In Today's News: Climate Change Hits Women Hardest; How Should We Respond to Climate Migrants (Analysis); Somalia Ratifies Kampala Convention

CLIMATE CHANGE HITS WOMEN HARDEST, REPORT FINDS

In a new report, the Irish NGO Trócaire found weather-related disasters are likely to kill women and girls 14 times more than boys, increase girls chances of being trafficked 30 percent and put women at increased risk of violence during crises and displacement. The report found corporate human rights violations impact women more disproportionately and looking at indigenous, environmental and land rights defenders, Trócaire found them to be at increased and growing risk of violence, evidenced by the fact that in 2019, almost half of the 137 attacks on human rights defenders were against indigenous women in rural communities. (NRC Online)

---

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)

---

Somalia Ratification of Kampala Convention Crucial Step for Millions Displaced by Conflict, Violence, and Climate Shocks

With 2.6 million people uprooted by violent clashes and climatic shock in recent times, Somalia became the 30th African state to ratify the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, the first-ever binding treaty dealing with internal displacement. In a press release, the International Committee of the Red Cross commended Somalia’s commitment to the rights of thousands of Somali’s displaced by both conflict and climate change. (ReliefWeb)

In Today's News: Climate Displaced in Cox's Bazaar; Dengue Fever on the Rise; Are We Doing More Harm or Good When it Comes to Climate Migration Modeling?

Government Constructs 139 Buildings for Climate Refugees

Bangladesh is stepping up initiatives to protect 4,409 climate displaced people in Cox’s Bazaar refugee settlement, which the government is dubbing the largest refugee project in the world. A further 55 multi-storied buildings will be constructed across the country for ‘climate refugees’ in a quest to cut poverty, provide land, housing, and broad livelihood and development assistance to populations affected by natural disasters such as cyclones, floods and river erosion. (New Age Bangladesh)

Analysis:

Of course, Bangladeshi citizens internally displaced by climate change are classified as internally displaced persons even if for environmental grounds such as climate change.

---

Are We Thinking About Climate Migration All Wrong?

Much of the existing climate migration modeling grabs our attention with its massive numbers of looming large-scale displacements, but can it also miss the details of the fuller picture, not just in terms of numbers, but also of the exact shape and form this displacement might take since it lacks scientific certainty, ultimately pushing policymakers, in the wrong direction?

For example, many experts expect the displacement to be internal and happen slowly over time, and usually not very far. Some experts feel that assigning an expected number helps to galvanize political will while others contend apocalyptic messaging fans the flames of existing nationalism and xenophobia spreading around the world. 

Francois Gemenne, a leading expert in this topic, contends that presenting the situation as something unmanageable fuels prejudices and invites government surveillance.” (Rolling Stone)

Analysis:

It should be noted that while most climate migration or climate displacement may be internal, multiple displacements or states’ continuous inabilities to meet the needs of displaced populations could bring about situations which force individuals to seek assistance and protection across borders.

Furthermore, an increasing area of concern in some urban cities like the Miami neighborhoods of Little Haiti and Liberty City is “climate gentrification” as one Harvard study put it, which explores whether natural disasters can make lower-income inland neighborhoods more attractive to wealthier migrants who seek to offset their risks to climate change by buying up real estate that risks “displacing” local residents in the process.

---

WMO Warns Widespread Transmission of Dengue Due to Climate Change

Just as the coronavirus wreaks panic across the globe, the UN’s weather body, The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) report last week warned of the increased risk of dengue fever to about half of the world’s population due to rising temperatures and erratic rainfall, making it easier for the Aedes mosquito species to transmit the virus. Dengue is now the fastest spreading mosquito-borne viral disease in the world, increasing from only 9 countries in the world in the 1970’s to 128 countries that strikes 96 million people each year. 

