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2020 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

4. How Many “Climate Refugees”? Pros and Cons of Maximalism and Minimalism

verfasst von : Giovanni Sciaccaluga

Erschienen in: International Law and the Protection of “Climate Refugees”

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter turns to the different approaches adopted over the years to study climate-driven migration. Depending on the approach, very different discourses and estimates have been proposed. Figures concerning future “climate refugees” span from zero to hundreds of millions of people. The chapter analyzes the evolution of the study concerning the topic, investigating the pros and cons of the two main schools of thought—maximalism and minimalism—that have approached it in the years. The chapter also critically discusses recent and ongoing climate-related mass migration events, explaining how these may be understood in light of the different schools of thoughts. This to shed further light on the phenomenon. It is so possible to draw lines and start appreciating that there are different categories of climate-related migrants, an important step to understand which ones can effectively be considered through the prism of international protection.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Climate Change and Migration

Nächstes Kapitel Defining the Category: Who Are “Climate Refugees”?

El-Hinnawi (1985). Environmental Refugees. Report. UNEP. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/121267. Accessed 12 February 2020.

The IDMC is the most authoritative non-governmental organization within the international community with regard to the monitoring of internal (but also external) human mobility. Established in 1998, it is supported and recognized by the UN General Assembly. For more information, see the website www.internal-displacement.org.

Formerly Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons and one of the greatest experts in the world on the subject.

See IDMC (2015). People Displaced by Disasters. Global estimates 2015. Report. IDMC. https://www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/20150713-global-estimates-2015-en-v1.pdf. Accessed 18 March 2020.

See IPCC (1990). First Assessment Report. Climate Change: The IPCC Impacts Assessment (1990), Policy-Makers’ Summary. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/05/ipcc_90_92_assessments_far_full_report.pdf. Accessed 15 March 2020, p. 3.

See, for instance: Christian Aid (2007). Human Tide: The Real Migration Crisis. https://www.christianaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/2017-08/human-tide-the-real-migration-crisis-may-2007.pdf. Accessed 13 April 2019. Friends of Earth in Australia (2007). A Citizen’s Guide to Climate Refugees. https://www.safecom.org.au/pdfs/foe-climate-citizens-guide.pdf. Accessed 12 May 2019. McKie (2010, 28 November). Climate Change Will Cost a Billion People Their Homes, says report. The Observerhttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/nov/28/cancun-climate-summit-weather. Accessed 13 May 2019. International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (2001). World Disasters Report: Focus on Recovery. Report. IFRC and Red Crescent Societies. Myers (1993). Environmental Refugees in a Globally Warmed World. Bioscience, 43, p. 752. Myers (2005). Environmental Refugees: An Emergent Security Issue, 13. Economic Forum, Prague, 23–27 May 2005. https://www.osce.org/eea/14851?download=true. Accessed 12 May 2018.

In this sense, see Bettini (2013). Climate Barbarians at the Gate? A Critique of Apocalyptic Narratives on ‘Climate Refugees’. Geoforum, 45, p. 65. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016718512001947?via%3Dihub. Accessed 12 January 2020: “Moreover, a collateral to apocalyptic narration is the envisioning of an ultimate threat (the tsunamis of climate refugees), and raises the imperative ‘If we do not do this… some unspeakably horrible will take place’. It thereby mobilizes fear and a sense of urgency”. See also Mayer (2012). ‘Environmental Refugees’? A Critical Perspective on the Normative Discourse. Center for Sustainable Development Law. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2111825. Accessed 14 January 2016, p. 2: “The limpid simplicity of the maximalist estimations and previsions exerts a certain attraction, providing a simplistic, media-friendly, and policy relevant message […] – a discourse more efficient than the halftone, prudent voices of minimalists”.

“Myers’ methodology was rudimentary, boing down to more little more than adding up the populations living within exposed areas”. In Mayer (2018). Who Are “Climate Refugees”? Academic Engagement in the Post-Truth Era. In Behrman & Kent (Eds.) (2018). ‘Climate refugees’ Beyond the Legal Impasse? New York: Routledge, p. 92.

Myers (2005). Environmental Refugees: An Emergent Security Issue, 13. Economic Forum, Prague, 23–27 May 2005. https://www.osce.org/eea/14851?download=true. Accessed 12 May 2018, pp. 3–4.

Mayer (2018). In Behrman & Kent (Eds.) (op. cit.), p. 91.

Kelley et al. (2015). Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent and Implications of the Recent Syrian Drought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 11, pp. 3241 ff.

