Written by: Nazifa Anjum
(General Member, DUMUNA)
Refugee – the term we all are familiar with in today’s world – be it the Rohingya crisis, the Syrian refugee crisis or the Afghanistan refugee crisis. ‘Climate refugee’ is comparatively a new term which is used in popular languages. It describes the people who are forced to migrate because of environmental factors like flood, river erosion, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.
The refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs), and the stateless people are the ones that can be termed as ‘climate refugees’ if they are on direct impact of climate change. Moreover, a large number of people are living in extreme environments where a little change in climate could trigger a large population loss followed by mass migration.
From an evaluation of World Bank, in the regions of Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia there will be some 143 million displaced people by 2050. We have seen that in 14 march, 2019 after a tropical cyclone named Idai hits the southeast coast of Mozambique, the UNHCR reported 146,000 people were internally displaced and 1.85 million of them need assistance.
The ‘climate refugee’ crisis has already affected many countries especially the coastal areas due to the rise of sea levels. Bangladesh as an example already has 10 million climate refugees of its own yet being the host to the largest refugee camp in the world. The country has become more vulnerable due to continuous river erosion. Again in 2021, Europe has seen the massive flood which cost damaged over $10 billion and followed by mass evacuation. In Sri Lanka, India and Maldives, 200,000 people were moved because of hurricane ‘Tauktae’ in May 2021.
As the UNHCR doesn’t recognize climate or environmental refugees and so there is no international law to protect their rights. A ‘refugee’ is defined as a person who has crossed an international border “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” (1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees); where definition extends to persons fleeing “events seriously disturbing public order” (1969 OAU Convention 1984 Cartagena Declaration).
But with the massive growth of displaced people due to the impact of climate change if the region is under violence, the UNHCR issued Legal Considerations to guide interpretation and steer international discussion on such claims in 2020. Even being a delicate issue, there is no legally binding international regime to protect the mass migrators of climate impact.
References:
Brookings Institution (Published 25 Jul 2019; Posted 18 Sep 2019). The climate crisis, migration, and refugees. Brookings Institution. Retrieved from
K. Md. (26 June, 2021) Bangladesh beset by 10M climate refugees: Government Number of climate refugees could double by 2050 amid rising sea levels, warns minister Anadolu Agency. Retrieved from
M. McGrath; Environmental correspondent. (27 December 2021) Climate change: Huge toll of extreme weather disasters in 2021. BBC NEWS. Retrieved from
(https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59761839 )
What is a refugee?. UNHCR. Retrieved 17 April 2022, from https://www.unhcr.org/what-is-a-refugee