The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report on climate impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability amounts to 18 chapters spread across 3,675 pages. The massive amount of data and information presented can be overwhelming at first glance. Digging deeper into each specific chapter however can provide a wealth of knowledge and context specific insight, which we explored for example on the IPCC’s predictions of drought displacement in Africa in this Spotlight.
In Chapter 8: Poverty, Livelihoods, and Sustainable Development, the IPCC has a sub-section titled “Box 8.1: Climate Traps: A Focus on Refugees and Internally Displaced Peoples” where the authors highlight the extreme vulnerability refugees and internally displaced peoples have to climate change and how this cycle of multidimensional poverty perpetuates itself - what we might term ‘climate trap.’
The term ‘climate trap’ or ‘poverty trap’ as it is more commonly known, is a concept that is widely used by development practitioners or academics within the scope of development. ‘Poverty trap’ is the notion that poverty begets poverty. Take for example a family in a poor rural community in a developing country who grows crops for sustenance and possibly, livelihood. It is not uncommon for such families to be in dire situations economically that children aren’t able to attend school because even they must work in the fields for their families to survive. During my time in Mongolia, and now in Kyrgyzstan, I’ve seen many families forced into situations like this.
Without an education, a child will have limited future job opportunities and will often follow in their families’ footsteps to provide minimal income thus continuing the cycle of poverty. Poverty is itself a direct cause of poverty in the future. This writer discussing global poverty traps said it best:
“It's like filling a leaking bucket with water - no matter how much effort they put in, they never succeed in making enough to meet their daily needs.” — Giorgia Guglielmi
‘Climate trap’ is essentially what poverty has become in the Anthropocene, whereby climate change and its impacts exacerbate the poverty trap.
This is where the IPCC is voicing extreme concern. Refugees and internally displaced peoples are at the forefront of climate change with UNHCR finding that 90% of this population originates from countries on the frontlines of climate change. The end result is 40% of the worlds refugees are hosted in highly climate vulnerable countries where they are made even more vulnerable to the risks of climate change than they were originally. Whether they are displaced as a result of climate change, or are already displaced, the vicious cycle of a climate trap poses a threat to millions of refugees and internally displaced people.
This can be seen in previous Spotlights on Madagascar, Mozambique, Iraq, and even the whole of Africa where Climate Refugees has shown climate change is not only displacing people, its leaving people displaced where they are more exposed and vulnerable to climate hazards or increasing the exposure and risk to those already displaced.
““The risk for refugees and internally displaced people is two-fold: on the one hand, refugee and internally displaced peoples’ settlements are disproportionately concentrated in regions that are exposed to higher-than-average warming levels and specific climate hazards, including temperature extremes and drought. On the other, these populations frequently inhabit settlements and legal circumstances that are intended to be temporary but are protracted across generations, and at the same time, face legal and economic barriers on their ability to migrate away from climate impacts.” ”
The report goes on to warn that many of these refugees and internally displaced find themselves in informal settlements or as unauthorized migrants in a neighboring country which ultimately results in them becoming invisible and unaccounted for in official reports and assessments. This Spotlight on the impacts of climate change on migration in Mongolia, that I heard and witnessed during my time there, provides a great example of how that happens and what that looks like. Since these populations aren’t officially recognized or registered in the places they’re forced to move, they don’t have access to public services like education, health care, electricity, sanitation - essentially, they lose the autonomy to determine their own futures. As I said, poverty begets poverty and without access to these services that climate trap is reinforced.
“During my time in Mongolia, and now in Kyrgyzstan, I’ve seen many families forced into situations like these. ”
Even with billions of dollars pledged, and not yet put forth in climate adaptation support, these ‘missing’ populations fall under the radar and as a result aren’t included in adaptation planning. This amounts to the ones most in need of climate adaptation being inadvertently excluded from the benefits of climate adaptation.
While having a scapegoat or specific country to blame would be the most convenient, there are no easy answers to this crisis. Climate inaction forces displacement and migration as vastly multidimensional forms of forced adaptation. So, while preventing forced displacement should be the fundamental goal, the global community must be pragmatic in realizing in this day and age it is almost inevitable. How then can society as a whole come together and address the needs of refugees and internally displaced peoples in the face of climate change?
Addressing all the complex global drivers of displacement seems like an almost insurmountable task, but it isn’t and it is what we must now do. And at the core, actions must ensure situations that give people choice – choice in how they adapt. Tough choices lay ahead for many populations on the frontlines of this crisis, but they must be ensured every opportunity and resource to determine their own capacities to cope, to adapt, to migrate or not to migrate. Not only are developed countries’ current rates of climate action woefully inadequate to allow that level of self-determination, there also eroding migration as a form of adaptation. Widening poverty and underdevelopment risks internal migrants moving into worse situations, while fortified borders force those migrating across countries into dangerous pathways. These are the injustices we must press our governments to address. The IPCC report warns of the threats we face and threats to come, how we respond now should be based on protecting lives and the right to a self-determined and dignified future for everyone.