Last week we shared the report’s findings that global hunger was on the rise as well as climate displacement, which internally displaced more than 6.7 million people last year. (The Pioneer)

Archive: February 13, 2020 through March 10, 2020

10 March 2020

Need, Not Greed - What Modi Isn’t Telling Us About Climate Change

The German Watch Climate Risk Index for 2020 ranks India as the fifth most vulnerable country to the effects of climate change, with the poorest the most impacted. The year 2019 recorded 1600 deaths and a million displacements across 13 states with an increase in heat waves and weather-related events as a result of climate change. Food insecurity and livelihood are leading causes of displacement and with it, men migrating in search of work, leaving women to bear the brunt of farming and family responsibilities and vulnerable to a host of harms such as: early marriage, sexual assault and violence and increased malnutrition. Water scarcity exacerbates discrimination within the pre-existing caste system as well, whereby Dalits are denied resource sharing and thus access to safe drinking water. All this makes clear, climate change heightens exclusion in India, much as it does in many other similar places, where marginalized groups are the first to be denied access to rights and resources due to disenfranchisement or social custom. (Feminism India)

7 March 2020

The Desperate Need to Talk Climate Change on International Women’s Day

According to new research conducted by Plan International, 53 percent of girls and women aged 12 to 25 declared climate change as the number one issue facing society and also cited it as the top concern in their own futures. Further, Plan’s 2019 research showed that 80 percent of the 60 million people displaced each year by climate-related disasters are women and girls. Their worries are appropriate given the key impacts of climate change on girls and women are food security, displacement, gender-based violence and child marriage, noting the link between environmental degradation and gender-based violence in a two-year study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. (Women’s Agenda)

6 March 2020

Climate Change Hits Women Hardest, Report Finds

In a new report, the NGO Trócaire also found corporate human rights violations impact women more  disproportionately and further, weather-related disasters are likely to kill women and girls 14 times more than boys, increase girls chances of being trafficked 30 percent and put women at increased risk of violence during crises and displacement. The report also looks at indigenous, environmental and land rights defenders and warns of their growing risks of violence, evidenced by the fact that in 2019, almost half of the 137 attacks on human rights defenders were against indigenous women in rural communities. (NRC Online)

2 March 2020

The UK’s First Climate Change Refugees?

Residents of Fairbourne, a village in Gwynedd, have been told by the UK government they will have to leave their homes by 2054 due to sea-level rise and coastal flooding linked to climate change. Up to 450 homes and several businesses will be impacted but have not been offered any compensation, although housing prices have plummeted since the announcement. (BBC)

1 March 2020

Finding a New Home for Climate Refugees

Looking at the regional threat climate change poses to the US Atlantic seaboard, this editorial highlights the need for US legislation to tackle the impacts of climate change in its cities. Increased hurricanes have and threaten to render millions potentially, as he terms, “climate refugees.” Of course, were this to happen, these residents would actually be internally displaced persons, but the key takeaway here is the author’s point that displaced persons, forced to flee inland to escape rising waters and natural disasters, will likely face challenges in American cities also grappling with other forms of extreme weather changes and limitations in infrastructure and development that could overwhelm host cities capacities to welcome newly displaced. (Frederick News Post)

29 Feb 2020

The World’s Refugee System Is Broken

An incredibly timely piece that highlights the limitations of international refugee policy that has not kept pace with social and political upheavals like gang violence and climate change that have impacted protection needs and modern displacement trends to cause the worst protracted migration crisis since World War II. Not only are international doors closing everywhere to asylum-seekers, but the system itself is ill equipped, in many cases, to recognize the complex and multiple drivers of displacement that render refugees and migrants the same. (The Atlantic)

26 Feb 2020

New Zealand to Give $2m to Fiji Climate Change Relocation Fund

Following the establishment of a fund last September for Fijian climate displaced persons, five communities have already been relocated while a further 42 have applied for government support to move. New Zealand is the first country to support the fund following a Fijian government request for support. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden hoped other countries would follow in kind, noting the importance of supporting those who are bearing the brunt of climate change, having contributed to it the least. (RNZ)

Feb 25, 2020

National Security Experts Call for Eliminating Greenhouse Gas Emissions

In a new report written by experts, former US diplomats and military leaders, the Center for Climate and Security described scenarios where climate change could provoke or exacerbate conflict, as it diminishes food and water supplies and displaces millions of people, stating that the Paris climate agreement emissions reductions were inadequate to “contain the threat.” The report describes two likely climate scenarios: temperatures rising 1 to 2 degrees Celsius by 2050 or rising 2 to 4 degrees Celsius by 2100. The latter scenario, the report concludes, will displace people from Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, as these places become uninhabitable due to heat and competition over limited water resources, while an influx of migrants to Europe and Russia would provoke political and security instability in the region. (Scientific American)

Feb 15, 2020

UNHCR hails Ethiopia's Ratification of Kampala Convention on Refugees

UNHCR said the ratification of the African Union convention for the protection of internally displaced persons (IDPs) underscored Ethiopia’s concern for the massive internal displacement issue it’s dealing with as a result of conflict or climate change. With an estimated 1.78 million, Ethiopia has one of the largest IDP populations in the word. (Xinhua)

