Environmental Refugees- Climate refugees

Study about existing victims of climate change, the predictions of future migrations of environmental refugees and the likelihood of political conflicts and even wars, if the world does not share the situation.

The term “environmental refugees” has increasingly been invoked over the last two decades to describe growing waves of people displaced by environmental problems.

They are people who are forced to flee their homes primarily because of environmental push factors such as desertification, deforestation, extreme weather events, floods and droughts or natural events relating to the Earth’s hydrological cycle. And with even the most modest scenarios for Global Warming showing significant rises and increases in the intensity and probably frequency of extreme weather events, certain parts of the world that are highly populated – along coasts and rivers – are going to become much harder places to live. In some areas that are dependent on rain-fed agriculture, especially in some parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, people are going to find life difficult, if not impossible, to live. So every projection points to a significant increase in the number of environmental refugees. Red Cross research shows that more people are now displaced by environmental disasters than by war.

Environmental changes causing widespread migration

Environment-related migration has been most acute in Sub-Saharan Africa, but also affects millions of people in Asia, for example India. Meanwhile, Europe and the United States are witnessing increasing pressure from victims of often mismanaged and deteriorating soil and water conditions in North Africa and Latin America.

A study focusing specifically on Ghana, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal analyzes the latest data on environmental factors to determine what changes are most likely to trigger migration. Two thirds of Africa is covered by desert or dry land. In the four countries, environmental changes like soil degradation and erosion are especially prevalent in rural areas, where poverty is pronounced.

- In Ghana, these slowly occurring environmental changes, coupled with severe and frequent droughts, have been partly responsible for internal migration from the north to the south.

- In Mozambique, droughts triggered internal migration from rural areas in the south to coastal and urban centers.

- In Niger, environmental changes related to the expansion of the Sahel desert have resulted not only in internal, but also border-crossing and regional migration flows.

- In Senegal, internal and international migration resulted from the environmental changes taking place in the peanut basin, where job and farming opportunities decreased with increasing environmental degradation.

Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, has doubled its population every six years since 1972 and now stands at 900,000. The aquifer on which the city depends is falling by 6 meters a year and may be exhausted by 2010.In China, the Gobi desert expands more than 10,000 square kilometers per year, threatening many villages. Morocco, Tunisia and Libya each lose over 1,000 square kilometers of productive land annually to desertification.

In Egypt, half of irrigated croplands suffer from salinization (the accumulation of soluble salts in poorly drained soil).In Turkey, 160,000 square kilometers of farmlands are affected by soil erosion.

In the United States, Louisiana now loses roughly 65 square kilometers per year to erosion by the sea, while in Alaska 213 communities are threatened by tides that creep roughly three meters further inland each year.

In the low-lying Pacific island state of Tuvalu, Global Warming has become a matter of life and death. The government of Tuvalu has already negotiated an agreement with New Zealand to accept its 11,600 citizens in the event that rising sea levels swamp the country.

The Maldives is home to 350,000 people, all living at eight feet above sea level. With current models showing a sea level rise of up to nine foot by 2100, President Nasheed has decided not to wait for the governments of the world to act, but has gone on a speaking tour around the world and before the UN to argue for support for curbing emissions and money for relocation. He has even gone so far as to have his cabinet get scuba training in order to have a full government cabinet meeting underwater to emphasize the threat of sea level rise due to climate change.

In northern Syria, a sustained drought has led to the abandonment of 160 villages due to climate change, with dwindling resources forcing migration into urban centers.

A report focuses on long-term forecasts that show that the Middle East faces hotter, drier and less predictable climate, and warns that this is a recipe for conflict in the already unstable region. The increasing climate change pressure will lead to food insecurity, hinder economic growth and result in large-scale population movements in

the region. While the report focuses on the pending instability due to climate change, it also suggests proactive steps to address these challenges by promoting conservation, adapting to the impacts, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and initiating greater cooperation to share dwindling resources.

By one rough estimate, as many as 100 million people worldwide live in areas below sea level and/or are subject to storm surge.

Around the world, vulnerability is on the increase due to the rapid development of megacities in coastal areas. Many cities are overwhelmed, incapable of handling with any degree of effectiveness the demands of a burgeoning number of people, many of whom have to take up shelter in flimsy shanties. Combine this trend with rising sea levels and the growing number and intensity of storms, and it is the recipe for a disaster-in-waiting, with enormous potential to create waves of environment-driven migration.

Environmental conflicts or wars

Wars and human conflicts have long been related to conquest and material gain. However, the new commodities in a rapidly warming world are access to water, food and oil. Exact figures vary on how many refugees may be displaced due to environmental factors and conflicts, although experts are predicting numbers from 50 million people by 2010 to 150 million by 2050. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 saw the displacement of more than 15 million people in total, due to impacts to the economy, emergency evacuations, higher gas prices or even lack of drinking water.

Darfur – environmental war on water and land resources

The ongoing and bloody conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan is considered to be an environmental-based conflict. The conflict started in 2003 between the African farmers and the Arabic herders, both struggling to access the same limited resources. The government is reported to be supporting the people of the Janjaweed tribes, who keep Sudanese farmers from accessing diminishing water supplies and using the arable land. Restoring peace in the region will be extremely difficult until the area’s water and resource shortages are addressed.

Wars on water

Furthermore, water seems increasingly likely to be a cause of war, because there is simply not enough of it to go around. In the mere 40 years up to 1990, global water-use tripled. Its use is inequitable and profligate where it is relatively easy to get. A western family can use 2,000 liters a day; in Africa a few liters of untreated water have to be carried, often for long distances or in war conditions. The world population is still growing, while water tables fall, underground aquifers empty, lakes shrink and wetlands dry up.

There are fears for war over the Euphrates, the object of a vast damming operation in Turkey which will cut Syria’s water supply by a third – and Turkey has threatened to cut Syria off altogether for supporting Turkish dissidents. There are fears for war over the river Jordan: Israel, bent on self-sufficiency, claims all the water it can; but Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians need supplies too. There are fears for war over the Nile: Egypt is diverting river water to irrigate the desert so as to grow crops instead of importing them; eight more countries, including drought-devastated Sudan, are in the queue. President Sadat has said: “The only matter that could take Egypt to war again is water”.

Future environmental refugees

According to current predictions, there will be 75 million environmental refugees displaced due to climate change by 2050. Other models are predicting up to 250 million people. This wide disparity in ranges is because we still do not know how wrong climate change models will turn out to be, as evidenced by the updated 2009 report from IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which is drastically worse than scientific estimates by the IPCC in 2007.

We must look further and follow the factors that cause the warming and are responsible for the millions of people who will lose their homes and way of life, and look to the solutions as well. According to the definition by UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR), a refugee is someone either inside or outside their national borders fleeing persecution due to their affiliation with their social group – for instance ethnic, religious, or political persecution. But a person whose island is swallowed up by rising sea levels has no rights under the refugee law. In fact, such people are considered “migrants”, meaning they are “voluntarily” leaving their country. The first step could be for the United Nations to expand its Charter to encompass those who have to flee their country because of the effects of Global Warming, so they are covered under the current definition of a refugee.