A brief overview of the effects of climate change and the environment on migration opens the study, but the real meat comes in at page 36 when legal and policy implications are discussed. In sum, they suggest the European Union become a leader in determining solutions.

As at the international level the legal debate is unlikely to be solved in the near term, the EU may decide to be one of the pioneers in this field, in particular because there are already attempts at the political level to consider environmentally displaced individuals under the Common European Asylum Policy. In light of the above, we put forward the following

recommendations to the European Parliament  with the aim of offering different possible mechanisms to be considered by the EU in dealing with environmentally displaced individuals:

• EU may wish to start with the complementary protection regime first, as an ad hoc mechanism and depending on the further evolution to guarantee primary protection to environmental displaced individuals. The national provisions analyzed can be used as a model for the European legislator in amending the content of the Qualification Directive. As long as the reasons listed in the Article 15 shall be applicable to qualify for subsidiary protection, an amendment  to its paragraph (c) might include, in addition to armed conflict, also environmental disasters.
• There are strong arguments that, in the case  of  a  mass  influx  of  environmentally displaced individuals, the  financial and political mechanisms available under the Temporary Protection Directive might be applicable. However, a more flexible and at the same time more objective mechanism  to activate the directive should be considered, as the directive currently can only be activated upon a commission proposal and a related decision by the Council.
• A holistic approach covering all the aspects of environmentally induced migration is a more relevant approach, engaging a comprehensive instrument for environmentally displaced individuals that  would regulate the procedure and method, including the rights and obligations, for granting protection to victims of environmental displacement.
• The EU should consider ad hoc mechanisms informed by a rights-based approach and existing instruments regarding legal and irregular migration (for example prolongation of residence titles for third-country nationals whose countries have been affected by environmental disasters, postponement of removal, etc).
• The EU should promote the resettlement of individuals from countries that have experienced environmental disasters and further develop the Joint EU Resettlement Programme.

Under the Global Approach, third countries affected by climate change related phenomena should be assisted in order to support the national institutions in dealing with adverse environmental change. Measures may comprise strengthening the adaptation and resilience capacities of third countries to reduce the vulnerability of affected populations and enhancing the protection of environmental displaced individuals outside the European Union. The EU should consider providing support to local governments to address migration as an adaptation strategy and to facilitate migration while ensuring that the rights of the migrants are protected during the whole migration cycle. The mobility partnerships would be, in principle, a relevant instrument to bilaterally cooperate on all sorts of measures regarding environmentally displaced.

The paper begins by examining the elements of statehood under public international law. While there is a strong presumption of continuity for established states, the possibility of a total loss of territory for natural reasons, or the total displacement of a population and/or government, is entirely novel, and would present a heightened risk of statelessness. The paper goes on to specifically examine the situation of low-lying island States, and the risk of statelessness that might result from their submersion. The paper concludes by exploring possible actions to prevent statelessness.

Read the paper in its entirety here.

Contents include the following:

• A Decision Framework for Environmentally Induced Migration
• Multidimensional Re-creation of Vulnerabilities and Potential for Resilience in International Migration
• The Thin Line Between Choice and Flight: Environment and Migration in Rural Benin
• North-South Migration in Ghana: What Role for the Environment?
• Economic or Environmental Migration? The Push Factors in Niger
• Flooding and Relocation: The Zambezi River Valley in Mozambique
• Western Sahara: Migration, Exile and Environment
• Environmental Degradation and Migration on Hispaniola Island
• Drought Triggered Temporary Migration in an East Indian Village
• Migration and Displacement Triggered by Floods in the Mekong Delta
• Contrasted Views on Environmental Change and Migration: the Case of Tuvaluan Migration to New Zealand

Download each article free here.

We would still be insulating buildings with cancer-causing asbestos and fuelling cars with lead additives, damaging babies’ brains. The circulation in fridges would also be done by chemicals that, by thinning the Earth’s protective ozone layer, would probably have led to a sharp increase in cases of skin cancer worldwide.

But this is not happening. In those cases, governments assessed the emerging science, consulted on the risks and accepted that the evidence outweighed the uncertainties.

Internationally, it is called the precautionary approach: you and I might call it acting responsibly, prudently or just being smart.

Climate change perhaps triggers some of the most polarised debate between precaution and those who say that without scientific perfection it is all just hot air.

This has re-surfaced in recent weeks over the issue of climate change and migration.

It has been sparked by a map, produced by a UNEP-collaborating centre in Norway, overlapping vulnerable areas of the globe and forecasts of climate impacts.

