Cyclone Amphan Puts Focus Back on Millions Displaced by Climate Disaster

Piyush Priyank/UNSPLASH

Cyclone Amphan Puts Focus Back on Millions Displaced by Climate Disaster

May 20 saw the most powerful storm in the Bay of Bengal in over a decade make landfall in populated areas of southern Bengal. At least 86 people are dead, thousands of homes are destroyed and relief operations are hampered by COVID-19 lockdowns. Numerous climate activists in India and Bangladesh say the most recent disaster makes clear that current evacuation procedures are inadequate to deal with the magnitude of need. They say disaster evacuation infrastructure falls short in ensuring social distancing and meeting medical and quarantine needs. 

South Asia is a global hotspot for disaster displacement with 9.5 million new disaster displacements in 2019, the highest figure since 2012, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. India, alone, recorded the highest number of disaster displacements in the world with five million new disasters in 2019. 

While both India and Bangladesh have developed early warning systems and evacuation plans, according to Saleem Huq of the Dhaka-based International Centre for Climate Change and Development, the intensity of the cyclones are increasing due to climate change and thus both countries need to enhance their future preparedness. 

Furthermore, while evacuations save lives, it’s the aftermath that goes unmet as disasters destroy property, livelihoods, and with it the futures of generations to come. Thus, climate activists say adaptive measures are required to retrofit infrastructure to withstand disasters and provide livelihood options and tools for climate-resilient agriculture that safeguard food security in disasters and also in response to the impacts of slow-onset climate change. 

Droughts, sea-level rise and changes in weather conditions are impacting crops and thus food security, forcing many to migrate for survival according to a new policy brief Climate Migrants Pushed to the Brink by ActionAid International. 

ActionAid says climate displacements in South Asia are increasing but a comprehensive policy framework is still lacking because of inadequate data, the scale of the problem continues to go unrecognized and a total absence of local-level strategies on disaster displacement. (The Wire) 

Analysis

ActionAid International warns that due to inadequate shelter for all those evacuated and with a need to maintain social distancing to avoid coronavirus spread, shelters will be packed and lack sanitation facilities, especially impacting women. As we pointed out in our feature The Gendered Impacts of Climate Displacement, women are often more adversely affected by climate disasters in numerous ways from displacement, gender-based violence and even death. Unfortunately it didn’t require the double whammy of a global pandemic and one of the largest cyclones ever to coincide in order to recognize that evacuation and emergency shelters - both in conflict and disaster settings - are often inadequate to meet the needs of impacted communities, most notably vulnerable and special needs populations such as the elderly, disabled, LGBT, women and girls. 

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Rising Seas Point Miami's Rich Inland, Potentially Displacing its Immigrant and Refugee Communities

Jason Briscoe/UNSPLASH

Climate Gentrification: How Extreme Weather is Displacing Low-Income Residents From Their Communities

Some in Miami have serious cause for concern about their real estate. Miami is the fourth-largest population vulnerable to sea-level rise in the word, and with levels rising faster than ever, people are looking inland in search of higher ground. Situated within the 2.7 million residents of Miami Dade County - ‘ground zero’ for climate change - Miami has the largest amount of exposed assets and the county is within the second most populous state in the US exposed to the dangers of climate change. Miami’s Mayor acknowledges the gentrification pressures these movements create, already underway with developers eyeing low-income immigrant and refugee communities like Little Havana, Little Haiti and Liberty City. 

But not only Miami, extreme weather events have forced those with means to consider relocation. Flagstaff, Arizona’s Mayor noted a 25% increase in second-home purchases among people he coined “climate refugees” fleeing heat, while raising costs on low-income communities in the process. (Yahoo Finance)

Analysis

Last year the Miami City Commission green-lighted a billion dollar urban investment project called Magic City in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood meant to draw tourism, businesses and spur creative innovation. Community and social justice activists saw another side, concerned the development would raise rents, property values and costs of living for the already struggling poor and working class residents. 

