Climate Change- Induced International Migration as a Security Concern: Associated Issues, Future Prospects, and Potential Solutions
Abstract
As the global impact of climate change becomes more pronounced, people will increasingly become displaced due to worsening sudden-onset (cyclones, wildfires, floods) and slow-onset (drought, desertification, sea level rise) natural disasters. If existing patterns are any indication, most of those affected will relocate within their home countries, but a growing number will likely migrate across international borders in search of relief. This latter group of individuals, here referred to as “climate refugees,” and many of whom will hail from some of the poorest parts of the globe, will present an attractive target for criminal enterprises. At the same time, the growing number of climate refugees will compound national and regional security concerns by threatening to overwhelm resources, foster unrest, and even spark conflict. The existing global refugee regime remains ill-equipped to deal with the problem, having thus far failed to extend legal recognition (and all of its associated guarantees and protections) to those migrating across international borders as a consequence of climatic factors. This paper contributes to an understanding of the nature and seriousness of climate refugees’ plight. It further identifies various policy options that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and its member states might pursue to better confront the issues posed by international climate migration.
INTRODUCTION Since 2008, approximately 24 million people have been displaced by weather disasters around the globe every year—a figure that is roughly equivalent to 65,753 people a day or 45 people every minute and that is expected to rise even higher.1 At the same time, millions of other people have become displaced as a result of longer term issues like prolonged drought and the rise of sea levels.2 These displaced individuals frequently originate from the poorest communities and the most vulnerable parts of the world, and they are especially ill-suited to withstand the effects of climate change. Historically, these vulnerable groups have tended to relocate to other areas within their home countries with the hope of finding some measure of relief.3 However, they are increasingly seeking relief in neighboring and more far-flung countries, contributing to the growth of a class of people known as “climate refugees”.4 Climate refugees, also referred to as environmental migrants, climate migrants, ecological refugees, and disaster refugees among various other names, can be understood as those individuals or groups whose lives are adversely affected by and are driven to migrate abroad as a result of sudden or progressive climate-related change in their environments.5 Although climate refugees appear to already constitute a serious issue, state recognition of their plight has been anemic. Due in part to the recent rise in nationalism and anti-immigration sentiment in Europe and the United States, governments already chafing at their obligations under existing refugee protocol have seemingly been loath to consider expanding the term “refugee,” with all of its legal implications, to encompass climate refugees.6 Climate refugees consequently continue to be relegated to the sidelines where they occupy something of a legal “void” in which they are denied proper recognition and assistance. In the interest of contributing to a greater understanding of the security issues posed by international climate migration, this paper first identifies two main categories of climate-related factors that might drive individuals to migrate across international borders: sudden-onset natural disasters and slow-onset natural disasters. It next discusses the difficulty of defining climate refugees and the corresponding legal ramifications. The paper then examines climate migration as a security issue, focusing on the vulnerability of climate refugees to human trafficking and the potential for increasing international climate migration to contribute to conflict as the effects of climate change worsen. Finally, this paper offers policy options aimed at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and its member states.
POTENTIAL CLIMATE-RELATED DRIVERS OF MIGRATION: TWO MAIN CATEGORIES
SUDDEN-ONSET NATURAL DISASTERS
In this context, sudden-onset natural disasters are dramatic events such as cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, forest fires, and volcanic eruptions.7 These events are sudden or rapid-onset in that they occur relatively suddenly and with little advance warning. They also tend to be fairly fleeting insofar as they last for just hours or days and certainly no more than a few months.8 However, as evidenced by a near tenfold increase in the average duration of a wildfire over the last few decades (from six days between 1973 and 1982 to 52 days between 2003 and 2012), worsening climate change may result in suddenonset natural disasters lasting for longer periods of time in addition to being more intense.9 Sudden-onset natural disasters may also continue to markedly increase in frequency. In 1990, roughly 200 sudden-onset natural disasters were reported. By 2010, this number doubled about 400, impacting 200 million people each year.10 In 2018, there were perhaps as many as 850 such events in 2018, more than a few of which caused $1 billion or more in damages.11 The contribution that sudden-onset natural disasters make to climate migration is a result of their immediate impact and destructiveness. These disasters routinely demolish homes or at least render them uninhabitable, destroy crops that people rely on for food and livelihood, and leave affected areas unnavigable. To offer just one of many recent examples, when Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti in October 2016 it displaced 175,000 people, left 80,600 people in dire food insecurity, and altogether affected some 2.1 million people.12 Human displacement caused by such disasters is often temporary, with people returning home to rebuild once conditions improve. However, this is not always the case. As the duration and frequency of sudden-onset natural disasters increases, temporary movement is more likely to become longer lasting or even permanent migration.13
SLOW-ONSET NATURAL DISASTERS
The second set of climate-related factors that might affect climate refugees consists of issues that occur comparatively more slowly or build up progressively over time. Examples include prolonged drought, desertification, sea level rise, increased temperatures, salinization, land degradation, and loss of biodiversity.14 These disasters are interrelated in a number of respects, and in many cases affected areas must therefore contend with more than one such disaster. For instance, drought tends to precede desertification, which itself constitutes a loss of biodiversity insofar as it entails a loss of vegetation.15 Sea level rise begets salinization as saltwater inundates land and intrudes on freshwater sources. These disasters spur migration by diminishing people’s economic opportunities and living conditions. There are a number of differences and similarities between slow- and sudden-onset natural disasters. Both types of disasters can drive migration across international borders, but slow-onset disasters do so more than sudden-onset disasters, which are more likely to cause internal displacement. Additionally, slow-onset disasters are more likely to cause permanent migration due to their longer lasting and sometimes irreversible environmental effects that can leave affected areas uninhabitable. Since they build up over time, slow-onset disasters can also prompt voluntary migration in anticipation of impacts, resulting in individuals who may not technically qualify for consideration as refugees.16 One of the challenges with these climate-related factors, particularly in terms of data collection, is that they can have knock-on effects that disguise the fundamental reason for migration. A slow-onset natural disaster like prolonged drought can lead to conflict over water or other natural resources.17 If people then flee the affected area, are they climate refugees or refugees of conflict? Given the present lack of legal protections for the former, individuals would likely be better off recognized (and may seek to portray themselves) as the latter. By doing so, they distort their real reason for migration—drought—and potentially hinder efforts to obtain legal recognition for climate refugees.