The map was linked to scientific projections, made in 2005, suggesting there might be 50 million “climate refugees” by 2010.

Presenting complex data is a challenge for any public or private institution – in respect of migration, rising populations, unsustainable use of resources, poverty and civil war all contribute to vulnerability in the face of natural and weather-related disasters.

The science has moved on since 2005, as has the debate at about how best to classify people affected by natural hazards, either temporarily or permanently and within or across national borders.

Looked at today, the map over-simplifies the message, which is why we asked for it to be removed.

Yet the question remains – are there people being displaced by climate change, and what of the future?

These are questions that are likely to be high on nations’ minds when the UN security council debates climate change and security in July to review a growing body of informed opinion and evidence.

In 2008 analysts for the Pentagon in the US concluded that extreme weather events linked with climate change could lead to mass migration in some parts of the world.

This year the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the UK stated: “In areas with weak or brittle states, climate change will increase the risks of resource shortages, mass migrations and civil conflict.”

Some attempts, such as the 2005 estimate, have also been trying to put possible numbers on the likely numbers displaced.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) looked at the data for 2008.

The data suggests that at least 36 million people were displaced by “sudden-onset natural disasters”, of whom more than 20 million were displaced owing to the sudden onset of weather-related disasters, including about 6.5 million people because of floods in India.

“Research from other sources suggests that many millions of people are also displaced annually as a result of slow-onset climate-related disasters such as drought,” it adds.

Munich Re, the re-insurance company, recently concluded that in 2010 “The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures, both globally and in different regions of the world, provide further indications of advancing climate change.”

The company mentions the floods in Pakistan, where about a million people were displaced.

We could say with greater certainty that many victims of rising greenhouse gas emissions were already with us, if only the existing science was able to disentangle the climate signature from the other complexities and challenges many people across the world increasingly face.

The question we must continuously ask ourselves in the face of scientific complexity and uncertainty, but also growing evidence of climate change, is at what point precaution, common sense or prudent risk management demands action.

The role of institutions such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is to continuously review emerging science, subject it to careful peer review and ensure that it is available to public policymakers and, indeed, the public.

To declare a phenomenon such as climate change non-existent until we have unravelled all aspects of atmospheric science and impacts on the biosphere and on human beings would be reckless and irresponsible.

Although reviewing science is an integral part of knowledge generation, we should not allow the critique to paralyse emerging science on climate change from reaching society – especially when the lives and livelihoods of considerable numbers of people are at risk.

Achim Steiner is UN under-secretary general and executive director of UNEP

Source: The Guardian

Main messages to come out of the event included:

• Displacement is likely to be a significant consequence of global climate change processes of both a rapid and slow-onset nature, but there is a need for better understanding and research of these processes as well as the impacts and scale of displacement related to climate change.
• Responses to climate-related displacement need to be guided by the fundamental principles of humanity, human dignity, human rights and international cooperation. They need furthermore to be guided by consent, empowerment, participation and partnership and to reflect age, gender and diversity aspects.
• While the 1951 Convention and some regional refugee instruments provide answers to certain cases of external displacement related to climate change, and these ought to be analyzed further, they are limited.
• The terms of “climate refugee” and “environmental refugee” should be avoided as they are inaccurate and misleading.
• There is a need to develop a global guiding framework or instrument to apply to situations of external displacement other than those covered by the 1951 Convention, especially displacement resulting from sudden-onset disasters. States, together with UNHCR and other international organizations, are encouraged to explore this further. Consideration would need to be given to whether any such framework or instrument ought also to cover other contemporary forms of external displacement.
• The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, as a reflection of existing to situations of internal displacement caused by climate-related processes. Thus, there is no need for a new set of principles in relation to internal displacement in the context of climate change.
• Although designed to address internal displacement, the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement contain a number of principles that may be applicable in external displacement situations. In addition, there are other relevant standards – for example, those developed in response to mass influx of refugees – which could be considered.
• Climate-related displacement – both internal and external – is likely to take different forms and to require diverse responses at national, sub-regional, regional and international levels to address the specificities of different situations, guided by basic universal principles.
• National legislation, policies and institutions are central to developing appropriate responses to both the internal and external dimensions of climate-related displacement.
• Pre-existing regional and sub-regional governance forums and arrangements, including mechanisms promoting free movement, could be explored further to determine the extent to which they apply to climate-related displacement and migration.
• In relation to small island and/or low-lying coastal states, the legal presumption of continuity of statehood needs to be emphasized and the notion and language that such states will “disappear” (i.e., lose their international legal personality) or “sink” ought to be avoided.
• Migration is widely acknowledged as a rational adaptation strategy to climate change processes and needs to be supported as such.
• Given the magnitude of the issues involved, there is a need for a collaborative approach based on principles of international cooperation and burden- and responsibility-sharing. UNHCR’s expertise on the protection dimensions of displacement makes it a particularly valuable actor.

