More interestingly, “in the case of married couples, women do not migrate. This is a case of household, not individual, strategies, in which, due to traditional gender roles, men are the ones who must respond to adverse economic impacts from climate change by migrating.” Although, “single mothers are the women most likely to migrate in response to climate change, since they must generate income to maintain their families. The loss of income from economic depression forces them to migrate in search of work, and the same is true for many young women who provide economic support to their parents.”

From this study, we can see that responses to climate change are very household and community-based. In a livelihoods system like that of Africa, where some 80 percent of agricultural output is led by women, migration might be a much more common response, especially given the migration patterns seen by men/agricultural workers in Mexico. More studies would be needed in each impacted community in order to determine truly the differences in migration for men and women.

For further reference: In 2009, Lori M. Hunter and Emmanuel Davis of the University of Colorado, Boulder wrote a working paper on “Climate Change and Migration: Considering the Gender Dimensions,” where they looked at potential ways in which climate change may differentially shape both migration’s cause and consequence by gender. They used a livelihoods framework, in which they believed there were “two pathways through which climate change’s gendered migration impacts may manifest: 1) shifts in proximate natural resources and agricultural potential, as well as 2) increases in extreme weather events.”

Again, we see that the study of gendered migration is nuanced. Hunter and Davis acknowledge that extreme weather events might impact migration differently for men and women, and not just slow-onset impacts like that of drought, which the Mexico study focuses on.

In sum, there remain more questions than answers. Regardless, both of the studies above should be read and re-read in order to begin to “gain the nuance understanding necessary to inform policy mitigating climate change’s impacts,” as Hunter and Davis write.

“More than 20 percent of the nomads have moved to the urban centres, [and are] living with their families in villages near towns,” Mursal Askar Mire, the mayor of Eil-Afweyn District in Sanag Region, told IRIN.

The displaced, who have received aid from the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), were mainly in the Sool and Sanag regions, which are claimed by both Somaliland and neighbouring Puntland.

Roda Ahmed Yasin, a DRC sanitation officer, said the agency – through the Somaliland Red Crescent – had distributed non-food items to 1,800 families in Sanag, mostly in 12 centres in Erigavo District and 12 others in Eil-Afweyn District.

The aid recipients, he said, included families that had lost their livestock to the drought, and Ethiopian refugees heading to Bosasso en-route to countries in the Arabian Peninsula.

Mire, the Eil-Afweyn mayor, said the prolonged drought in Sool and Sanag regions had created a food and livelihood crisis.

“Non-food aid is welcome, but one of the main problems facing the people is lack of food; we would be happy to get food aid for those affected by drought,” he said.

Severe drought has hit Sool and Sanag regions in the past few months following the failure of the `Gu’ rains. The most affected areas include Garab-cad, Beer-weito, Xamilka, Dararweyne, Dunuble, Dhabar Mabac, Kal-Qac, Kalsheeshk, Ceelmidgaan, Dhabar-dalool and Barigeli.

“The rains were not enough to counter the effects of the drought in the area but at least livestock deaths have stopped, even though nomads recently moved to Yufle area in Erigavo District where the rains were better,” Mire said.

Source: IRIN

Damage done by climate change in the “coral triangle” – an ocean region north of Australia which supports millions of people in coastal communities – may trigger the flood of refugees, according to Queensland University researchers.

More than 150 million poor people live on the shores of the coral triangle, relying on it for food.

As much as 90 percent of those food resources could be gone by the end of the century, university director of the marine studies Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg said.

“You start to see that you are now destabilising human communities through the fact that there is just not enough food,” he told the ABC.

Map of the Coral Triangle. Photo credit: WWF

“So where do they go? We’ll almost invariably see an increased level of pressure on Australia and New Zealand to provide the sort of intake that needs to alleviate these problems.”

A report by the Queensland University marine studies centre found unchecked global warming could take a terrible toll.

The triangle’s waters cover just 1 per cent of the earth’s surface from Indonesia in the west to Solomon Islands in the east and the Philippines in the north, but contain 75 percent of the world’s reef-building coral species and a third of the world’s coral reef fish.

A key form of calcium carbonate, aragonite, which is used by corals and other sea life to create their framework or shells may become less available before the middle of the century.

According to a National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) scientist at Otago University, Dr Philip Boyd, the world will see a significant `tipping point’ in terms of ocean chemistry by as early as 2030, and the calcium carbonate shells of some organisms may dissolve. About half the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is reacting with water to form carbonic acid, and increasing the overall acidity of ocean water.

The ocean’s acidity levels have risen 30 percent since the industrial revolution 200 years ago.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said the ocean’s acidity is expected to rise between 30 and 70 percent over this century.

Professor Hoegh-Guldberg told the ABC some coral reefs may already be functionally extinct.

“We see mangrove systems that support fisheries gone and what we see is food security plummet.

“I think we’ve got to take this issue as a global emergency.”

Source: New Zealand Press Association