ENDNOTES
1 Gena Steffens, “Changing climate forces desperate Guatemalans to migrate,” National Geographic, October 23, 2018, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/drought-climatechange-force-guatemalans-migrate-to-us/
2 Beyond Borders: Our changing climate – its role in conflict and displacement (London, United Kingdom: Environmental Justice Foundation, 2017), 4, https://ejfoundation.org//resources/downloads/ BeyondBorders.pdf
3 Roxana A. Mastor, Michael H. Dworkin, Mackenzie L. Landa, and Emily Duff, “Energy Justice and Climate-Refugees,” Energy Law Journal 39, no. 1 (2018): 142, ProQuest Central.
4 Steffens, “Changing climate forces desperate Guatemalans to migrate.”
5 Note that there is no universally agreed-upon definition of “climate refugees” or “environmental migrants.” The particular understanding offered here draws on definitions used by the nongovernmental Environmental Justice Foundation and intergovernmental International Organization for Migration for “climate refugees” and “environmental migrants,” respectively. See Beyond Borders: Our changing climate – its role in conflict and displacement, 6 and Walter Kälin and Nina Schrepfer, Protecting People Crossing Borders in the Context of Climate Change: Normative Gaps and Possible Approaches (Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2012), 28-9, https://www. unhcr.org/4f33f1729.pdf. For further discussion on the subject of definitions vis-à-vis climate refugees, also see section entitled “The Trouble With Definitions and Legal Recognition,” this paper.
6 Tim McDonnell, “The Refugees The World Barely Pays Attention To,” NPR, June 20, 2018, https:// www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/20/621782275/the-refugees-that-the-world-barelypays-attention-to
7 Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell, “Double Whammy: Sudden and Slow-onset Disasters for Pacific Island States,” The Center for Climate and Security, September 26, 2011, https://climateandsecurity. org/2011/09/26/double-whammy-sudden-and-slow-onset-disasters-for-pacific-island- states/; Mastor, Dworkin, Landa, and Duff, “Energy Justice and Climate-Refugees,” 145.
8 The Slow onset effects of climate change and human rights protection for cross-border migrants (A/HRC/37/ CRP.4) (Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2018), 7, http://www.ohchr.org/ EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session37/Documents/A_HRC_37_CRP.4.docx 9 Mark Kaufman, “How long does it take for today's violent wildfires to go out?,” Mashable, August 15, 2018, https://mashable.com/article/wildfire-burn-how-long-climate-change/#1cpIXi7qJqqx 10 Elizabeth Ferris, “Natural Disasters, Conflict, and Human Rights: Tracing the Connections,” The Brookings Institution, March 3, 2010, https://www.brookings.edu/on-the-record/natural-disastersconflict-and-human-rights-tracing-the-connections/ 11 Petra Löw, “The natural disasters of 2018 in figures,” Munich Re, January 8, 2019, https://www. munichre.com/topics-online/en/climate-change-and-natural-disasters/natural-disasters/the-natural- disasters-of-2018-in-figures.html 12 Bayes Ahmed, “Who takes responsibility for the climate refugees?,” International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management 10, no. 1 (2018): 8, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-10-2016-0149 13 Alex Randall, “Understanding a slow disaster: getting to grips with slow-onset disasters, and what they mean for migration and displacement,” Climate and Migration Coalition, accessed March 20, 2019, http://climatemigration.org.uk/understanding-a-slow-disaster-getting-to-grips-with-slow-onsetdisasters-and-what-they-mean-for-migration-and-displacement/; The Slow onset effects of climate change and human rights protection for cross-border migrants, 8-9. 14 Mastor, Dworkin, Landa, and Duff, “Energy Justice and Climate-Refugees,” 144-145. 15 The Slow onset effects of climate change and human rights protection for cross-border migrants, 9. 16 Ibid., 8-10. 17 For more on the perceived association between climate-related factors and conflict, see section entitled “Security Implications,” this paper. 18 Kälin and Schrepfer, Protecting People Crossing Borders in the Context of Climate Change: Normative Gaps and Possible Approaches, 28-9. 19 Ibid., 31. 20 “Environmental Migration,” International Organization for Migration, accessed March 22, 2019, https://environmentalmigration.iom.int/environmental-migration 21 Kälin and Schrepfer, Protecting People Crossing Borders in the Context of Climate Change: Normative Gaps and Possible Approaches, 25; The Slow onset effects of climate change and human rights protection for cross-border migrants, 22. 22 The Slow onset effects of climate change and human rights protection for cross-border migrants, 20-2. 23 Walter Kälin, “What Makes a Refugee? As Impact of Natural Disasters Grows, Definition Leaves Gaps,” interview by Jérémie Labbé, International Peace Institute, April 8, 2014, https:/