See Welch (2015, March 2), Climate Change Helped Spark Syrian War, Study Says. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/3/150302-syria-war-climate-change-drought/. Accessed 10 June 2019. Bawden (2015, March 2), Climate Change Key in Syrian Conflict—And It Will Trigger More War in Future. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/climate-change-key-in-syrian-conflict-and-it-will-trigger-more-war-in-future-10081163.html. Accessed 10 June 2019. Fountain (2015, March 2). Researchers Link Syrian Conflict to a Drought Made Worse by Climate Change. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/science/earth/study-links-syria-conflict-to-drought-caused-by-climate-change.html. Accessed 9 June 2019. See also Wendle (2015). The Ominous Story of Syria’s Climate Refugees. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ominous-story-of-syria-climate-refugees/. Accessed 14 April 2019. Randall (2016). Syria and Climate Change: Did the Media Get It Right? Climate and Migration Coalition.http://climatemigration.org.uk/syria-and-climate-change-did-the-media-get-it-right-2/. Accessed 19 May 2019.

Merica (2015, November 4). Hillary Clinton: Climate Change Has Contributed to Refugee Crises, Including Syria. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/04/politics/hillary-clinton-climate-change-syria-refugee-crises/index.html. Accessed 13 March 2019. See also the 2015 declarations by the former USSecretary of State USA John Kerry: “I’m not saying that the crisis in Syria was created by climate change. But the devastating drought made a bad situation a lot worse”, in Brown (2016). Europe’s Refugee Crisis: A Taste of Things to Come? UNEP’s Disaster and Conflicts Subprogramme. https://medium.com/@UNEP/europe-s-refugee-crisis-a-taste-of-things-to-come-72a5d4079cb4. Accessed 30 May 2019.

UNHCR (2015). UNHCR, the Environment & Climate Change (Updated Version). Report. UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/540854f49.pdf. Accessed 14 June 2019, p. 5. See also Afifi, Govil, Sakdapolrak, & Warner (2012). Climate Change, Vulnerability and Human Mobility: Perspectives of Refugees from the East and Horn Africa. Report. UNHCR & UNU-EHS, https://www.unhcr.org/protection/environment/4fe8538d9/climate-change-vulnerability-human-mobility-perspectives-refugees-east.html. Accessed 14 June 2019.

Mayer (2012). (op. cit.), p. 3.

Giovannini (2017, November 6). Un miliardo di rifugiati climatici entro il 2050. La Stampa. https://www.lastampa.it/tuttogreen/2017/11/06/news/un-miliardo-di-rifugiati-climatici-entro-il-2050-1.34380312. Accessed 13 January 2020.

(2017). The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change: From 25 Years of Inaction to a Global Transformation for Public Health. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)32464-9/fulltext. Accessed 13 May 2019.

McKie (2010). (op. cit.).

Gemenne (2011). Climate-Induced Displacement in a 4°C+ Degree World. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 182.

See also Doherrty & Slezak (2017, August 10). Australia Faces Potentially Disastrous Consequences of Climate Change, Inquiry Told. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/11/australia-potentially-disastrous-consequences-of-climate-change-inquiry-told. Accessed 12 January 2019.

United Nations University (Institute for Environment and Human Security) (2014). Climate Change and Migration in The Pacific: Links, Attitudes, and Future Scenarios in Nauru, Tuvalu, and Kiribati, Fiji. Report. UN University. https://collections.unu.edu/view/UNU:6515. Accessed 14 June 2019.

Ibid.

Stern (2007). The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 112.

Brown & Oli (2008). Migration and Climate Change. International Organization for Migration: Research Series No. 31. https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/migration_and_environment.pdf. Accessed 13 May 2019.

Christian Aid (2007). (op. cit.).

McAdam (2012). (op. cit.), p. 29.

See for instance: Homer-Dixon & Percival (1996). Environmental Scarcity and Violent Conflict: Briefing Book. Toronto: University of Toronto and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. According to the authors, migrationsforced by climate change would generate conflicts as a result of: an increase in competition for increasingly scarce natural and economic resources; a consequent increase in existing ethnic/cultural tensions; greater demand for social infrastructure and, therefore, political discontent.

Cf. Schleussner et al. (2016). Armed-Conflict Risks Enhanced by Climate-Related Disasters in Ethnically Fractionalized Countries. PNAS, 33. https://www.pnas.org/content/113/33/9216. Accessed 14 October 2019.

UN Security Council Statement, in occasion of the 6587th Meeting, 20 July 2011 (UN Doc. S/PRST/2011/15).

UN Security Council resolution 2349 (2017) [on the situation in the Lake Chad Basin region] S/RES/2349; UN Security Council Resolution 2408 (2018) S/RES/2408 (2018).

