When UNHCR released its Global Trends report last week, not only did it contain alarming statistics like nearly 80 million people forcibly displaced in 2019, amounting to 1% of the world’s population or one out of every 97 people in the population, but it also contained climate change as one of the causes of that forced displacement. This was unprecedented for the UN Refugee Agency, which notes the risks that both extreme weather and long-term environmental changes pose to displacement with the “interplay between climate, conflict, hunger, poverty, and persecution creates increasingly complex emergencies.” UNHCR says it is particularly concerned about the “risk of climate-related displacement of people”... because “the reality is that climate change is forcing people around the world to leave their homes and even their countries. We’ve been working on displacement issues linked to climate change and disasters for many years, and we have long seen firsthand the devastating impact on people uprooted from their homes.” (Gizmodo Earther)

Analysis

It’s hugely significant that UNHCR made these connections between climate change and displacement and, even more, it is really welcome. Especially since a few of us have been making these connections for a while now. Much of the discourse around building policy on cross-border climate displacement has stalled under the premise that climate displacement will be largely internal. Even if that were true, we’ve always found that rather problematic since it tends to presume countries will be equipped to deal with the level of expected displacement and  overlooks the very real protection needs that even internal climate displaced people have. Furthermore, our experience has told us, people usually leave their homes as a last resort, and after repeated struggles. It’s also not unheard of to be repeatedly displaced either - sometimes internal displacement, then cross-border, if needs go unmet. 

Central American asylum-seekers at the US border are prime examples of nexus dynamics - that is those fleeing situations of violence or persecution, recognized under refugee law, that are interconnected to situations linked to climate change, where Dry Corridor residents in these countries have been affected by a near 6-year drought that has made over 2.5 million people severely food insecure. 

This recognition by UNHCR can go a long way in both urging and helping countries recognize that climate change is contributing to conditions that more and more people are fleeing each year, and for the thousands of people already dealing with this reality, this shift is very welcome indeed.