By Dina Ionesco
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 6 2019 (IPS)

The Atlas of Environmental Migration, which gives examples dating as far back as 45,000 years ago, shows that environmental changes and natural disasters have played a role in how the population is distributed on our planet throughout history.

However, it is highly likely that undesirable environmental changes directly created by, or amplified by, climate change, will extensively change the patterns of human settlement.

Future degradation of land used for agriculture and farming, the disruption of fragile ecosystems and the depletion of precious natural resources like fresh water will directly impact people’s lives and homes.

The climate crisis is already having an effect: according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 17.2 million people had to leave their homes last year, because of disasters that negatively affected their lives.

Slow changes in the environment, such as ocean acidification, desertification and coastal erosion, are also directly impacting people’s livelihoods and their capacity to survive in their places of origin.

There is a strong possibility that more people will migrate in search of better opportunities, as living conditions get worse in their places of origin:

There are predictions for the twenty-first century indicating that even more people will have to move as a result of these adverse climate impacts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the main UN authority on climate science, has repeatedly said that the changes brought on by the climate crisis will influence migration patterns.

The World Bank has put forward projections for internal climate migration amounting to 143 million people by 2050 in three regions of the world, if no climate action is taken.

However, our level of awareness and understanding of how environmental factors affect migration, and how they also interact with other migration drivers such as demographic, political and economic conditions, has also changed. With enhanced knowledge, there is more incentive to act urgently, be prepared and respond.

The Global Compact for Migration: a roadmap for governments

In the past decade, there has been a growing political awareness of the issues around environmental migration, and increasing acceptance that this is a global challenge.

Herders take their animals to drink water in Niger., by FAO/Giulio Napolitano

As a result, many states have signed up to landmark agreements, such as the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Global Compact for Migration, which marks a clear way forward for governments to address the issue of climate and migration.

The Compact contains many references to environmental migration including a whole section on measures to address environmental and climate challenges: it is the first time that a comprehensive vision has been laid out, showing how states can handle – now and in the future – the impacts of climate change, disasters and environmental degradation on international migration.

Our analysis of the Compact highlights the priorities of states, when it comes to addressing environmental migration. Their primary concern is to “minimize the adverse drivers and structural factors that compel people to leave their country of origin”, in particular the “natural disasters, the adverse effects of climate change, and environmental degradation”.

In other words, the main priority is to find solutions that allow people to stay in their homes and give them the means to adapt to changing environmental conditions. This approach aims to avoid instances of desperate migration and its associated tragedies.

Rohingya refugees make their way down a footpath during a heavy monsoon downpour in Kutupalong refugee settlement, Cox’s Bazar district. 2018. Credit: UNHCR/David Azia

However, where climate change impacts are too intense, another priority put forward in the Compact is to “enhance availability and flexibility of pathways for regular migration. States are thus looking at solutions for people to be able to migrate safely and through regular channels, and at solutions for those already on the move.

A last resort measure is to conduct planned relocations of population – this means organizing the relocation of entire villages and communities away from areas bearing the brunt of climate change impacts.

Humanitarian assistance and protection for those on the move already, are also tools states can use. Finally, states highlight that relevant data and knowledge are key to guide the decision-making process. Without knowing more and analyzing better, policies run the risk of missing their targets and fade into irrelevance.

A range of solutions to a complex problem

Responding to the challenges of environmental migration in a way that benefits both countries and communities, including migrants and refugees, is a complex process involving many different actors.

Solutions can range from tweaking migration practices, such as visa regimes, to developing human rights-based protection measures. Most importantly, they involve a coordinated approach from national governments, bringing together experts from different walks of life:

There is no one single solution to respond to the challenge of environmental migration, but there are many solutions that tackle different aspects of this complex equation. Nothing meaningful can ever be achieved without the strong involvement of civil society actors and the communities themselves who very often know what is best for them and their ways of life.