Feb 14, 2020

SADC Urges More Efforts to Mitigate Impacts of Climate Change

Following floods in Tanzania that killed 40 people, displaced 15,000 and damaged property, infrastructure, schools and farms in four regions, the Executive Secretary of the Southern African Development Community called on the global community for increased regional and global efforts to increase disaster risk management, early warning services, increase resilience and environmental management to reduce the impacts of extreme weather events. (The Citizen)

Feb 13, 2020

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 that developing countries had requested the 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)

From our perspective as analysts, the simple fact that Germany and the EU bloc are discussing this as an issue of policy that requires an official position, signifies the potential magnitude of the need, concern for protection gaps and security and potential pressure applied by other states and civil society.

Drying Lake Chad Basin Gives Rise to Crisis

Climate change effects are compounding a crisis born out of conflict that has already impacted 10.7 million people across the Lake Chad region and displaced 2.3 million. The lake, which has diminished 90% since the 1960’s as a result of overuse and climate change, has led to conflict between herders and farmers with livelihood loss and migration of families in search of water. Affected countries are now mounting a three-fold response: a military offensive against Boko Haram, conflict mediation between herders and farmers over water and land and try restore the diminishing Lake Chad, which has adversely impacted poverty, conflict and displacement in the region. 

For more on the Lake Chad, see our report:

In Today's News: Unparalleled Displacement; Bangladesh's Sundarbans Region Submerged; Europe's Unknown Climate Migrants; ‘Empty Spain’s’ Climate Migrants; Climate Change & Global Security

Editorial: The Global Crisis We’re Forgetting About — 71 million People Displaced by War and Unrest

Beyond the coronavirus, the world faces a historic humanitarian displacement crisis hitherto unseen. From Syria and sub-Saharan Africa to Myanmar and Central America, where corruption and economic hardship, fueled by climate change, has caused thousands to flee. The problems are political as well, as refugee resettlement and aid outgrow the need, and stabilization efforts receive tepid support and are outpaced with the new threats imposed by climate change, now worsened by insufficient global threshold agreements and the failure of US policies and leadership to curb the production and use of fossil fuels. (LA Times)

---

Bangladesh is Already Living With the Consequences of Climate Change

One of the most densely populated countries in the world is also ranked seventh in the Global Climate Risk Index 2020. The population of the Sundarbans, in the Bay of Bengal, are experiencing rapidly rising sea level - 1.5 times faster than the global average - and river erosion to submerge entire villages. 

Over the last decade, 700,000 people annually lost their homes, while 10 to 13 million are expected to be forced to move, likely to the capital Dhaka, by 2050. For those there now, having lost everything, new hardships are presented in Dhaka, a city on the verge of collapse from overcrowding. 

Although the author refers to these displaced as ‘climate refugees,’ they are in fact internally displaced persons (IDPs) and thus fall under the care of the Bangladeshi government, and with services unmet, these IDPs find refuge in slums and abysmal working conditions in the city’s thousands of factories. The social consequences of climate displacement are immense, one such being the high rates of child marriage - the fourth highest in the world - as documented in this Human Rights Watch report. (Equal Times)

---

Extreme Weather Exiles: How Climate Change is Turning Europeans into Migrants

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, disaster displacement knows no economic boundaries. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Spain, France and Germany have had the highest number of climate displacements on the continent and Moldova is the most climate-vulnerable country in Europe. 

Climate displacements have doubled in the last four years from 43 in 2016 to 100 in 2019, and already, Europe has recorded four storms this year by only February 2020. 

Over the past decade there have been 700,000 classified disasters. One expert contends that one disaster displacement may not equate to population displacement, but repeat disasters can push people to relocate permanently. 

Most displaced don’t seem to realize they are, in fact, climate migrants, and the lack of clear terminology or official designations, adds to the confusion. This is also in keeping with UN findings, where migrants tend to underestimate the extent of climate change in their lives, rather, linking their plights to poverty and overlooking the root causes behind disasters.  

One town in France, La Faute-sur-Mer, sued the town’s mayor following 2010’s Storm Xynthia, but the lawyer and former environment minister says the continued challenge is proving climate change as the sole causality and points to the case as a strong example of the need for stronger legislation to protect citizens from climate-related disasters. 

