As the global climate crisis worsens, an increasing number of people are being forced to flee their homes due to natural disasters, droughts and other weather events. Since 2008, an average of 21.5 million people have fled their homes each year, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The term “climate refugees” is used to refer to the growing large-scale migration and cross-border mass movements of people caused in part by these same climate disasters.
According to the World Bank’s Groundswell report, up to 216 million people could be compelled to leave their nations by 2050 as a result of the emergence of climatic catastrophes such as water scarcity, decreased food yields and rising sea levels.
This is a global issue: hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh are routinely uprooted by coastal flooding, with many making the perilous journey to the capital’s slums. In West Africa, the nearly complete disappearance of Lake Chad due to desertification has empowered terrorists and forced over four million people into camps, according to NPR.
Climate migrants are also a problem in the United States. An estimated 2,300 Puerto Rican families displaced by Hurricane Maria are still looking for permanent housing, while government officials have spent years working to relocate more than a dozen small coastal communities in Alaska and Louisiana that are being destroyed by rising sea levels.
Another issue is that climate migrants are not seen legally as “refugees” because under the 1951 refugee convention, “refugee” is a legal term that has a very specific meaning centering on a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” and many argue that because the convention does not identify the environment as a persecuting force, individuals fleeing their nations due to climate stressors may not be classified as refugees.
The new U.N. expert on human rights and climate change told the Human Rights Council that combating the destructive consequences of extreme weather changes and disasters on populations in vulnerable situations around the world will be a major focus.
“The huge human cost of the climate crisis is being ignored. We hear of disaster relief, but the long-term costs are not being addressed. We must provide lasting support for people impacted by climate change,” said Ian Fry, U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change.
Fry expressed particular concern about people displaced across international borders due to climate change.
“There is no legal definition for these so-called climate change refugees, and they are not defined as refugees under the U.N. Refugee Convention. As a result, these people may fall through the cracks when it comes to protection,” he said.
In any case, the global agreements are not the end of the story. A separate U.N. task force established as part of the Paris climate agreement is expected to deliver a new set of recommendations on climate refugees around the same time the compacts are adopted.
SOURCE: The Suffolk Journal
