From Louisiana and Alaska to Bangladesh and Fiji, climate disruption is taking away people’s homes and livelihoods. We’ve seen this take many shapes and forms -- cyclones, typhoons, coastal land loss, severe drought, desertification, and more. Indeed, although weather and climate are different phenomenons, we’re seeing how a shifting climate is creating more extreme weather events and slow onset impacts such as coastal erosion and drought. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center 2015 report, in 2014 natural disasters forced 19 million people from 100 countries to flee their homes. The word “climate refugee” might be coming to mind here. In honor of World Refugee Day, let’s unpack the complexity of this issue.
It’s clear to see that climate’s impact on human mobility is vast. What might be less apparent is how climate disruption, like many other global problems, serves to amplify existing inequalities. According to the Women’s Environmental Network, women constitute up to 80 percent of global refugee and displaced populations, and typically in emergencies 70 to 80 percent of those needing assistance are women and children. Not only does it seem that women are more likely to move, but they’re also put at a greater risk than men when they do. This was evident in 2004 when a tsunami struck Sri Lanka, killing nearly one in five displaced women, a mortality rate two times greater than the rate for displaced men. The National Geographic video below illustrates an example closer to home in Louisiana’s Isle de Jean Charles where 98 percent of land has been lost to sea level rise. The area’s predominantly indigenous population (Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe) is being told to relocate according to a resettlement plan put in place by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as part of its $1 billion Natural Disaster Resiliency Competition. But, can we call any of these displaced people “refugees”?
No, we can’t -- it’s not legally accurate, and it can do more harm than good. The impacts of climate disruption predominantly involve internally displaced peoples as opposed to cross-border migration. According to international law, there is no status for protection or services even for those who leave their homes across national borders because of climate disruption. This is because including provisions around climate disruption would require significant changes to the U.N. convention on refugees set over 50 years ago -- a mandate not likely to change anytime soon. Even in many cases with internationally recognized refugees -- such as those from Syria -- where climate impacts helped fuel the conflict that led to situations where people were forced to flee from violence, this does not make them climate refugees due to the many layered factors.
Not only does “climate refugee” legally not exist, but because of certain negative connotations to the word refugee, many frontline communities to climate displacement find this misnomer to be offensive. Instead of spending our time labeling frontline communities, we must invest in solution defined by those who are or who will be displaced by the impacts of climate disruption. For instance, civil society advocates from Pacific Islands are asking for “migration with dignity” such as planned relocation as opposed to attempting to broaden international refugee guidelines.
Although you can see that the conversation around human mobility and climate disruption is fraught with contention, on World Refugee Day, advocating for those impacted by climate is a powerful act of international solidarity.
Given their unique roles as caretakers of both family and agriculture, women have long been the people leading adaptation initiatives in their communities. While mitigation of carbon emissions remains an important element to UN climate processes, there is a growing and urgent need for adaptation and support of a newer mechanism called “loss and damage”, which covers what happens once impacts are beyond adaptation. This is explained by the World Resources Institute as “the loss of lives and property in a cyclone—as well as from slow onset events, like the extinction of species that result from ecosystem shifts, the loss of arable land to desertification, or the complete disappearance of low-lying island nations.” Addressing these two elements, “loss and damage” and adaptation, can lessen the impacts of climate on frontline communities and create preparedness for worst case scenarios.
Countries with the largest historical emissions must take responsibility for the long-term impacts of their carbon consumption and support funding for loss and damage. Even though communities on the front lines to climate displacement are not refugees, they deserve to be heard and have their needs met by action on climate. Join us this World Refugee Day in understanding the key distinction between “refugees” and human mobility spurred by climate disruption and calling for climate action from our world leaders in solidarity with frontline communities.
Bonus: Interested in another way that climate disruptions and sexism are interlinked? Take a look at this Washington Post article in 2014 that highlights how more people perish during hurricanes that are given feminine names due to people not taking them seriously. Yeah- seriously.