The World Needs a Plan—an Equitable One—on Climate Migration

Wildfires. Floods. Hurricanes. For many years, the effects of carbon-fueled climate changes have been causing chaos in our lives. Migration is a common reason for people to move.. These are not the only climate catastrophes that occur suddenly.

The slower-moving disasters—sea levels that creep further inland, temperatures that diminish crop yields, storms that dump more and more rain, and rainstorms that fail to appear at all—are even more likely to cause people to leave home and never come back. These insidious climate effects have already begun here and abroad. Alaskan indigenous communities have been Observe their villagesAs permafrost melts at an alarming pace, it can cause the land to be swept away for many decades. Tribal residents along the Louisiana coast lose a football field’s worth of land to the Gulf of Mexico every 90 minutes, due to rising sea levels and land subsidence, both of which are precipitated by the fossil fuel industry. In Bangladesh, rural residents are fleeing to the low-lying nation’s cities to escape frequent flooding and loss of farmland. Kiribati is one of the Pacific Ocean countries. Calling for actionAs their islands slowly sink beneath the waves. The list goes on.

The World Bank projects that climate change could be displaceable if there is no global action. More than 140 million peopleWithin their countries of origin in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia by 2050.

Layers of Inequity

“Climate displacement is movement, in part due to climate-related disasters, both sudden and slow-onset disasters, that are either temporary or permanent, within countries or across borders,” explains Ama FrancisClimate displacement project strategist at International Refugee Assistance Project. Through their work at this New York City–based organization that fights for the legal rights of refugees, Francis is focused on addressing the structural inequalities—social, economic, or political—that shape a person’s decision or ability to move elsewhere. Those with fewer financial resources or those who are caretakers for others, for example, can’t as easily pick up and start somewhere new.

The climate crisis is disproportionately affecting Black, Indigenous, or other people of color around the globe. Particularly for women. The United Nations estimates that 80 percent of climate refugees are women. Women, who are often caretakers for the climate refugees, are more likely to experience poverty than men. This hinders their recovery from climate disasters. Gender-based violence against women increases in areas affected by climate change.

Of course, the disproportionate impacts of climate change don’t end at the community level. WealthyCountriesClimate change is making low-income countries less habitable. According to A reportAccording to Oxfam, Stockholm Environment Institute, those with the highest incomes (roughly 63 million) emitted twice as many carbon emissions between 1990-2015 than those with the lowest incomes (equivalent to 3.1 Billion people).

Global Solutions are required

After years of failing acknowledge the link between climate change and migration, the world’s leaders finally saw the light in 2015 and decided that an integrated approach was needed to solve both problems. They created the Task Force on Displacement at the 21st Conference of the Parties in Paris, which led to the creation three years later of the Global Compact on Safe, Regular, and Regular Migration, and the Global Compact on Refugees. Although the groups have had important discussions, they have not yet taken concrete steps.

Lack of funding for climate adaptation relative mitigation is a major obstacle to progress, says Francis, a Dominica native who was devastated by Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017. “What’s really central for climate displacement right now is making sure that there are enough resources flowing toward adaptation, so that people not only have the option to move but also have an option to stay at home if that’s what they want.”

This is exactly what you need. Salote SoqoThe director of advocacy for global dislocation at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is attempting to fix. Soqo and UUSC are committed to helping those who are relocating in the Pacific, or will soon be, by financially supporting frontline community groups that have been left out of mainstream funding sources. As an Indigenous woman of Fiji, where more than 40 communities are currently identified for relocation, Soqo laments the fact that global climate efforts haven’t focused on plans and preparations for such moves. 

A video from Fiji’s National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) featuring residents of the village of Tukuraki three years after their relocation due to landslides.

The number of people who are being displaced around the world keeps increasing. According to A report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 98 percent of disasters were related to “weather and climate” and internally displaced 30.7 million people in 2020. Two Category 4 hurricanes, Eta (and Iota) swept through Central America in that year, displacing approximately 1.5 million people in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras.

Soqo says, “We need to get more serious about human mobility in those spaces.”

Step up, United States

The Biden administration published a statement prior to the COP26 meeting at Glasgow. A reportThe impact of climate change on migration. Francis said that it was important for many other reasons, as well. First, it recognizes that climate displacement is an issue happening right now—not in some abstract future world. Second, the report shows the United States’ desire to find new legal routes for climate-displaced people. This includes Temporary Protection Status and expanding the eligible origin country list. It also led to the creation of a task force.

“This report really says to climate-displaced people, ‘we see you, you matter, there are things that the U.S. government can do to protect you,’” Francis says.

Although the task force’s creation was a positive step, the administration could do more. There are millions of people caught in the climate crosshairs. They have no time for waiting for action. The report also ignores concerns about displacement within the U.S. border. The country experienced the most severe and rapid dislocation since the mid-1800s. More than a million people fled the Gulf Coast region in the two weeks following Hurricane Katrina 2005. The recovery and return processes were also very successful. far more lengthyFor Black New Orleanians, it was different than for white residents. Indigenous groups all across the country have increasingly grappled with similar injustices—facing more extreme heat and less precipitation on their lands, generally, as a Recent study found—and they’ve been left to navigate relocation processes without much guidance or financial support. Robin BronenThe inaction of the Alaska Institute for Justice frustrates the efforts of the Alaska Institute for Justice to advocate for displaced Alaska Natives for decades. “I think this is preventable, and we are not preventing this crisis,” she says. “We have zero capacity right now in the United States to deal with it.”

Finally, the report, which was led by the National Security Council, should have been more clear that climate change is the national security threat here—not the migrants themselves.

“There’s a way in which climate displacement has been used to fuel fear of immigration and immigrants,” Francis explains. “The issue has definitely been co-opted by xenophobic actors who push this narrative that there are millions of climate-displaced people who are going to arrive in the United States, and therefore the U.S. needs to harden its borders.” Meanwhile, some elected U.S. officials have been finding New waysto stop the resettlement and protection of asylum seekers and refugees. IRAP has other ideas.

A Way Forward

August: IRAP It has released its own reportThis document outlines the policies that the United States could adopt in order to combat climate migration. The group calls for clear guidelines from the U.S. Department of Justice that recognizes that environmental harm is often frequent.Combines with other drivers for displacementThese are the conditions that make someone eligible to receive refugee status. Francis states that one important step is to train judges and immigration officials to recognize that certain people displaced due to climate change are eligible to receive refugee status under U.S. law. “And that’s something that the government can do without needing any new legal authority or any authorization from Congress.”

The report was endorsed by NRDC, and other organizations. It follows a UUSCpOlicy briefIt made recommendations such as granting direct funds to frontline communities, and changing the way that the Federal Emergency Management Agency distributes assistance in the aftermath of a disaster. In her own wordsBronen suggests that a national governance framework be established for climate relocation. This would include community-based organizations and tribal governments in decision-making processes. It will take a collective effort to solve such a complex and urgent problem.

“What’s desperately needed is for all of us to pay attention to the places where we live and how they’re changing, so that we can help inform the responses of how we’re going to adapt,” she says.

“We tend to think this is going to happen to somebody else, and not us, because either we have enough money or we live in a place we think is going to be safe. And based on my experience of living in Alaska, I don’t think anywhere is safe.”

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