A 2018 Harvard University Study popularized the term ‘climate gentrification’ - referring to Miami real estate transactions of increased property values in higher elevation neighborhoods. Their theory largely is that climate change impacts make some property more desirable than others and some populations, with the luxury of choice in movement to higher ground, will contribute to raised costs that could lead to displacement of existing populations. 

It’s interesting to note they actually use the term ‘displacement’, a term more commonly used in the contexts of conflicts and natural disasters. 

Just as it is with conflict scenarios, it’s difficult to say with any certainty whether climate change is driving development and relocation in Miami. But in both scenarios, experts can attest that climate change can certainly be a factor contributing to displacement. Meena Jaganathath, co-founder of the Community Justice Project that represented some Little Haiti residents and someone Climate Refugees spoke to as well, says climate change is “increasingly becoming a major factor.”

It could be that Miami proves to be a test case for the dangers the UN warns climate change could pose to poverty, displacement and hunger. In a report last year on climate change and poverty, Philip Alston, the UN’s former special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, warned of the potential for a ‘climate apartheid’ scenario, where the rich would escape the ravages of climate change - overheating, hunger and conflict - simply because they could afford to, while the poor would be left to suffer. 

Little Haiti, known for the haven it is for Haitian immigrants and refugees fleeing political turmoil who arrived more than 40 years ago, now potentially face further displacement in their newly established homes in exile. Perhaps that’s the harshest cruelty of all.

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Convergence in Chile on Climate Change, Conflicts and Migration Outside Meaningful Framework

Benjamin Gremler/UNSPLASH

The International Protection of Climate Migrants: Is Chile Up to the Challenge?

Monte Patria’s population in Chile’s Limarí Province, with its primarily agricultural economy, is feeling the impacts of climate change. The area’s semi-arid conditions are further intensified by rainfall variations, extreme temperatures and glacial melt. Government water policies are further straining shortages from droughts and other restrictive policies such as privatization.  Facing mounting hardships, residents have been driven to migrate to other parts of the country. Chile’s decisions to bow out of the UN Global Compact for Migration and the regional 2018 Escazú Agreement, on the basis of national sovereignty, have left it weakened to respond to the growing needs of migrants. This author thinks it’s in contravention to Chile’s own interests since its economy is largely dependent on natural resources utilized in agriculture, forestry and mining and apparently meets 7 of the 9 conditions of climate change vulnerability established by the UN. Furthermore, according to Chile’s National Institute of Human Rights, there are currently 117 socio-environmental conflicts - 82% in indigenous territories. Chile lacks a domestic policy framework as well as institutions to deal with the ramifications of climate impacts, including population displacement, migration and disaster response. (OpenGlobalRights) 

Analysis

According to Greenpeace, no one in Chile is unaffected by climate change. The Laguna de Acule, a lake impacted by a seven-year drought in the central and southern areas of the country, is a dependent water source for farmers and a lakeside retreat for many of Santiago’s wealthy residents. With the onset of the drought, the lake began to recede, and took with business and economic gains and real estate profits. A local expert attributes most of the blame to climate change, even if aquifers were disturbed by the country’s 2010 earthquake. With glacial melts, temperature increases of more than 2 degrees Celsius in some parts and resource conflicts on the rise, many see climate change as the country’s greatest external threat. Even if climate change attribution is not certain, its contribution seems likely. Meanwhile, Chile hosts about 10% of the global 4.5 million Venezuelan refugees and asylum-seekers. 

