There is Nowhere to run from Global Disasters
Pastor Dale Morgan
There is Nowhere to run from Global Disasters*
23 May 2008 17:27:27 GMT
Source: IRIN
JOHANNESBURG, 23 May 2008 (IRIN) - Norman Myers, a world renowned
British environmentalist and authority on biodiversity, forecast more
than a decade ago that as the impact of climate change intensified, the
number of people fleeing natural disasters could climb to at least 50
million by 2010. Now, as the world grapples with food shortages brought
on in part by climate change, he is revising his figures upwards.
Estimates of the number of people likely to be displaced by natural
disasters or rising sea levels vary widely, but as fiercer and bigger
weather events hit the news headlines daily, the temperature of debates
on providing protection to people displaced by the vagaries of nature is
rising.
"Many scholars are working on this 'hot topic'," said Jean-Francois
Durieux, lecturer in International Human Rights and Refugee Law at
Oxford University's Refugee Studies Centre, but most of them are
struggling to find answers on how to help the displaced.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a scientific body
established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and
the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to evaluate the risk of climate
change caused by human activity, tells us that as global warming melts
ice and expands water, several million residents in low-lying areas
could be displaced in the next few decades.
Low-lying coastal areas constitute only two percent of the total land
surface of the earth, but contain 10 percent of the world's current
population. A policy paper by the UN University Institute for
Environment and Human Security Section (UNU-EHS) noted that about 75
percent of all vulnerable people living in low-lying areas are in Asia.
Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, may lose up to
one-fifth of its surface area if the sea level rises by one metre. "If
we look at South Asia alone, the melting [glaciers would mean] tens of
millions of people will have to leave their livelihoods. Where will they
go? How will they impact on the host communities that receive them?"
asked Achim Steiner, Executive Secretary of UNEP.
It's happening now
Natural disasters can lead to permanent migration, as illustrated by the
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, which struck the
southern United States in 2005, said Koko Warner, head of Social
Vulnerability and Environmental Migration at UNU-EHS.
The Indian Ocean tsunami displaced more than two million people, many of
whom are still living in refugee camps in the region. "The UN Office of
the Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery estimates that 1.5 million people
lost their livelihoods in the aftermath of the tsunami, further
complicating resettlement of migrants," said the UNU-EHS policy paper.
Hurricane Katrina caused about 1.5 million people to be displaced
temporarily, and an estimated 500,000 permanently.
The Maldives, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean threatened by
rising sea-levels, has played a leading role in trying to create
awareness of the issue for the past two decades. In March 2008 the UN
Human Rights Council agreed to conduct a study on the effects of climate
change on human rights, especially livelihoods.
Maldives hopes the findings will inform the negotiation process between
industrialised and developing countries at the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change (the Kyoto Protocol) on how to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. There is a general consensus that greenhouse gas emissions
are contributing to global warming, but none on how, or by how much, to
reduce them.
In 2005, 1,000 residents of Carteret atoll in the Papua New Guinea
islands, described by the Guardian, a UK daily newspaper, as the
"world's first refugees of global warming" had to be evacuated. The sea
is slowly drowning the atoll, and the process of relocating 3,000
residents of other islands is still ongoing.
Key questions
For any country to provide protection and a home to people fleeing
natural disasters, the displaced need to have legal status. And it is
here that policymakers are struggling with several key questions:
- How do you determine whether a person has been displaced by
environmental factors? - How do you define a person displaced by
environmental factors? - What do you call them? - What kind of
protection can be afforded to the person – short-term or long-term? - Do
those affected have to be relocated? Why not help them adapt to their
changed environment? - Who will pay for relocation or adaptation
measures? Are the industrialised countries, who have been held
responsible for global warming, morally obliged to pay?
Durieux said just about everybody agreed that the current legal
definition of a refugee should not be tampered with to accommodate those
affected by environmental factors, and in general researchers agree that
most countries will accept a new concept and a separate convention on
environmental refugees.
The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
defines a refugee, sets out the rights of those granted asylum and the
responsibilities of nations granting asylum.
