CLIMATE DISPLACEMENT IN THE NEWS
The report is straightforward about the effects of ‘human-induced’ climate change, but lost in the amplification, as well as the media coverage of the stark warnings is the clear connection of climate change to the burning of fossil fuels by a much smaller group of ‘humans’ who hold particular responsibility for the present climate crisis.
For sure, sudden large-scale displacement arising from conflict is destabilizing, most of all for the refugees experiencing it. However, it is paramount that the security sector distinguish that it is not migrants and refugees that are destabilizing the world. In fact, it is the historic contribution to climate change and failure of states to tackle climate change - where 70% of the effects are felt in fragile countries - that are exacerbating vulnerabilities and thus contributing to the multiple drivers that are increasing displacement and forced migration around the world.
While Pakistan was recently recording temperatures too hot for human tolerance, the media was largely focused on the heat wave across the United States. Pakistan is one of the top ten countries most vulnerable to climate change, and each region is dealing with the effects of climate change in their own way. With this, displacement will continue to rise.
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.
The Florida Keys sit at the frontlines of the climate crisis, where porous limestone meets rising seas. Plans to elevate the height of the roads and save homes won’t save everyone. Near Miami, last week’s tragic building collapse has some wondering whether climate change played a role? There, too, buildings sit on sinking limestone amidst rising seas. About a decade ago, gentrification also changed the Keys landscape, and now, like Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, climate gentrification has as well.
Moments of disaster and crisis often lay bare dramatic societal hierarchies. When disasters and climate-related catastrophes hit, reinforcing impacts of redlining, financial and other policies worsen inequities in the US and around the world — effectively maintaining hierarchies. For climate-impacted communities, the right to stay and the right to move is called into question when people lack the resources to survive. We can learn from disasters and climate-induced events that our policy choices and neoliberal systems perpetuate inequity.