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What African Nations are Teaching the West About Fighting Coronavirus - (Plus Our Insights on How That Helps Humanitarian Sector)

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What African Nations Are Teaching the West About Fighting the Coronavirus

A surge in cases across the continent was expected by now and when that did not happen, many in the West pondered why, questioning whether Africa’s climate and demography played a role, even centuries old tropes of its ‘magic’ pervaded the conversation. The East African countries better containing the virus, up to now, have benefitted by Ebola response, which ironically, is a result of US CDC training following the 2014 Ebola outbreak in the region. Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Uganda, all of which border the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were forced to respond to an Ebola outbreak in 2018 and each country has rapid response teams, trained contact tracers and a whole suite of public health protocols in place, which they have adapted to respond to the coronavirus. The fact of the matter is Africa was better prepared, and more importantly, seeing the data and the numbers early, responded in a timely and aggressive fashion. Many countries were willing to shut down and declare states of emergency when no cases or very few were reported. Rwanda, in its first month of response, increased from two cases to 134, while Belgium with its same size population grew from two cases to 74,000. Rwanda responded from the beginning with tracing, isolating and testing contacts. Then five days after the first cases, commercial flights were halted, followed by a country lockdown two days later, in a move to limit the spread of the virus and ease the arduous work of contact tracing. By the end of April, more than 20,000 had been tested and two random community surveys had been conducted, concluding that community transmission had not occurred. Uganda and Ethiopia, which conducted a door-to-door survey of its five million residents in the capital Addis Ababa, have followed similar response strategies, where numbers remain low relative to expectations. So too in South Sudan, Burundi, Botswana and South Africa. The US and France, in its fourth month of the outbreak, is only now initiating contact tracing. In a quest to guard against overconfidence, cautious optimism is on display, as concerns persist over the availability of tests, which is the best barometer for the true extent of the virus’ spread. But the methods adopted so far have allowed these countries to get a clearer picture of the situation, allowing for far better containment strategies. (The New Yorker)

Analysis

Sub-Saharan Africa is host to more than 26% of the world’s refugee population and the continent has the second highest number of internally displaced people. The humanitarian need is great in some countries, as are the development needs, where socio-economic and historical realities have contributed to persistent poverty. In this context, local governments, bilateral aid agencies and humanitarian and development actors have, in partnership, (long entrenched in some cases) established public health programs that are built to respond to crises, ongoing humanitarian needs and build capacity of local government health ministries. One of the key tools in these programs are community health workers who can be rapidly deployed or where distance is necessary, use innovative remote and in-person communications methods that are socially and culturally relevant and effective. While humanitarian and development needs do tend to outweigh funding capacities and the coronavirus pandemic has already highlighted huge gaps in need vs funding, in some contexts, perhaps it is a small blessing that the framework, apparatus and training already exists to raise awareness, preparedness and hopefully stem contagion. 

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Haiti COVID-19 Peak & Hurricanes Set to Collide as US Deportations Increase

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Haiti COVID-19 Peak Set to Collide With Hurricanes

A multitude of crises may converge as Haiti struggles with food insecurity exacerbated by a drought this year, ensuing political and social unrest and COVID-19. Up to now, Haiti has yielded low cases but doctors fear social attitudes, lack of funding and a fragile healthcare system with just 100 ventilators and a few hospital beds will hamper mitigation efforts. With global modeling projecting peak infection rates in June, right about the start of hurricane season, which runs through November, concerns are naturally high. Forecasters anticipate a busier than usual hurricane season, with four of the 16 predicted storms expected to become major hurricanes due to warming Atlantic sea surface temperatures linked to climate change. Emergency shelters are being prepared for the upcoming storms, with shelters updated to allow for social distancing, but concerns linger among humanitarian agencies that COVID-19 could spread in overcrowded shelters. An additional concern is the increased number of Haitian migrants returning due to coronavirus lockdowns and economic downturns, and with little to no control at border crossings, virus screenings and information sharing are nonexistent. Thus far, 17,000 Haitians have returned and the Pan American Health Organization estimates 55,000 migrants will cross the border in the coming weeks. (Reuters)

Analysis

Meanwhile the United States continues to deport migrants and asylum seekers from its borders, including Haitians. On May 11, a deportation flight from Texas to Haiti departed with 50 passengers who were sent to hotels for quarantine upon arrival in Port-au-Prince at the Haitian government’s expense. However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not deport five Haitians who tested positive for COVID-19 on that flight only after media reports revealed US government plans to initially deport them as well. Deporting individuals who are known to be infected with the virus violates US and international public health guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus. Since April deportations, three Haitians have tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival in Haiti. 

