What is a climate refugee?

This is an assignment I did for a MOOCs course run by the University of Melbourne in 2013. It in many ways echoes the present so I want to add it to my blogs. I worked hard but got 95% for my efforts. Getting a graphics to fit from my PDF file was difficult. 

What is a climate refugee?

Refugees have been traditionally thought of as stateless people fleeing from wars and persecution. Forced Migration is a related term that was used in a recent report by the Environmental Justice Foundation¹ on the impact of climate change in Bangladesh. Indeed this report is a good start to learning about the impacts of global warming on the most vulnerable of communities in the Indian subcontinent.

Whether climate refugees or forced migrants we are talking fundamentally about survival, not a better life but almost any life at all, and the likely permanent displacement of people from their homes, communities, and nations due to rising seas. In 1990 the IPCC declared “that the greatest single consequence of climate change could be migration. ²” Estimates of between 150 – 200 million climate refugees by 2050 are common³ making it a massive challenge for policymakers and concerned people around the world.

However the term climate refugee is in dispute. The UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees doesn’t yet provide long-term legal protection to refugees affected by environmental change⁴ leaving their status in a kind of limbo. The International Organisation for Migration in the interim proposes³ defining climate refugees as those “... obliged to leave their habitual homes either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad.”

Sadly a small element, in Australia anyway, has an “us and them” attitude and tends to think of them as “gatecrashers to our party”, or as uninvited aliens who alarmingly steal across our borders to burden us with their needs. But climate refugees can reside within these same borders. Think of the Oklahoman tenant farmers of the 1930s dustbowl fleeing to California so well depicted in John Steinbeck’s classic novel, Grapes of Wrath, or of a predicted relocation of farmers from southern Australia to the north. Both are clear instances, past and future, of the consequences of environmental devastation.

Looking far beyond our borders today we also have Newtok, Alaska⁵ which is seriously threatened by rising seas and the imminent losses of home and livelihood. And let’s not forget New Orleans post-cyclone Katrina and any number of other places ravaged of late by “natural disasters”. Witness also the Queensland floods and the Victorian bushfires to get a wide perspective of alarming possibilities.

Swamps or deserts

Climate change threats I will examine include:

-          Rising sea levels leading to a loss of habitable, cultivable land, and freshwater reserves.

-          Changing weather patterns that can turn fertile farmland into deserts or flood plains

Swamping sea levels – the new wetlands

As indicated above rising sea levels are already impacting on communities in Bangladesh and Alaska. The IPCC in their 4 ^th Assessment in 2007 presented various scenarios, see below, with projected rises of between 50 cm and exceeding 1.4 metres by 2100.

Projection of sea-level rise from 1990 to 2100, based on IPCC temperature projections for three different emission scenarios in 2007 report. From skepticalscience.com

The IPCC report of September 2013 shows a 90% certainty that the rate of increase will be greater than 2007 projections. Revised predictions are in the order of 45-82cm higher with no mitigation by the end of the

The IPCC report of September 2013 shows a 90% certainty that the rate of increase will be greater than 2007 projections. Revised predictions are in the order of 45-82cm higher with no mitigation by the end of the

century, to 26-55cm if carbon emissions are controlled or reversed. Such increases would be catastrophic threatening major cities such as Shanghai to New York with hurricanes and cyclones causing enormous damage to coastlines.

The new IPCC⁶ projections for the average sea level (see right) in the period 2080-2100 are greater than in the 2007 report, ranging from 45-82cm higher than the present if nothing is done to curb emissions to

26-55cm if carbon emissions are halted and reversed. Without abatement sea levels could rise by a 98cm, or 16cm higher than in the 2007 predictions (see above) which were bad enough.

It gets worse. Exactly how fast glaciers and ice sheets break off into the sea remains the subject of ongoing research and are not factored into these IPCC estimates. They could add many centimetres to the

rise in sea levels if the large Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melted rapidly⁷. A time and policymaking framework can begin to be deduced from the above figures for coastal protection, an extremely expensive undertaking, especially for developing countries. For example, by mid-century average sea level rises could exceed 20 cm which would present problems for many low lying Pacific islands some of which would cease to exist. Climate data sourced is from satellite surveillance, sea buoys, weather stations, analysis of ice cover and diminished albedo, etc and the models from this data quite sound. Technology to retrieve such data, eg from satellites, is in some cases relatively recent.

Which countries are most vulnerable?

Whilst Bangladesh, Pacific islands such as Tuvalu, and the Maldives come immediately to mind other countries most at risk are listed in the following table. Note that they are among the poorer ranking and least polluting countries of the world and that The Netherlands, Venice/Italy, and metropolises like London face fewer threats due to their greater adaptive capacities.

Desertification or tropical downpours?

I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains

Of rugged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains

Dorothy Mackellar

According to Thomas Stocker, co-chair of the IPCC working group on physical science:

"Heatwaves are very likely to occur more frequently and last longer. As the earth warms, we expect to see currently wet regions receiving more rainfall, and dry regions receiving less, although there will be exceptions,"

This essentially means more rain in the tropics, less in the middle latitudes and more rain closer to the poles. Australian agriculture, in the tropics and middle latitudes, faces challenges in drought, water security, low soil fertility, weeds, and a changing climate. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has forecast the global warming will result in decreased rainfall over much of Australia exacerbating water availability and quality for agriculture⁷. A temperature rise of between only 1 - 2^o Celsius, the CSIRO predicts^8, will result in a 12–25% reduction in flow in the Murray and Darling River basins. Many farmers and rural communities depend on water from these major river systems and angry scenes including the burning of reports over threatened reductions to water quotas have made the evening news. Often forgotten by contesting groups are the needs of the rivers to maintain strong water flows.

An adaptive strategy has been proposed in various quarters that some agricultural enterprises may need to relocate to the tropical north, where increased rainfall is predicted, but of course the very same rainfall carries a risk of flooding. Nevertheless, Australia has an adaptive capacity that far exceeds that of our near neighbours in the Pacific desperate for our help and understanding.

Disasters can manifest in the short term by sudden events like storms and flooding, or be long and more drawn out by extended heat waves and drying up of crops, soils and so on, perhaps even leading to a dustbowl as experienced in the 30s in Oklahoma. We need to focus and plan ahead for what science has so clearly predicted, be it to our farmland or to our coastal properties.

Justice and human rights

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne

As Professor Jon Barnett proposed in his lectures climate change is a social problem induced by people. Thus solutions should be sought in the best interests of humanity at large and not be lost in the rhetoric of border protection and xenophobia so evident in some quarters today. It is clear from the table above that most global emissions come from affluent societies that have gained most from industrialisation and rising consumerism. The poorer less polluting countries are mere innocent bystanders of our carbon-emitting frenzy. This, therefore, is a justice and human rights issue we cannot ignore when climate refugees wash up on our shores in boats or less conspicuously in arrival terminals in our airports. Equally important is aid to assist them improve their adaptive capacity.

The wealthiest 10% in developed countries emit 7.5 times more CO2 than the poorest 10% in developed countries and 155 times more CO2 than the poorest 10% in developing countries (Baer).

In Article 3, on Common but differentiated responsibilities, the UNFCCC states: “Specific needs and special circumstances of developing country parties ... those that are particularly vulnerable ... and that would have to bear a disproportionate or abnormal burden under the Convention.” (3.2)

Article 4 on Commitments further states “... assist the Parties that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting the costs of adaptation (4.4). Thus a key feature of the 2009 Copenhagen Accord is a green climate fund, to support action on mitigation and adaptation with a target of US$100 billion p.a. by 2020. Finally smaller states through coalition-building have gained a voice in climate conferences albeit a small one. They should be heard and supported.

All fine words no doubt but will the green climate fund deliver in the face of economic downturns and budgets restrictions, and locally how will these climate refugees be met when they wash onto our shores with absolutely no rights or long term legal protection? Will compassion overrule xenophobia and self-interest in our future refugee debate or will climate refugees be left to fester unaided?

Current Australian politics is particularly worrying on this matter. Climate change abatement is basically in the balance and scaremongering slogans of border protection abound from shore to glittering shore. I taught ESL to adult migrants and refugees for almost 30 years, years of wars, repression, and at times of heartbreaking prejudice before final resettlement in this our lucky country. Most migrants and refugees have gone on to better lives and to making worthwhile contributions to life here, none more so that Akram Azim, the current Young Australian of the Year who arrived as a 12-year-old refugee from Afghanistan and has worked to give a voice to young indigenous people.

One can only hope that the climate settlers of the future will not be treated with the disdain and prejudice that greeted the Joad family (from Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath) in their epic flight from the dustbowl of Oklahoma to the fruitbowl of California, an environmental tragedy of the Depression era that displaced tens of thousands of drought stricken farmers. Perhaps the homeless denizens of New Orleans fared better after Cyclone Katrina broke the levees and swamped their homes. Will we warmly welcome climate refugees borne here by the high seas or the arid earth of climate change? Or will the world become a much sadder place for our loss of humanity, a crowded but lonely planet?

1860 words.

1.        Environmental Justice Foundation, 2012. A Nation Under Threat: The impacts of climate change on human rights and forced migration in Bangladesh. See http://ejfoundation.org/climate/a-nation-under-threat

2.        Warner K and Laczko F. (2008). ‘Migration, Environment and Development: New Directions for Research’, in Chamie J, Dall’Oglio L (eds.), International Migration and Development, IOM

3.        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_migrant

4.        Hartley, Lindsey. (16 February 2012). Treading Water: Climate Change, the Maldives, and De-territorialization. Stimson Centre.

5.        Guardian report, America’s first climate refugees, at http://tinyurl.com/lbss4xc

6.        International Organisation for Migration proposal. PDF at http://tinyurl.com/mohmn2a

7.        http://tinyurl.com/pjb9dsf IPCC climate report: the digested read, UK Guardian, 28 September 2013

8.        Summary for policy makers: www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf

9.        Preston, B.L.; Jones, R.N. (February 2006). "Climate Change Impacts on Australia and the Benefits of Early Action to Reduce Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions". CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research. Archived from the original on 25 February 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-25.

10.     CSIRO Arnell, N.W. (1999) Climate change and global water resources. Global Environmental Change 9, S31-S46.