Posted on 16-10-2003
Unnatural Disasters
Global warming could create 150 million environmental
refugees - but the countries responsible are in no hurry to carry their
share of the costs
by Andrew Simms, October 15, 2003, The
Guardian
The number of people seeking refuge as a result of environmental disaster
is set to increase dramatically over the coming years. Ironically, given
current attitudes, we in Britain will resist accommodating them, and yet
they will have become refugees as a direct result of the way we in the
west live. Global warming - more than war or political upheaval - stands
to displace millions. And climate change is being driven by our fossil
fuel-intensive lifestyles.
Though they have no official status, environmental refugees are already
with us. They are people who have been forced to flee their homes because
of factors such as extreme weather, drought and desertification. There
are already more of them than their "political" counterparts -
25 million, according to the last estimate, compared to around 22 million
conventional refugees at their highest point in the late 1990s. By 2050,
mostly due to the likely effects of global warming, there could be more
than 150 million.
In 2001, 170 million people were affected by disasters, 97% of which were
climate-related, such as floods, droughts and storms. In the previous
decade more than 100 million suffered drought and famine in Africa, a
figure likely to increase with global warming. Many times more were
affected by floods in Asia.
According to one study, at least five small island states are at risk of
ceasing to exist. There are several serious unanswered questions. What
will happen to the exclusive economic zones of such countries, and what
status will their populations have? Where whole nations become
uninhabitable, should they have new lands carved out for them? Or should
they become the first true world citizens? If there is no state left, how
can the state protect its citizens?
Sea level rise in the range expected by the intergovernmental panel on
climate change would devastate the Maldives. Without real international
legal protection, their people could become resented minorities in Sri
Lanka, itself threatened, or India, with its own problems. On the small
South Pacific island of Tuvalu, people already have an ad hoc agreement
with New Zealand to allow phased relocation. Up to 10 million could be
displaced in the Philippines, millions more in Cambodia, Thailand, Egypt,
China, across Latin America - the list goes on.
The effects of these population movements are likely to be highly
destabilising globally unless they are carefully managed. But, in spite
of the scale of the problem, no one in the international community,
including the UN high commission for refugees (UNHCR), has taken control
of the problem. UNHCR says that, institutionally, they are too poor and
that environmental refugees should be dealt with at the national level.
It's true that most parts of the UN system are underfunded. Ironically
this, like global warming, is mostly the fault of wealthy industrialised
countries for either not raising or meeting their contributions.
But without action, the countries least responsible for creating the
problem stand to carry the largest share of costs associated with
environmental refugees. Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries,
expects to have around 20 million people displaced. Creating new legal
obligations to accept environmental refugees would help ensure that
industrialised countries accept the consequences of their choices. In
certain circumstances, the suggestion that the solution must lie at the
national level could be absurd - the national level may be under water.
In the academic community, there has been much quibbling over
definitions. Some would exclude environmental refugees from the
protection the Geneva convention affords because, they say, recognition
would be "unhelpful", overloading the existing refugee
apparatus. The alternative, though, is to rely on current humanitarian
relief operations that are widely considered inadequate. The convention
could, however, already be used in its current form. Refugees are defined
as people forced to flee across an international border because of a
well-founded fear of persecution, or fear for their lives and freedom due
to, among other things, membership of a particular group.
In terms of well-founded fears, drowning, homelessness or starvation
would seem to fit the bill. In terms of membership of a particular group,
any community or indigenous group similarly prone would also fit.
Numerous countries already cannot afford to meet the basic needs of their
people. Without proper environmental refugee status, the displaced could
be condemned to a national economic and geographical lottery, and to the
patchwork availability of resources and application of immigration
policies.
There is a wide acceptance that current national policies would not be
remotely capable of handling the scale of the problem. The environment
can clearly be "a tool to harm". But to fit the argument for
refugee status, can the harm be called intentional? Yes, if a set of
policies is pursued in full knowledge of their damaging consequences,
such as flooding a valley where an ethnic minority might live in a
dam-building project.
The causes and consequences of climate change - who is responsible and
who gets hurt - are now well understood. Actively disregarding that
knowledge would be intentional behaviour. Current US energy plans, for
example, will increase greenhouse emissions 25% by 2010. This is a
question of justice in adaptation to climate change. Environmental
refugees need to be recognised, and the problem managed before it manages
us.
· Andrew Simms is policy director at the New Economics Foundation
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