I also think that we need to stop discourses that focus only on migrants as victims of tragedy. The bigger picture is certainly bleak at times, but we need to remember that migrants demonstrate everyday their resilience and capacity to survive and thrive in difficult situations.

Excerpt:

By Dina Ionesco
GENEVA, Nov 30 2017 (IOM)

When Hurricane Maria hit Dominica this year, Tosca Augustine and her three children sought shelter in a nearby school as they saw their home vanish into thin air along with all their belongings.

Similar stories are echoed elsewhere. In the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea, climate change is clearly visible. Over the last several decades, the combined impact of sea level rise and environmental degradation have resulted in coastal erosion, shrinking the already miniscule islands.

Millions of people around the world are suffering from coastal erosion, desertification, water stress and sea level rise, among other phenomena. There is increasing recognition that climate change and the environment significantly affect human mobility.

When IOM, the UN Migration Agency attended the first climate conference back in 2006, migration was absent from the climate negotiations. By 2015, this had changed. The COP21 Paris Agreement specifically refers to migration and human mobility, calling for States to respect and promote the rights of migrants.

This year’s 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23), held under the Presidency of Fiji took place just two years after the adoption of the landmark Paris Climate Change Agreement, at a time of hefty challenges, but also transformative initiatives.

This COP represented the opportunity to take stock of climate migration as a key element of the official climate negotiations, as well as the numerous events organized on the margins of the conference. The Executive Committee (Excom) of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) presented its report to the COP mentioning the development of the Excom five-year rolling workplan which includes a work stream on human mobility and migration. The WIM was established at COP19 to address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change, including extreme events and slow onset events, in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

This means that climate migration continues to be an integral part of the climate negotiations, and will remain to be for at least the next five years – a significant advance considering that a few years ago, migration was a marginal issue in the global climate change discourse.

IOM, the UN Migration Agency, has long acknowledged the interrelation between migration, climate change and the environment. In our quest to make migration a choice and not a necessity, we must integrate migration solutions into national, regional and global actions.

Forward-looking solutions at the national level should aim at reducing forced displacement. For instance, national policies would allow more people to remain in their home communities safely; present migrants with the option to reintegrate through sustainable green job opportunities; or establish regular and dignified migration paths.

At the cusp of the migration and climate change debates, we must build on past achievements and reach a new phase in our journey, by integrating migration solutions into national climate action.

Similarly, the Global Compact for Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration (GCM), which will be negotiated next year in New York, is a historical opportunity to ensure that climate change drivers of migration are considered in the global governance of migration.

To seize this opportunity, IOM is organizing a high-level panel at its annual governing body meeting, the IOM Council currently underway in Geneva, Switzerland. The panel aims to stress that the international community can no longer design migration policy without taking into account the environmental state of our planet. If forced migration is to be avoided and safe migration is to be facilitated, it is no longer possible to ignore the challenges posed by environmental and climate risks and their impacts on all policy areas.

The progress made in acknowledging environmental migration at the international level brings nevertheless another challenge, namely to ensure coherence between multiple policy areas at stake. The panel will also aim to identify opportunities to link the development of both the GCM and the Global Pact for the Environment with the implementation of the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Panel will be moderated by IOM Director General, William Lacy Swing, with the participation of:

– Nicolas Hulot, Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition of France
– Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan, Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations in Geneva and Chief Negotiator for the COP23 Presidency
– Keiko Kiyama, Co-President of the Japan Emergency NGO
– Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC – Written Statement
– Erik Solheim, Executive Director of UN Environment – Video Message

The Panel will be accompanied by a photo exhibition from the Humans and Climate Change Stories, a unique media project of photographer Samuel Turpin, that follows 12 families scattered around the globe, who are subject to different types of climate change impacts, over the course of the next 10 years.

Whether in Dominica or Papua New Guinea, the future of environmental migrants relies just as much on the effectiveness of the fight against climate change as on the availability of dignified migration opportunities.

Excerpt: