa has secured 81 hectares (0.81 square kilometres)</a>, a gift of four abandoned plantations from the Catholic Church of Bougainville, but it still needs another 1,400 hectares (14 square kilometres). As of 2018, Tulele Peisa has built eight houses on Bougainville Island, and rehabilitated 14 family parcels with cocoa and coconuts trees.</p>
<p>As they race against the climate change clock, the question now is: Will they be able to finish their planned relocation in time? </p>
<h2>Better climate change governance</h2>
<p>This story of resilience and determination highlights the specific challenges facing Pacific nations in their fight against climate change and their possible migrations. As this case illustrates, the difficulties arising from political struggles and state weakness have a real impact on the unfolding of planned relocation.</p>
<p>Before speaking of climate refugees, it is important we understand the challenges these vulnerable communities are facing. Far from wishing to seek asylum elsewhere, they are fighting for their land. </p>
<p>We need to question the efficacy of the international system and of domestic governance in granting them the level of dignity and resilience they deserve. Decision-makers and organizations must learn that the consequences of climate change are deeply human.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115887/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah M. Munoz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Rising sea levels and tectonic activity have eroded the coastlines of the low-lying Carteret Islands in the South Pacific.
Sarah M. Munoz, Doctoral researcher in Political Science / Doctorante en Science Politique, Université de Montréal
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/106992
2019-01-18T03:40:15Z
2019-01-18T03:40:15Z
Refuge City, a new kind of city for our times
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251446/original/file-20181219-27764-yq366f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A visualisation of a Refuge City street scene.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Weller/Julian Bolleter</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia is <a href="https://mckellinstitute.org.au/research/articles/why-australia-is-the-worlds-most-successful-multicultural-society/">one of the most successful multicultural societies in the world</a>. Nonetheless, in recent times many Australians have come to regard population growth, and particularly immigration, as a problem – at best – to be solved. In contrast, we believe population growth and migration present a creative opportunity to shape new Australian cities unlike any we have built to date.</p>
<p>In a globalised economy where technology has prevailed over geography, Australians are natural global citizens. However, all is not well in multicultural Australia. Recent and credible <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/24/australians-growing-more-concerned-over-immigration-guardian-essential-poll">polling</a> indicates that 64% of Australians think the level of immigration over the past decade has been too high – up from 50% in 2016.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-think-immigration-should-be-cut-well-it-depends-on-how-you-ask-108053">Australians think immigration should be cut? Well, it depends on how you ask</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We believe such opinions (in part) stem from entrenched migration patterns. Currently <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/90pc-of-migrants-settling-in-two-cities/news-story/8746797d36bf40f41587d267e8dcdbc4">90% of new arrivals settle in Sydney or Melbourne</a> where they <a href="http://apo.org.au/node/187861">compound housing affordability</a> and congestion issues, among others. Migrants from overseas are the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3218.0Feature%20Article12016-17?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3218.0&issue=2016-17&num=&view=">main contributors to both cities’ populations growing</a> by over 100,000 people each year.</p>
<p>In response to these issues, the Morrison government is <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/cities-fix-pms-plan-to-send-migrants-to-regions-for-five-years/news-story/c8573e68a1438295818d5aab9de5471b">considering a plan</a> requiring some new migrants, including refugees, to settle for up to five years in regional areas. </p>
<p>However, there are limits to this approach. <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/federal_elections/2016/files/2016-aec-results-map.pdf">Voting patterns</a> indicate Australians in regional Australia are also often <a href="http://tapri.org.au/?p=529">resistant to increased migration</a>. Moreover, the mechanisation and automation of farming mean that jobs are often scarce.</p>
<h2>So what can Australia do?</h2>
<p>Australia will need more drastic solutions over the longer term. Refugees now number over <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/figures-at-a-glance.html">25 million people</a> worldwide. Due to climate change alone a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/dev.2011.60">deluge of refugees is predicted by 2050, particularly in Asia</a> – 144 million in China, 63 million in India and 62 million in Bangladesh. </p>
<p>In the face of this, demographer <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/the-big-tilt-by-bernard-salt/9781740668880">Bernard Salt asks</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What does Australia do? Board and turn back every boat? Leave the refugees without support on the Kimberley coast? Plan to help as many as we can and then hope we can ship back tens of thousands of people?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clearly, Australia will need a plan to deal with this situation, particularly given the panic over the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/BoatTurnbacks">arrival of small numbers of “boat people”</a> and the Coalition government <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/cities-fix-pms-plan-to-send-migrants-to-regions-for-five-years/news-story/c8573e68a1438295818d5aab9de5471b">reducing immigration to the lowest level in more than a decade</a>. We could bemoan a lack of support for increased immigration in Australia, or instead bear this resistance in mind and try to find a creative (part) solution.</p>
<p>This is where our Refuge City model is potentially instructive. As <a href="https://oldblog.robwiblin.com/2009/10/17/how-possible-is-a-charter-city-of-refugees-in-australia/">Robert Wiblin has urged in the past</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If Australians are not so enthusiastic about sharing their good luck with refugees [and migrants], a <a href="https://www.caymanfinancialreview.com/2012/10/12/charter-cities-the-future-trade-centres-of-the-world/">charter city</a> administered by Australia will at least allow them access to the governmental and legal institutions which have served Australia so well.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In line with this sentiment, we have designed an urban model for a bustling, multicultural and entrepreneurial metropolis located on Australia’s northern coast which would run under its own charter. Such a city would provide refuge and opportunity for many migrants, above and beyond what Australia already <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/research-and-statistics/statistics/visa-statistics/live/humanitarian-program">accepts through its humanitarian migration program</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248233/original/file-20181201-194925-m0i5mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248233/original/file-20181201-194925-m0i5mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248233/original/file-20181201-194925-m0i5mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248233/original/file-20181201-194925-m0i5mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248233/original/file-20181201-194925-m0i5mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248233/original/file-20181201-194925-m0i5mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=644&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248233/original/file-20181201-194925-m0i5mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=644&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248233/original/file-20181201-194925-m0i5mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=644&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An indicative plan for Refuge City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">'Future Making' students and staff, University of Western Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-cities-its-an-idea-worth-thinking-about-for-australia-92990">New cities? It's an idea worth thinking about for Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<h2>A city of cities on the north coast</h2>
<p>Why the northern coast? We selected this area because it has many advantages, such as proximity to rapidly growing Indonesia, availability of mineral and energy resources, and – in the case of the Northern Territory – <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-27/why-isnt-the-northern-territory-a-state-curious-darwin/9457776">Commonwealth control</a> of land. This is important because it gives the federal government full legislative power to create a charter city unconstrained by opposition from the states.</p>
<p>Refuge City would comprise dense, car-phobic and adaptable urban neighbourhoods (of up to 32,000 people) based partly on migrant ethnicities – forming a city of cities, rather than a monolithic mass of urbanism.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248211/original/file-20181201-194944-vwutfs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248211/original/file-20181201-194944-vwutfs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248211/original/file-20181201-194944-vwutfs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248211/original/file-20181201-194944-vwutfs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248211/original/file-20181201-194944-vwutfs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248211/original/file-20181201-194944-vwutfs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248211/original/file-20181201-194944-vwutfs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248211/original/file-20181201-194944-vwutfs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A city of cities: a model of the proposed Refuge City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">'Future Making' students and staff, University of Western Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As required, this form would enable different cultural groups to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cities-Zero-Andraos/dp/1902902602">follow many of their own cultural practices</a> and develop a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01944369708975941">measure of self sufficiency</a>. The design of these neighbourhoods would be developed with the communities and would reference – within limits – the urban traditions of the residents’ home countries so to provide a “home away from home”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248230/original/file-20181201-194928-y30qoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248230/original/file-20181201-194928-y30qoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248230/original/file-20181201-194928-y30qoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248230/original/file-20181201-194928-y30qoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248230/original/file-20181201-194928-y30qoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248230/original/file-20181201-194928-y30qoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248230/original/file-20181201-194928-y30qoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248230/original/file-20181201-194928-y30qoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cross-section view of a Refuge City neighbourhood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nur Mohd Rozlan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Rather than the cultural model of the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melting_pot">melting pot</a>” – which is under assault in many cities of the world – these urban neighbourhoods would cradle islands of relative cultural specificity yet maintain an overall cultural diversity. Natural areas, recreational open spaces and schools would provide crucial interstitial spaces between the urban islands and their respective communities. Moreover, an integrated bus system and a wide distribution of jobs would also stimulate interactions between communities. This will moderate the cultural specificity of the urban islands over time. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248229/original/file-20181201-194953-1vljztd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248229/original/file-20181201-194953-1vljztd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248229/original/file-20181201-194953-1vljztd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248229/original/file-20181201-194953-1vljztd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248229/original/file-20181201-194953-1vljztd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248229/original/file-20181201-194953-1vljztd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248229/original/file-20181201-194953-1vljztd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The design of each city neighbourhood will reference the urban traditions of the residents’ home countries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">'Future Making' students and staff, University of Western Australia</span></span>
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<h2>Adapting the charter city model</h2>
<p>Like <a href="https://www.aurecongroup.com/thinking/thinking-papers/charter-cities-start-scratch">other charter cities such as Shenzen</a>, an independent government would govern the city, running it with respect to a specific charter. The autonomous government will incorporate an alliance of representatives from Australia’s federal and territory governments and potentially other countries within the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/xiongan-xi-jinpings-new-city-making-machine-turned-on-95442">Xiong'an, Xi Jinping's new city-making machine turned on</a>
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<p>The <a href="http://clubtroppo.com.au/2014/10/20/a-charter-city-for-refugees/">charter’s terms, which will define the city’s operation</a>, include a much lower personal and company tax regime than elsewhere in Australia, to stimulate investment and jobs. Businesses would pay workers the Australian minimum wage but would not otherwise offer award wages or conditions. Complementing this will be a basic but liveable social security, housing, education and primary health care system.</p>
<p>On arrival, migrants would receive a <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/research-and-statistics/statistics/country-profiles/temporary-migration">temporary visa</a>. They would be able to apply for a <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/research-and-statistics/statistics/country-profiles/permanent-migration">skilled migration visa</a> if they gain marketable skills from the city’s trade schools and university campuses, or a permanent business visa if they establish a successful business (both business and education would be conducted in English). </p>
<p>Moreover the city would avoid the need for mandatory offshore detention of arrivals by boat, which the UN Human Rights Council has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/02/scathing-un-migration-report-not-ideal-start-to-australias-human-rights-council-tenure">condemned as a “massive abuse”</a> of migrants. This has in turn profoundly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/02/scathing-un-migration-report-not-ideal-start-to-australias-human-rights-council-tenure">damaged Australia’s moral authority</a> globally. Despite our tarnished reputation, Australian residents would be welcome in Refuge City, whether as students attending global university hubs, starting a business, or enjoying the city’s bustling diversity while on a weekend getaway. Conversely, Refuge City residents would also be able to visit other Australian cities, and in particular Darwin. </p>
<p>Through a leasehold model, Indigenous landholders would maintain ownership of Refuge City land and gain a sustainable and substantial rental income from it. This is not unprecedented. <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/curious-canberra/2016-07-04/can-people-own-land-in-the-act/7550166">Canberra embodies a similar system</a>, with all land leased to “owners” as a Crown lease. </p>
<p>Moreover, given Indigenous culture’s continuing ownership and intimate knowledge of the land, we would develop the Refuge City designs with land councils. Without such sincere engagement, traditional owners would rightly veto new city development under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976.</p>
<p>Through our Refuge City model Australians could aid many more refugees than they would otherwise accept as fully fledged immigrants to the existing cities. In so doing, we could make Australia the world’s great 21st-century refuge.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248231/original/file-20181201-194950-9vgwij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248231/original/file-20181201-194950-9vgwij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248231/original/file-20181201-194950-9vgwij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248231/original/file-20181201-194950-9vgwij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248231/original/file-20181201-194950-9vgwij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248231/original/file-20181201-194950-9vgwij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248231/original/file-20181201-194950-9vgwij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248231/original/file-20181201-194950-9vgwij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Refuge City montage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ozoutback.com.au/Australia/melville/slides/1976090118.html">By Julian Bolleter based on a photo by Ludo Kuipers</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-a-nation-in-need-of-compassion-focused-therapy-38421">Australia, a nation in need of compassion-focused therapy</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106992/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
By adapting the charter city model to create a new city on the northern coast, Australia could be the world’s great 21st-century refuge.
Julian Bolleter, Deputy Director, Australian Urban Design Research Centre, The University of Western Australia
Ken Parish, Senior Lecturer in Law, Charles Darwin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.