Transcript Environmental Migration Notes Powerpointx

Environmental Migration
Environmental/Climate Change – Induced/Ecological Migration
21st Century Challenge?
Scientists, environmental campaigners, politicians and civil society
observers are increasingly concerned about:
• More frequent abnormal weather patterns
• Natural disasters such as
• Hurricanes
• Flooding
• Landslides
• Gradual onset of environmental degradation
IPCC
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Set up under UN auspices in 1998)
• Argues that climate change, in combination with other factors, will
drive more displacement in the future.
• 2014: IPCC reported that:
• "can indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts in the form of civil war and
inter-group violence by amplifying well-documented drivers of these conflicts
such as poverty and economic shocks."
Figures and Projections
• Currently
• There are estimated to be over 30 million people worldwide are forced to
move due to serious degradation of environmental conditions, natural
disasters and depletion of natural resources.
• Projections
• Professor Myers of Oxford University
• By 2050, as many as 200 million people (1 out of every 45 people worldwide)
• Due to "disruptions of monsoon systems and other rainfall regimes, by droughts of
unprecedented severity and duration, and by sea rises and coastal flooding”
• UN Environmental Programme (UNEP)
• By 2060, there could be 50 million "environmental refugees" in Africa alone.
Responses to cross-border disaster displacement
• States, academics and civil society advocates are exploring the legal
gap between the 1951 Refugee Convention and people who cross
borders for environmental reasons
• Some commentators, including UNHCR, support focusing on
developing and strengthening effective practices
• Can be incorporated by States and (sub-)regional organizations into their own
frameworks and practices on a situational basis
Definitional Issues
Terminology
Characterization of Displacement/Migration: Forced or Voluntary?
Recognising indirect (slow,delayed) or partly-attributable causation
Terminology
• Examples: ‘environmental migration’, ‘climate change-induced
migration’, ‘ecological’ or ‘environmental’ refugees’, ‘climate change’
migrants and ‘environmentally-induced forced migrants’
• Main difficulty is isolating environmental factors from other drivers of
migration
• Some object to applying "refugee" label due to its encroachment on
definition from 1951 Refugee Convention based on violence and
political intimidation
Characterisation of Displacement/Migration
• Is it "forced" or "voluntary" migration?
• Is environmental migration inherently a form of forced displacement?
• Can such migration take the form of voluntary relocation?
• How should one characterise government resettlement schemes
carried out in anticipation of, or following, an environmental
disruption – forced migration or voluntary migration?
• In any case, does the distinction between forced and voluntary
migration matter when discussing displacement induced by
environmental factors?
Recognising indirect or partly-attributable causation
• Commonly presents where there is slow-onset environmental change
or degration process
• Desertification, soil salination, pollution of groundwater
• Affects people directly dependent on environment for their livelihood
and causing them livelihood stress
• When environmental degradation is a contributing but not major
factor, is it still environmental migration?
Demographic Profile of the Displaced
• Vast majority are internally displaced
• Most move from rural to urban areas
• Smaller proportion migrate to neighboring countries
• Representing "South-South migration"
• Very few migrate long distances
Impact
• Tends to be negative
• Worsens existing humanitarian crises, rapid urbanization (and slum growth),
stalled development
• Degraded areas might need to be vacated to the point that environment can
recover and poverty alleviated
• Less negative
• Migration can be a legitimate coping strategy
• Fewer people on the land can slow degradation and allow remaining
population to adjust
Affected Regions
• Small Island Developing States
• Montserrat in the Caribbean
• Maldives in the Indian Ocean
• Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean
• Sahel belt in Africa
• Bay of Bengal (Bangladesh)
• Dry land regions in South and Central America
• Dry land regions in Central Asia.
• It has been suggested that the regular cycle of drought and flooding
in Southern Africa, which severely affects agricultural production in
that sub region, should be included in this list.
Internal Displacement
Protection and Assistance
Normative Framework
• Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
• In Africa, will be bolstered by the legally-binding African Union
Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced
Persons in Africa (the Kampala Convention
• IDPs usually face continuing problems and require support beyond
initial crisis
Role of Governments
• Governments have primary responsibility for IDPs within their borders
• Can request international support and humanitarian assistance
• Primary mechanism is Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)'s
cluster approach
Role of International Community
• Under "cluster approach", UNHCR leads Global Protection Cluster
• Consults with UNICEF and OHCHR (the three protection-mandated
agencies) and agree who will assume lead role (Cluster Lead Agency)
• Which agency is best placed to assume responsibility based on State's
request, expertise, well-established presence in country, and readily
deployable assets?
Cross-Border Disaster-Induced
Displacement
Refugees?
• Environmental Migrants would not normally qualify under the 1951
Convention
• Currently no widely-acceppedprinciples or rules governing their entry or stay
• Unless…
• There are harmful actions or inactions by a government related to one or
more of the Refugee Convention grounds
• Such as denial of humanitarian assistance to a minority group
• Could be considered persecution
• Issue cuts across several sectors:
• Migration and asylum, the environment, development, human rights, and
humanitarian aid and assistance
What's being done?
• UNHCR
• lends its experience in dealing on forced migration issues and protection
• assist the international debate through its expertise on forced migration and
the nature of population movements
• Bellagio Roundtable on Climate Change and Displacement (February
2011)
• Conference on Climate Change and Displacement held in Norway
• Nansen Initiative on Disaster-Induced Cross Border Displacement
• committed to promoting “more consistent and coherent approach at the
international level ....to meet the protection needs of people displaced
externally owing to sudden on-set disasters”.
Reading Materials
• UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNHCR, The Environment & Climate Change,
October 2015, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/561f670a4.html [accessed 6 April
2016]
• Council of Europe: Parliamentary Assembly, Environmentally induced migration and displacement:
a 21st century challenge, 23 December 2008, Doc. 11785, available at:
http://www.refworld.org/docid/49997bbb0.html [accessed 6 April 2016]
• UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Climate Change Displacement and International
Law: Complementary Protection Standards, [McAdam, Jane] 1 May
2011, PPLA/2011/03, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4fdf20022.html [accessed 6
April 2016]
• “Climate change and Displacement” Forced Migration Review (online) Full Issue 31, October
2008. Available from:
http://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/en/FMRpdfs/FMR31/FMR31.pdf
• “Disasters and Displacement in a Changing Climate” Forced Migration Review (online). Full Issue
49, May 2015. Available from:
http://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/en/climatechange-disasters.pdf
Videos
• McMelan, R,” Beyond Environmental Refuge” [ video] , TEDxU Ottawa
retrieved from : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdeyz_1gNSA
• Grassani, A (at TEDxBerlin), “ Environmental migrants - the last
illusion”, 22 December 2013, (YouTubeVideo), retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJd6LqzYye8&ebc=ANyPxKqGV
YYlX41iXJjKjMZ737zDxoCGFDOi8bLQNMVZ8gbeov5MKUBhN6nC9zCO
gyw5pykXI2wlox3lY3lkzECVGyfDoXbC6A
• Jermendy, S (at TEDx Cortauld Institute), No place like home--finding
justice for climate refugees , published on April 28, 2014. Retrieved
from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4DlqdJRq40