Last month, Climate Refugees published an article detailing the struggles of the migrant workers of Qatar. We learned that the Indian state of Odisha is a particularly important source of migrant workers, and climate change plays an important role in exacerbating vulnerabilities that ultimately push migrants to the Gulf in search of work.
Once in Qatar, migrant from Odisha face exploitation, dangerous working conditions, and poor living conditions in Qatar. As internal migrants within Odisha, their fate is often a similar one. There is still very little social protection for migrant workers within India as they are often recruited informally, and their highly exploitative contracts can lead to the same type of pseudo-indentured servitude to the boss that we saw in Qatar before the reform of the Kafala System.
Due to a lack of economic opportunity and common natural disasters, Odisha has long been a source of migrant workers both in India and abroad. For decades, economic stagnation in the region paired with growth and urbanization around other parts of India meant that Odisha was already a hotbed for migrants before climate change became a more prominent push factor. Today, it is one of the most affected regions in India by climate change which is only pushing more and more people to migrate both temporarily and permanently.
Odisha lies on a coastal region, and is thus very susceptible to flooding and other climate disasters including cyclones and drought. The economy of Odisha is based on agriculture, so climate disasters can severely damage its output. Food insecurity is widening due to climate change in the east-Indian state. Floods commonly destroy crops which damage people’s livelihoods and sources of food. Unusually high rainfall in some parts of the state is one of the primary drivers of increased flooding.
Over the last decade, Odisha has actually been one of the fastest-growing economies in India by some metrics. Between 2012 and 2019, Odisha’s GDP grew at a rate of 7.5% per year, which was faster than the country as a whole. At the same time, in the last few years, however, climate change, along with COVID-19, is one of the factors that has decelerated this growth.
In May 2020, Cyclone Amphan hit India and Bangladesh, killing 80 people with four of those deaths happening in Odisha. The storm caused at least $42 million in damage to the and affected around 4.4 million people, damaging 15,000 homes along the way. It was one of the most devastating storms to hit the area in decades and Odisha was one of the hardest-hit regions.
Based on the newest IPCC report, the future outlook is not much rosier for the people of Odisha. The report confirmed much of what we already know about climate change. As warming continues, migration from regions of “high exposure and low adaptive capacity” will occur. Odisha is highly exposed to climate change in a variety of ways and has already struggled to adapt to events like Cyclone Amphan.
The increased frequency and severity of monsoons, droughts, and heatwaves will have a large impact on agriculture throughout Asia. In India, depending on whether the average temperature increases by just 1° or up to 4°C, rice production could decrease between 10%-30% and maize production between 25%-70%. According to India’s Ministry of Agriculture, rice is the most important food crop grown in Odisha, and the state’s rice paddies account for almost 78% of its agricultural land, while maize is an important crop as well.
There is much more at risk for Odisha than just economic stagnation. With so much of the state’s food supply at risk, the situation could become even more dire for the impoverished farmers of Odisha.
Late last year, India voted against a UN Security Council resolution which would have requested the UN Secretary-General submit a security report on the adverse effects of climate change. This would have made climate change a top priority for the Security Council, which the likes of India, China, and Russia believe is not fully within the purview of the the UN Security Council’s mandate.
This refusal to recognize climate change as an essential human security matter is also a sign that India and many other countries are not yet willing to consider how much climate plays a role in forcing cross-border migration and displacement today. Throughout India, 3,856,000 people relocated due to disasters in 2020, compared to 3,900 due to conflict.
The most populated, powerful countries in the world must recognize the protection, and potential human security risks of climate change. Because of the lack of concern for the issue there is consistent insufficient protection for the migrant workers of Odisha. They are often left out to dry by a lack of support in their home state which forces them to migrate in search of work or just survival in the face of a climate disaster. Once they leave their homes, however, they receive even less protection as they search for new opportunities.
If climate change and climate refugees were taken more seriously by states like India, much more research could follow on the links between climate change consequences on labor and the migration we are seeing take place in Odisha and around the world. In a world that still lacks an international legal framework migrants, including a legal definition of the term ‘migrant’, it is long past time to recognize that migration is not always voluntary. Often the involuntary nature of migration is unseen, is forced because basic human needs and social protections are unmet, pushing people to migrate in order to survive. With the disproportionate effects of climate change expected to intensify, we can expect Odisha’s marginalized to be pushed ever more to the brink. Their situation, like so many millions, require justice, and that must include connecting climate, poverty and migration links.