Editorial: The Global Crisis We’re Forgetting About — 71 million People Displaced by War and Unrest

Beyond the coronavirus, the world faces a historic humanitarian displacement crisis hitherto unseen. From Syria and sub-Saharan Africa to Myanmar and Central America, where corruption and economic hardship, fueled by climate change, has caused thousands to flee. The problems are political as well, as refugee resettlement and aid outgrow the need, and stabilization efforts receive tepid support and are outpaced with the new threats imposed by climate change, now worsened by insufficient global threshold agreements and the failure of US policies and leadership to curb the production and use of fossil fuels. (LA Times)

Bangladesh is Already Living With the Consequences of Climate Change

One of the most densely populated countries in the world is also ranked seventh in the Global Climate Risk Index 2020. The population of the Sundarbans, in the Bay of Bengal, are experiencing rapidly rising sea level - 1.5 times faster than the global average - and river erosion to submerge entire villages. 

Over the last decade, 700,000 people annually lost their homes, while 10 to 13 million are expected to be forced to move, likely to the capital Dhaka, by 2050. For those there now, having lost everything, new hardships are presented in Dhaka, a city on the verge of collapse from overcrowding. 

Although the author refers to these displaced as ‘climate refugees,’ they are in fact internally displaced persons (IDPs) and thus fall under the care of the Bangladeshi government, and with services unmet, these IDPs find refuge in slums and abysmal working conditions in the city’s thousands of factories. The social consequences of climate displacement are immense, one such being the high rates of child marriage - the fourth highest in the world - as documented in this Human Rights Watch report. (Equal Times)

Extreme Weather Exiles: How Climate Change is Turning Europeans into Migrants

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, disaster displacement knows no economic boundaries. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Spain, France and Germany have had the highest number of climate displacements on the continent and Moldova is the most climate-vulnerable country in Europe. 

Climate displacements have doubled in the last four years from 43 in 2016 to 100 in 2019, and already, Europe has recorded four storms this year by only February 2020. 

Over the past decade there have been 700,000 classified disasters. One expert contends that one disaster displacement may not equate to population displacement, but repeat disasters can push people to relocate permanently. 

Most displaced don’t seem to realize they are, in fact, climate migrants, and the lack of clear terminology or official designations, adds to the confusion. This is also in keeping with UN findings, where migrants tend to underestimate the extent of climate change in their lives, rather, linking their plights to poverty and overlooking the root causes behind disasters.  

One town in France, La Faute-sur-Mer, sued the town’s mayor following 2010’s Storm Xynthia, but the lawyer and former environment minister says the continued challenge is proving climate change as the sole causality and points to the case as a strong example of the need for stronger legislation to protect citizens from climate-related disasters. 

In Europe, climate migration can feel voluntary, but is it? The IOM states environmental migration is sometimes forced, sometimes voluntary, but most likely, somewhere in between. 

“When you are forced to do something because it's the right thing to do, it’s not the same as making a decision because you want to.”

Anne Birault 

Displaced resident (La Faute-sur-Mer, France)

In this regard, Europe lags behind Africa, where the African Union has adopted the Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons or what is commonly known as the ‘Kampala Convention,’ which acknowledges climate change as man-made with the potential to generate disaster displacements. 

Europe, on the other hand, still tracks the links between migration, climate change and environmental degradation only in terms of receiving migrants, and not the displacements it generates internally. 

This clearly is more than a problem of under-reporting. It also leads to a lack of data, lack of understanding and a lack of analysis of the needs, gaps and response plans vital to safeguard rights and security, and that, ultimately, leaves us all unprotected. (EuroNews)

How Fire Turned a Goat Herder into a ‘Climate Migrant’ in Empty Spain

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Spain led Europe with the largest number of climate displacements in 2019. One such person is Álvaro García Río-Miranda, a 30-year-old goat herder in the northern valleys of Sierra de Gata - a heavily depopulated rural area isolated by a chain of mountains on one side and Portugal on the other, which suffered a devastating wildfire in 2015. 

“Empty Spain” constitutes 53 percent of the country’s territory, which is inhabited by only 5 percent of its population. 

That fire left Álvaro unemployed after it killed his goats, following the stress of the fire and lack of food. Unable to insure his herd, he was forced to earn a living as a shepherd in France and Switzerland, but he was not the only one forced to leave. 

Other farmers, similarly devastated by a 2003 fire, lost their crops and animals and were forced to leave, while others who stayed struggled with a burned landscape for years to come, made worse by increased heat and less rain. 

The situation echoes findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who warn of expected temperature increases in the Mediterranean with more pronounced droughts and drier vegetation, susceptible to fire. (EuroNews)

How Is Climate Change Affecting Global and National Security?

John Conger, Director of the Center for Climate and Security points out that climate change affects policy on several fronts: economics, health and national security. Extreme weather events will generate increased needs for humanitarian assistance and disaster response, while also generating a shift in geopolitical stability that impacts food security, water scarcity, economic displacement and migration. 

He cautions that though certain regions have generated more attention up to now, no region will be immune to the impacts of climate change, pointing to the underreporting of drought in Central America as a driver for migration out of the region. Pakistan, he adds, is another example, of a water-stressed nation that has generated new conflicts between rural and urban areas as a result of climate change. (Brink News)