The UN Is Sounding the Alarm on 'Climate Refugees' - We Weigh In

Markus Spiske/UNSPLASH

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. 

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In Today's News: Is Climate Finance 'Displacing' Aid?; What One Expert Overlooks in the Broad Details on Climate Migration (We Weigh In); By Not Recognizing 'Climate Refugees' Germany Signifies Need

Why Climate Funds May Be ‘Displacing’ Lifesaving Aid

Ten years ago at COP15, countries pledged $100 billion a year by 2020 to help countries least responsible for climate change fight its impacts. Receiving countries assumed the climate money would be in addition to development aid but a 2018 Oxfam study found most donors were counting their climate finance as part of their overseas development aid commitments, in the process underfunding humanitarian and development budgets needed to respond to disasters, fight poverty and vitally needed education, health and lifesaving programs. 

Yet, even with this redirection, funding for climate adaptation and mitigation has fallen below the $100 billion target according to the OECD, and Oxfam found that only 18 percent of the promised climate funds are reaching the countries that need it most. 

Funding continues to be one of the most contentious issues at each of the COP negotiations, where this past year, vulnerable countries’ requests to secure “loss and damage” financing for disasters went unmet. Most climate funds are focused on mitigation but countries most-at-risk need funding to adapt to the disaster risks fueled by climate change. (The New Humanitarian)

Analysis

The danger here is two-fold: not only are countries least responsible for climate change being left in the lurch in terms of the necessary aid to respond to the climate crisis, but in addition, they are as a result, being forced to resort to borrowing the money to rebuild after disasters, heightening their risks, poverty and further entrenching them in a cycle of ever deepening and widening poverty. 

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How Should the World Respond to the Coming Wave of Climate Migrants?

Analysis

This is a policy editorial that mostly summarizes the state of play with respect to the plight of climate migrants and the current policy discourse based on the worst case climate migration models. The opinion piece does address the legal challenge that climate change falls outside the purview of protected refugee grounds under the 1951 Convention, but fails to include broader refugee definitions in the 1969 OAU Convention and the 1984 Cartagena Declaration. 

It also fails to include the recently adopted, albeit non-binding, UN Global Compacts for Migration and Refugees, respectively, which discuss environmental migration and further, UNHCR’s more recent position that refugee law frameworks may apply in situations where nexus dynamics are present - that is, situations where conflict or violence are interconnected to situations linked to climate change or disaster. 

Most notably, the author’s belief is that climate migration is voluntary, and while there is certainly a lack of data and full understanding yet on the topic, there are viable and numerous qualitative indicators to suggest that where climate migration interconnects with poverty, development and challenges to security, choice may not be a luxury afforded to many, and certainly not to everyone. (World Politics Review)

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Germany Says it Will Not Grant Asylum to 'Climate Refugees'

Although a 2019 European Parliament briefing paper noted 26.4 million had been climate displaced since 2008 with ‘climate refugees’ expected to rise and developing countries had requested the EU bloc grant climate migrants refugee status, Germany stated it would not recognize the “flight from climatic conditions and changes' as a reason for asylum” and that "people in third countries who leave their homes solely because of the negative consequences of climate change are not refugees in the sense of the Geneva Refugee Convention under current international treaty law." (EuroNews)

Analysis

Of course it’s well established, understood even, that the 1951 Refugee Convention adopted by Germany and many other EU states will not protect those who cross borders on account of climate change that it almost renders such an official decree unnecessary. However, recent developments by UNHCR to discuss where refugee law intersects at nexus dynamics, scenarios whereby certain conflicts could overlap with climate-induced situations, such as famine, and the pressure applied by other states and civil society, could signify the magnitude of the need, concern for protection gaps and growing security needs inherent within climate displacement.