Climate migration

Natural factors have been responsible for migration more than socio-political causes since the past few years, but the adaptation seems to be getting less attention than the mitigation strategies.

Hurricanes Eta and Iota hit the coasts of an impoverished South American nation, Honduras. Back in 2019. Then came the unplanned lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic and thousands of people were put under socio-economic and naturally unfavorable conditions, so much so that they had to migrate. The manifestations of climate change go beyond just the air and water quality. It is affecting every component of the earth, from physical forms to living things. Biodiversity decline and worsening health conditions of human beings are the major damages the future generations will witness. The decline in vegetation is surging the food crisis. According to the World Hunger Index, around 815 million have very meager access to food. 

The natural resources also bear the pangs and are causing an energy crisis. A World Bank study forecast indicated that the price of energy will be more than 80% higher in 2021 as compared to 2020, and will keep rising in 2022. So, climate change has many levels in the way human life is affected. And these effects have increased to the point of even dislocation from our places of living. Climate migration is not a new phenomenon taking place. People living close to hazardous places, like sea coasts, volcanic hotspots, flood-prone areas, etc. often lose their homes and livelihoods due to calamities. But there has been a noticeable rise in the migrant population due to natural causes. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has defined refugees as people who have fled unfavorable living conditions such as war, conflict or persecution, and have moved beyond an international border to find shelter in another country. The definition only included social, political, and natural causes only, but in its 2018 Global Compact on Refugees, it stated that environmental degradation, climate, natural and disasters are increasingly becoming the drivers of refugee movements. But there is still no legal consideration of a 'climate refugee'. Climate refugees are not all climate migrants, because a migrant may relocate only in search of better occupational opportunities. Climate change displaces people and creates a push effect rather than pull, and puts people in a much more adverse situation. A joint study conducted by non-profit organizations Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) and ActionAid International claimed that there were about 18 million of them in South Asia at the end of 2020, 48.4 million internal climate migrants across the Pacific and East Asia, and around 5.1 million in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. People could be forced out of their homes by calamities made more severe and more frequent due to climate change. 

Extreme weather phenomena like storms and floods, drought, and heatwaves and are already dislocating 41 people each minute. With the rising temperatures, these climate extremes are bound to worsen. The biodiversity and natural resources will deplete, sea levels will rise, and the vulnerable population will bear the impacts. Not just international, but internal migrations are equally bad. World's leading source of data on internal displacement, The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre published a report in 2019 on the status of internal displacement in South Asia. It pointed out that cyclones Bulbul and Fani caused over five million people to lose their homes in India and Bangladesh. In Afghanistan, around 1.2 million people were victims of floods and drought in the past few years. A weather-related disaster has occurred every single day on an average for the past 50 years and has killed 115 people. Further, food security is also affected in many complex ways. Climate change affects agriculture, livestock, fisheries, and aquaculture. The policy scenario estimated by the International Energy Agency and other energy-economic models claims that for a global rise in temperature by 4°C, there will be 10-percent warming in the annual mean monsoon intensity and a 15-percent in yearly variability in precipitation. Water availability will be particularly severe for India because many areas of the country already suffer from water shortage, and depend on groundwater for irrigation like North-western India, which accounts for the majority of the country’s rice and wheat. Thus, climate change and its power to turn people into refugees is becoming increasingly prevalent. What is more worrying is that many non-marginalized communities are also becoming victims of it. The recent COP 26 also stressed acknowledging that climate change has already created havoc and will progressively cause damage. As temperatures rise, impacts of climate extremes and slow onset events will pose greater socio-economic and environmental threats. Disasters can not all be prevented, but their impact can be reduced and thousands of lives can be saved. One of the most important solutions is developing efficient early warning systems or EWS. Multi-hazard early warning systems have significantly reduced mortality and prevented economic losses. Building shelters and rehabilitation facilities for the victims. And most importantly creating awareness and allocation resources, both at the administrative and local levels.