CLIMATE DISPLACEMENT IN THE NEWS
When it comes to displacement, there is a tendency to focus on one type at a time, usually internal or cross-border displacement. While this can be helpful in developing digestible advocacy messages and manageable policy responses, a siloed approach runs the risk of perpetuating gaps in data and understanding, especially when it comes to displacement as a result of climate change.
Should it be successful, the law would be the first of its kind in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region where the World Bank’s estimates there could be as many as 17 million internal climate migrants by 2050, representing 2.6 percent of the region’s total population.
While the new law only addresses internal climate displacement, it could have significant regional implications as countries continue to step up efforts to address both internal and cross-border movement due to the effects of climate change.
As has been our advocacy message about climate displacement risks, refugees are amongst the most vulnerable of the frontline communities to climate shocks and risks, spending year after year exposed to extreme rains and cyclones in Bangladesh with no access to storm shelters. The Covid-19 pandemic response proves no different.
Jaroslaw Kwoczala/UNSPLASH
The study shows the dangerous new levels are happening now and come 50 years earlier than expected in another new study published last Friday, led by Columbia University. Researchers at NASA, UK’s Loughborough University and Columbia University examined global surface temperature data from nearly 8,000 weather stations using wet bulb readings to find dangerous spikes in heat waves that will make certain parts of the Earth uninhabitable, spurring “climate refugees” and threatening global security. Unlike previous research that looked at multiple points over large areas across the world, this study looked at hyper-local wet bulb temperatures, getting a more accurate picture of localized spikes that were not expected until at least 2070. Local instances of extreme humid heat doubled from 1979 to 2017, and brief spikes that usually lasted an hour or two at a time are now expected to become more frequent as global temperatures rise. Southeastern US States are a hotspot for temperature spikes as are coastal regions of the Middle East, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, northwestern Australia and Red Sea border regions and the Gulf of California, and show how climate change is affecting human life now, outside of a pandemic, and well before expected. (NBC)
In its new report, Region on the Move, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says the drastic drop in regional internally displaced persons (IDPs) is due to 1.3 million Ethiopians returning home who had previously fled communal violence. In mid 2019, the region was home to 8.1 million IDPs and 3.5 million refugees and asylum-seekers but by year’s end, 3.5 million refugees and asylum seekers remained and 6.3 million displaced, accounting for a 22% drop. Despite this, IOM found 2019 displacements persisted largely due to climate and environmental hazards such as the prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa, which impacted food security in parts of Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Djibouti. Concerns persist about new displacements in Somalia and South Sudan, as well as climate displacements. Last year, flooding and heavy rains devastated the region and the rains created the right conditions for desert locusts whose breeding is currently impacting East African crops again in Ethiopia and Somalia, but spreading to Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and South Sudan. (Reliefweb)
David Anderson/UNSPLASH
Hundreds have died and thousands are displaced across Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Another hospital in western Uganda was flooded, hospital wards, drug dispensaries and mortuaries have been impacted, further complicating planning and response to COVID-19, and increasing contagion risks with mass displacements that don’t allow for social distancing. Ethiopia’s Somali region has more than 100,000 people displaced, while casualties are unknown in the Somali town in Puntland, which washed away the entire town. Climate experts in Kenya say the heavy rains are due to the increased temperatures in the Indian Ocean and are a spillover of effects seen last year, when heavy rains and landslides impacted the region. Kenya has lost nearly 200 people and 100,000 are displaced, now living in camps, where authorities fear coronavirus spread could increase as a result. (Reuters)