In Guatemala, 15% of its caseload comprise US deportees, where at least 117 Guatemalans deported from the US have now tested positive as of May 4. On April 13, dozens of Guatemalan deportees tested positive for COVID-19. Guatemala first suspended deportations from the US but then allowed them to resume after the US promised stringent testing. However last week, a deportee who tested negative was confirmed COVID-19 positive upon arrival in Guatemala. 

Under a new Trump Administration deportation policy, presented though as a public health policy, US Border Control Agents are now empowered to turn away any migrant without hearing claims whatsoever. The move comes through the use of an arcane public health policy that gives the CDC the power to ban entry of people who may spread infectious disease. Regardless of its presentation, the policy still presents a total violation of the right to seek asylum under US and international law. 

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How Should the World Respond to Climate Migrants? Our Analysis on What this Expert Missed

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How Should the World Respond to the Coming Wave of Climate Migrants?

This policy editorial mostly summarizes the state of play with respect to the plight of climate migrants and the current policy discourse based on the worst case climate migration models. The author believes the current multilateral system is adequate to meet the needs of climate displaced individuals because they will predominantly be internally displaced persons who will not need international assistance nor international protection. Following the widely used 2050 climate displacement projections, he calls for a stronger classification of ‘environmental migrants’ and their rights, who he states are neither “true refugees nor traditional migrants.” He anticipates that climate migration will not be “forced”, as he puts it, because migration is a matter of choice, which weakens any argument of the need for international protection let alone the designation of a new category of “climate refugees.” Finally, he is against expansion of current treaties for inclusion of “special refugee status” for environmental reasons, which could have unintended consequences. (World Politics Review) 

Analysis

On this last point, I do agree with the author that expansion of the 1951 Refugee Convention would be counterproductive in the current climate that is generally hostile to refugees. The opinion piece does address the legal challenge that climate change falls outside the purview of protected refugee grounds under the 1951 Convention, but fails to include broader definitions contained within the 1969 OAU Convention and the 1984 Cartagena Declaration. 

The legal analysis does not include the recent UN Human Rights Committee’s decision that people fleeing the effects of climate change may have a basis for seeking asylum, based on the case of an individual from Kiribati claiming to be a “climate refugee” who took his case to the human rights body on the basis that his denied asylum claim by New Zealand violated his right to life under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It also fails to include the recently adopted UN Global Compacts for Migration and Refugees, respectively, which discuss environmental migration and further, UNHCR’s more recent position that refugee law frameworks may apply in situations where nexus dynamics are present - that is, situations where conflict or violence are interconnected to situations linked to climate change or disaster. Albeit all these instruments are non-binding but their adoption by States do form the basis for an important way forward. 

Most notably, the belief here is that climate migration is voluntary, and while there is certainly a lack of data and understanding yet on the topic, there are viable and numerous qualitative indicators to suggest that where climate migration interconnects with poverty, under-development and challenges to security, choice may not be a luxury afforded to many. Years of experience interviewing displaced persons around the world has told me that no one willingly leaves their home. There is very little choice in the matter to flee one’s home - be it for reasons of conflict, persecution or climate change, the latter reason unprotected in international refugee law. Two additional things I’ve learned: one usually is forced to leave after numerous incidents that ultimately make a situation unsafe or untenable; second, it is not uncommon for one to be displaced numerous times - sometimes first internally and if needs and protections continue to go unmet, then across borders. This is quite typical of the current global refugee crisis, and if trends continue, one we can expect with new drivers of displacement like climate change.

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