A "refugee" is a person, who, "owing to a well founded fear of being
persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of
his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to
avail himself of the protection of that country," said William Spindler,
spokesman for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, quoting from the 1951
convention.
There are genuine concerns that expanding the definition of a refugee
could "water down the convention", said UNU-EHS's Warner. "The term
'refugee' has political connotations and is frequently used by refugee
lobby groups, and anti-refugee lobby groups, to apply targeted pressure
on governments."
Janos Bogardi, Director of UNU-EHS, said developing a definition for
various categories of people displaced by environmental factors would
require a better understanding of the circumstances in which
environmental factors were the "main root cause for migration".
The UNU-EHS is constructing a preliminary classification that would take
into account the trigger and type of assistance available to help
potential migrants cope in their own countries.
The triggers
Essentially, two kinds of displacement could potentially be caused by
global warming: firstly, intensification of weather events, such as
cyclones and droughts; secondly, rising sea-levels. These raise
conceptual problems on defining a potential migrant forced to flee, said
Durieux. Some analysts argue that migration as a result of natural
disasters, such as drought, could be seen as a coping strategy rather
than a trigger.
"It will be a rare occurrence that 'global warming' produces large-scale
and sudden displacement across international borders. In most cases, the
displacement will be gradual, spread over lengthy periods and possibly
involving many 'stopovers', including within the country of origin. This
would make a status determination extremely complicated."
But rising sea-levels could lead to the possible 'disappearance' of
entire states. "This (if it occurs) will raise questions of
'international protection' and, indeed, new forms of statelessness, for
which new solutions will have to be imagined," Durieux told IRIN.
Etienne Piguet, Professor of Human Geography at the University of
Neuchâtel, Switzerland, says in one of his papers: "There is agreement
today that natural factors are not the sole cause of migration, and that
the economic, social and political situation of the zone under threat
can, depending on the case, increase or decrease the flow of migrants.
"Apart from the scientific error of oversimplifying the processes taking
place, the danger here is also one of "evacuating political
responsibility by overplaying the hand of nature".
However, Durieux pointed out that "Where a famine is caused by bad
governance ... the existing refugee law instruments suffice to recognise
the fleeing victims as refugees.
"While it can be argued that in the final analysis all 'environmentally
induced' displacements are in some way man-made, where the
responsibility can be attributed clearly to one failing state, or one
repressive government, receiving states cannot hide behind the 'natural
disaster' screen to deny asylum to the victims," he said.
But who's listening?
At present the European Union member states, which deal with the largest
influx of refugees, and Australia and New Zealand, which are the first
port of call for several threatened island states in their
neighbourhood, are the only countries that have been proactive about the
issue, said UNU-EHS's Warner.
The European Commission is funding a two-year research project,
Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios (EACH-FOR), based on
case studies in 24 vulnerable countries spanning all continents and
conducted by UNU-EHS.
The aim is to find answers to questions such as: who has been migrating
away from situations of environmental degradation/change; where; why,
and the kind of coping capacity; adaptation mechanisms already in place,
and the perception of environmental degradation.
EU member states are focusing on adaptation projects in vulnerable
countries as a preventative measure against an influx of refugees;Canada
is funding the relocation of residents of parts of Vanuatu, another
Pacific Ocean island affected by global warming.
Doctors for the Environment Australia, a branch of the International
Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE), a voluntary organisation
of physicians, argued in a discussion paper that Australia and New
Zealand have a "moral responsibility" to accept refugees from Pacific
islands inundated by rising sea levels.
"Their combined population is relatively small - in the region of
150,000 - and some of them, from Tokelaua and Tuvalu, already have
negotiated rights to enter New Zealand [unrelated to the impact of
climate change]... Only the inhabitants of Kiribati (population 78,000)
have no real migration options, and may seek entry into Australia or New
Zealand."
But what about populations in non-island states such as Bangladesh,
Vietnam and Egypt, identified as some of the most vulnerable to rising
sea-levels by a World Bank study, says Warner. "There will have to be
regional solutions to the problems."
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