Yet another new report was released this week that projects as many as 1.2 billion people in 31 countries could be displaced by the climate crisis by 2050. Drawing on UN, IDMC, FAO, WRI and its own research, (data and methodology we have not reviewed), the report assessed 157 countries and also contends that 19 countries with the highest number of ecological threats are amongst the 40 least peaceful countries; by 2040, more than half of the world’s projected population - 5.4 billion people - will live in 59 countries facing high or extreme water stress; 5 billion could face food insecurity by 2050; and a lack of resilience in the assessed countries will create food insecurity, competition over resources, increased conflict and mass displacement, exposing developed countries to “increased influxes of refugees.”

Predictably, the displacement warnings generated buzz. Greta Thunberg tweeted about it. Much of the media coverage has lingered over that last finding of “huge flows of climate refugees”, rather than focus on causes for such potential migration and actions that should be taken now in response.

Noting all the ecological threats, CNN wrote “all these threats combined will create a migration crisis that can then cause spinoff effects like heightened political instability, global insecurity and greater hostility toward immigrants.”

Euractiv focused on the report’s findings of large flows of migrants who would end up in Europe, because Europe and North America, which are assessed to have “high resilience” and “superior coping capacities,” will not be immune from the “spillover effects, such as large flows of refugees,” as seen in the wake of the 2015 refugee flows from Syria and beyond.

It should be noted current refugee data, UN and migration experts will tell you, most cross-border displacements happen in neighboring countries, due in great part to the costs associated with fleeing one’s country. And the report’s own findings reveal the greatest ecological threats are in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

Because it’s not the scope of the report, it does not study which societies within Europe and North America, even with its higher resiliency, are most vulnerable to the ecological threats, but we know it will follow a similar international trend of targeting already vulnerable, marginalized and minority communities.

The report came out this week as fires tore through Europe’s largest refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, and as the EU is struggling to reform the Common European Asylum System, where negotiations have stalled over the past five years.

The US continues its practice of detaining and deporting asylum-seekers, even during a pandemic.

It also comes as the EU Parliament’s environment committee voted this week in favor of a legally binding new target to cut EU greenhouse gas emissions 60% by 2030. The full parliament still has to vote on the law in October.

The opportunity exists for some migration flows into Europe and North America - Syria in 2015 and Central American arrivals into the US support that - however, policymakers should take note: migration isn’t a certainty. Their inaction can force people into uncertainty.

But let’s be clear, these are examples of forced migration because of failed policies and any future forced migration to Europe or North America as a result of climate change will be no different. It will be a result of policy inaction, but it certainly won’t be the numbers intended to stoke fear and it also won’t be to the rich European and North American countries.

No, just like with present forced migration flows, it will be internal and cross-border flows will largely be absorbed by neighboring poor countries - not on the continents of Europe and North America - who to this day, host the majority of refugees and displaced people for generations upon generations with scant media or security alarmist attention.

Approaching this as a security issue for rich countries obfuscates the real issues, benefits few and gets the details wrong.

Misplaced Focus

But focus only on what the projections may inadvertently convey and get wrong, also obfuscates another issue. So many times I’ve heard these projections and even the term ‘climate refugee’ serve only to securitize the issue of climate migration and displacement, contributing to political hostility, and in the process, getting it wrong as well, since much of the displacement that could result from climate change and environmental threats, will be largely internal.

These criticisms are fair, but they don’t tell the whole story. My sense on these sentiments boil down to two thoughts:

1. For those who are hostile towards refugees and immigrants, the driver for their migration is not the issue, the fact that they are migrants - that is, unwanted outsiders - is the issue;

2. Whether human beings will be displaced internally or across international borders has very little to no bearing whatsoever on their need for assistance, protection and rights. The establishment of The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement demonstrate that quite well. The international community’s debate on terminology and legal frameworks is a largely Western privilege that has very little impact on the real suffering many are currently facing, who incidentally contributed very little to global warming in the first place.

To refute the term ‘refugee’ because it doesn’t fit the legal definition is fair. But to advocate use of the term ‘migrant’, which has no legal definition whatsoever, and in fact, suggests a voluntary nature, is thoroughly perplexing in a situation of forced migration.

The projection reports are intended to inform and, along with the ensuing media, can be helpful if they are accurate and move policymakers to action. If they rightly place focus on the human rights implications for the most impacted communities.

If they focus on millions at risk of falling back into poverty. If they focus on yet more millions in extreme poverty, now facing extreme weather and worsening poverty.

If they focus on the development losses, not to mention billions of dollars lost in development aid.

If they focus on the need for polluting countries to take responsibility for their actions.

But they rarely do that. At least the ensuing media doesn’t. Instead the focus is the erroneous plight of Western countries who will face the challenge of overwhelming arrivals.

Clearly these reports have unintended effects, but focus only on the backlash they can generate, or that terminology can create to securitize climate migration, seems to me to miss the point of our jobs as advocates.

That of representing the needs and losses of the affected communities, over the reactions fueled by fears and concerns of imagined migrant-receiving countries.

The story isn’t the arrival of migrants to European and American shores. The story is the risk of increased suffering for some in a system of unequal power.