In Europe, climate migration can feel voluntary, but is it? The IOM states environmental migration is sometimes forced, sometimes voluntary, but most likely, somewhere in between. 

“When you are forced to do something because it's the right thing to do, it’s not the same as making a decision because you want to.”

Anne Birault 

Displaced resident (La Faute-sur-Mer, France)

In this regard, Europe lags behind Africa, where the African Union has adopted the Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons or what is commonly known as the ‘Kampala Convention,’ which acknowledges climate change as man-made with the potential to generate disaster displacements. 

Europe, on the other hand, still tracks the links between migration, climate change and environmental degradation only in terms of receiving migrants, and not the displacements it generates internally. 

This clearly is more than a problem of under-reporting. It also leads to a lack of data, lack of understanding and a lack of analysis of the needs, gaps and response plans vital to safeguard rights and security, and that, ultimately, leaves us all unprotected. (EuroNews)

---

How Fire Turned a Goat Herder into a ‘Climate Migrant’ in Empty Spain

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Spain led Europe with the largest number of climate displacements in 2019. One such person is Álvaro García Río-Miranda, a 30-year-old goat herder in the northern valleys of Sierra de Gata - a heavily depopulated rural area isolated by a chain of mountains on one side and Portugal on the other, which suffered a devastating wildfire in 2015. 

“Empty Spain” constitutes 53 percent of the country’s territory, which is inhabited by only 5 percent of its population. 

That fire left Álvaro unemployed after it killed his goats, following the stress of the fire and lack of food. Unable to insure his herd, he was forced to earn a living as a shepherd in France and Switzerland, but he was not the only one forced to leave. 

Other farmers, similarly devastated by a 2003 fire, lost their crops and animals and were forced to leave, while others who stayed struggled with a burned landscape for years to come, made worse by increased heat and less rain. 

The situation echoes findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who warn of expected temperature increases in the Mediterranean with more pronounced droughts and drier vegetation, susceptible to fire. (EuroNews)

---

How Is Climate Change Affecting Global and National Security?

John Conger, Director of the Center for Climate and Security points out that climate change affects policy on several fronts: economics, health and national security. Extreme weather events will generate increased needs for humanitarian assistance and disaster response, while also generating a shift in geopolitical stability that impacts food security, water scarcity, economic displacement and migration. 

He cautions that though certain regions have generated more attention up to now, no region will be immune to the impacts of climate change, pointing to the underreporting of drought in Central America as a driver for migration out of the region. Pakistan, he adds, is another example, of a water-stressed nation that has generated new conflicts between rural and urban areas as a result of climate change. (Brink News)

In Today's News: UN's WMO Says Climate Change Worsening; Women & Girls Adversely Impacted by Climate Displacement in Bangladesh; Experts Discuss Morality of Climate Displacement Claims & More

Flagship UN Study Shows Accelerating Climate Change on Land, Sea and in the Atmosphere

The UN’s World Meteorological Organization’s Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019, showed the effects on socio-economic development, health, migration, displacement, food security and land and marine ecosystems. The report also showed that following years of steady decline, hunger is on the rise, driven by a changing climate and extreme weather events, giving rise to displacement, conflict and violence notably in the Horn of Africa, where it suffered droughts and then unusually heavy rains, factoring in the worst locust outbreak in the past 25 years. Globally, 6.7 million people were displaced due to natural hazards, and the report forecasts internal displacement of 22 million throughout the world in 2019, up from 17.2 million in 2018.

---

Can Renewables Give Climate-Displaced Women in Bangladesh a New Beginning? 

Miriam is one amongst the 1.2 million people the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimates are displaced each year in Bangladesh, and she has been climate-displaced multiple times. Women and girls are adversely impacted, and many, leaving children behind, turn to textile factories for long hours and little pay, gaining skills but lacking capital to set up small businesses close by that allow family unity and year-round work. Renewable solar energy programs run by the government could be the missing piece, if only women were allowed access. Now the UN seeks to address that imbalance by putting women at the helm of climate-resilient livelihoods for vulnerable communities. 

---

What Comes After Fossil Fuels?

In a conversation in The New Yorker, climate activist Bill McKibben and journalist Vann R. Newkirk, II, who is looking at the legacy of Hurricane Katrina, Newkirk states it’s time to rethink the “refugee” framework to view climate displaced as having a legitimate and moral claim against policy makers responsible for global warming and who stand to profit from their displacement.