Motzfeldt Kravik (2018). The Security Council and Climate Change—Too Hot to Handle? EJIL: Talk. https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-security-council-and-climate-change-too-hot-to-handle/. Accessed 14 September 2019.

Bakewell (2008). Keeping Them in Their Place: The Ambivalent Relationship between Development and Migration in Africa. Third World Quarterly, 7 (29), pp. 1341 ff.

Jastram (2014). Warm World, Cold Reception: Climate Change, National Security and Forced Migration. Vermont. Journal of Envtl. Law, 2014, pp. 752 ff.

It is well known that the countries most affected by climate change-related migrations will be among the poorest in the world (for example, Bangladesh, Sahelstates, micro-state islands, etc.) or, in any case, among those least able to respond to environmental degradation (India, Pakistan, China, Egypt, Vietnam, etc.). In summary, the factors that contribute to increasing vulnerability to the negative effects of climate change are poor education, weak institutions, scarce availability of resources, poor technical and technological skills, and poverty.

Notwithstanding the fact that policies aimed at stopping tout court migrations movement rarely work.

Gemenne insists on the need to promote the right to mobility and, to this end, to replace the “security agenda” with a “mobility agenda”. In other words, he proposes to focus the debate on the “climate refugees” on the development and implementation of effective and safe migration policies, devoting energy to the creation of migratory corridors, as well as to safeguarding the cultural values of the emigration communities and the destination ones.

Todorov (2009). La paura dei barbari: oltre lo scontro delle civiltà. Milan: Garzanti, p. 268.

Curtain et al. (2016). Labour Mobility: The Ten Billion Dollar Prize. World Bank. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/171661503669342316/pdf/119105-PUB-PUBLIC-ADD-SERIES-pplabourmobilitybackgroundfinal.pdf. Accessed 14 February 2020.

Todorov. (2009). (op. cit.), p. 16.

UNGA Resolution (2019). Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), UN Doc. A/RES/73/195, Objective 5.

Platform on Disaster Displacement (2018). State-Led, Regional, Consultative Processes: Opportunities to Develop Legal Frameworks on Disaster Displacement. In Behrman & Kent (Eds.) (op. cit.), p. 139.

See for instance, New Zealand’s five year Strengthened Cooperation Programme with Niue (created in 2004 and reformed in 2009); South Pacific Work Permit Scheme; Pacific Access Category; cooperation agreements adopted under the Pacific Islands Forum.

Platform on Disaster Displacement. (2018). State-Led, regional, Consultative Processes: Opportunities to Develop Legal Frameworks on DisasterDisplacement. In Behrman & Kent (Eds.) (op. cit.), p. 139.

See in this sense: Williams (2008). Turning the Tide: Recognizing Climate Change Refugees in International Law. Law & Policy, 4, p. 515: “It may be argued that the environmental significance of PAC has been exaggerated and that the agreement represents little more than an economically oriented immigration move to bolster New Zealand’s workforce, given the variety and class of conditions attached to the category”.

Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, point 21, letter h.

Report of the Task Force on Displacement (TFD Report), Advanced unedited version of 17 September 2018. https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/2018_TFD_report_17_Sep.pdf. Accessed 14 March 2020, p. 11. It is worth noticing that in the previous versions of the Report, the Task Force more directly recommendedgovernments to adapt their policies on human mobility in the context of climate change.

Castles (2010). Afterword: What Now? Climate-Induced Displacement After Copenhagen. In McAdam (Ed.) (op. cit.), p. 243.

Piguet (2008). Climate Change and Forced Migration, New Issues in Refugee Research, Research paper n. 153. UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/en-lk/47a316182.pdf. Accessed 13 May 2018, p. 8.

Apap (2019). The Concept of “Climate Refugee”: Toward a Possible Definition. Briefing. EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2018/621893/EPRS_BRI(2018)621893_EN.pdf. Accessed 18 December 2019.

Kälin & Schrepfer (2012). (op. cit.), p. 12.

This book adopts Sumudu Atappattu’s definition of forced climate migrants and further builds on it in the following chapters relying on human rights and climate change law considerations. As will be discussed in detail in the next chapter, Atapattu defines forced climate migrants as “people who are forced to leave their homes or lands either temporarily or permanently due to significant environmental damage associated with climate change or where their national state is no longer habitable”. See Atapattu (2016). Human Rights Approaches to Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities. New York: Routledge, p. 165.

Titel: How Many “Climate Refugees”? Pros and Cons of Maximalism and Minimalism
verfasst von: Giovanni Sciaccaluga
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: International Law and the Protection of “Climate Refugees”
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-52401-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-52402-9

Copyright-Jahr: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52402-9_4

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