In the Roland Emmerich movie, The Day After Tomorrow, a new Ice Age forces people in the United States to migrate south to Mexico, the opposite of what usually happens. Even though this was a fictional scenario, a real Climate Crisis might have the same effect and result – it does not discriminate between rich and poor countries. All countries will be affected to some degree or another by Climate Change. Hence, it is entirely possible that affected people will choose to migrate to a poor country from a rich one.
The world has taken notice. Refugees fleeing their native countries due to the effects of the Climate Crisis in future years may not be forced to return if their lives are in danger, the United Nations Human Rights Committee said in a ruling last Monday. The Convention relating to the status of refugees, signed in 1951, made no provision for climate change as a reason for people to flee their country and seek asylum elsewhere. The UN committee anticipates a flood of ‘millions’ of ‘climate refugees’ in the near future.
The first-of-its-kind ruling - which a U.N. official called “powerfully symbolic” —came in the case of Ioane Teitiota, who applied for protection in New Zealand in 2013. Teitiota claimed his family’s lives were at risk in his native Kiribati, a country severely threatened by rising sea levels. And while he actually lost his case since there was no immediate threat to his life, the U.N. committee took the opportunity to make a broader statement about climate refugees.
The situation in Tarawa, Teitiota’s home island, “has become increasingly unstable and precarious due to a sea level rise caused by global warming,” his counsel said. Saltwater contamination and overcrowding on the island have resulted in scarce freshwater resources and a growing housing crisis, he added.
The population of the island suffers from vitamin deficiencies, malnutrition, fish poisoning and other ailments resulting from food insecurity. Unemployment has surged in the region and diseases spread easily through overcrowding and poor quality drinking water. “Kiribati has thus become an untenable and violent environment for the author and his family,” the case argued. Scientists warn it and other similar islands could become uninhabitable within decades.
The world needs to prepare for millions of people being driven from their homes by the impact of climate change, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Tuesday. Filippo Grandi said the U.N. ruling meant those fleeing as a result of climate change deserved international protection, and that it had broad implications for all Governments.
“The ruling says if you have an immediate threat to your life due to climate change, due to the climate emergency, and if you cross the border and go to another country, you should not be sent back, because you would be at risk of your life, just like in a war or in a situation of persecution,” Grandi told news agencies at Davos.
Climate refugees are already a thing, in case you think it will happen only in the future. It is just not the number one cause of migration, which is conflict. But the Climate Crisis itself can give rise to conflicts, which in turn will produce migrants. Potential drivers of climate-induced migration include wildfires like those seen in Australia and Amazon, rising sea levels affecting low-lying islands and coastal areas, the destruction of crops and livestock in sub-Saharan Africa and freak floods and storms worldwide. The one clear pattern is that developed or developing, any country could be at the mercy of Climate Change.
The world must indeed be prepared for a surge of people moving against their will in the face of climate disasters in the years and decades ahead. Experts say this could number in the millions as sea levels rise and coastal areas are affected. There could also be large numbers of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) – a term familiar to Sri Lankans from the conflict years – as people reach higher ground within their own countries.
It is somewhat ironic that some of the biggest producers and users of coal and fossil fuels are debating the effects of Climate Change at Davos’ World Economic Forum, primarily a stage for the jet-set crowd to talk about the world’s development or the lack of it. But saner voices have emerged from Davos this year, including that of teen climate activist Greta Thunberg. She told a World Economic Forum panel on climate that activists were demanding an end to all investment in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, calling for a drastic reduction of emissions to zero – “not Net Zero but Real Zero”.
She dismissed some of the measures mooted by governments and companies as being halfhearted or too late. Speaking to a panel of young environmentalists in Davos, Thunberg said the increase in global temperature could not be kept below 1.5C if the world continued to use up its limited carbon budget at its current rate. The 2018 UN report said that the world had a limit of 420 gigatons of carbon to emit if there was to be a 67% chance of keeping the increase in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees. Thunberg said that was now down to 340 gigatons.
There was a proposal at Davos to plant one trillion trees around the world, which may help offset some of the carbon Dioxide. This came from eccentric billionaire Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, who said he and his wife would provide the financial backing for a new platform that will support a global initiative to plant, restore, or conserve 1 trillion trees over the next decade. The Trillion Trees Initiative is a novel strategy to limit the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. Considering that the world now has only around three million trees (approx), this is a tall order, but one that is necessary as well.
Climate Change is here to stay unless the world takes drastic action to stop it now. Actually, the preferred word now is Climate Crisis, which shows the urgency and scale of the problem. No country is immune from its devastating effects – here in Sri Lanka we have experienced many extreme weather events that show Climate Change in action. There must be a collective will from the individual level to the Government level to tackle this threat to the very existence of humankind. Even switching off an unnecessary light bulb or walking/cycling to the town instead of taking the car can help in a small way to mitigate the effects of Climate Change.
At country level, more should be done to switch to renewables, phasing out thermal power altogether. These collective steps can help in the long run to keep the Earth in better shape.