Read the full summary here »

At least one billion people will be forced from their homes between now and 2050 by such forces, the international charity group Christian Aid predicted in a recent report.

This forecast is backed up by a new report by British consultancy Maplecroft that says developing countries in Asia and Africa face the biggest risks from global warming in the next 30 years. Poverty and large low-lying coastal regions prone to flooding and cyclones make Bangladesh the most exposed country while India, in second place, is vulnerable because of pressures from a rising population of 1.1 billion.

Read the full report listing countries most at risk

The United Nations Population Division (UNDP) estimates there are now an unprecedented 200 million international migrants and refugee chief Antonio Guterres is urging richer countries to share the global refugee burden more fairly with developing nations to “increase its solidarity” with them.

Which countries are most ‘welcoming’ to asylum seekers?

But while many people in the West fear an influx of migrants from poorer countries, security experts say most of those affected will stay near their homes — putting even more pressure on the poorest countries and potentially fueling yet more conflicts.

The U.N. refugee agency says there are 1.7 million Afghans in Pakistan, for example, and that, contrary to many people’s beliefs, more than three-quarters of the world’s refugees stay within Asia and Africa.

Tell us about your migration. Send us your stories, images or video

But it would take just a fraction of those fleeing climate change and conflict to move to the developed world to dwarf Europe’s current annual net gain from international immigration of about 1.8 million people, experts say.

These are the “push factors” that drive migration but even during the global recession there are “pull factors,” such as gaps in the labor market, that also draw in skilled and unskilled workers to richer countries that compensate for falling birth rates and pay the pensions of more older people.

Confusion reigns about both factors, according to experts broadly supportive of immigration who say the growing victimization of both legal and illegal immigrants by lawmakers and the media across Europe is hindering debate on the issue.

The often misleading coverage of migration also belies the fact that asylum claims have fallen sharply in the last decade: from 450,000 in 1999 to 270,000 last year, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).

These numbers fail to tell the whole story of course: even with higher borders and tougher laws, it is difficult for a country to keep out those who determined to enter. More enter by overstaying visas or using faked papers than on boats crossing the Mediterranean from Africa, and are harder to detect, experts say.

“Stronger borders will keep out the immigrants we do need, and evidence has shown they don’t really keep out illegal migrants; they just force them underground, putting them at greater risk from people traffickers or the black labor market,” said Khalid Koser from the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. “So if Bangladeshis fleeing rising sea levels in the Bay of Bengal due to climate change want to come to Britain, then they’ll find a way.”

The widely held belief around the world is that immigrants — especially asylum seekers — are “spongers” on benefits who cause the population to soar, cause crime and even terrorism while contributing little to society in return. Anecdotal evidence about this is often compelling, but experts say when the objective figures are studied these fears are revealed to be myths.

For a start even those immigrants who are under the radar and don’t pay taxes still do jobs that need to be done. “Most migrants work,” said Koser, “they pay taxes and most don’t draw much on benefits. So overall there’s almost certainly a net gain from migration.”

But the U.N.’s plea for the West to accept more refugees would seem to be falling on deaf ears. Even center-left politicians such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair writes in his memoirs that the 1951 refugee convention that compels all countries to accept those fleeing persecution or violence had allowed for an “explosion” of asylum claims.

He said the treaty that was written in response to the horrors of World War II was “utterly incapable” at coping with the migration levels of the modern era. “Essentially Britain, like all European countries, had inherited the post-war, post-Holocaust system and sentiment on asylum,” Blair says in “A Journey.” The painful stories of refugees fleeing from Hitler and the Nazis and being turned away produced a right and proper revulsion.

“It was an entirely understandable emotion in the aftermath of such horror,” Blair wrote, but added that as Britain became known as “the asylum capital of Europe” he came to the conclusion that tougher rules were needed on immigration.

So obtaining global agreement on a U.N. treaty — especially one intended to be more generous to refugees — would appear to be a tall order. “Migration strikes at the heart of national identity,” said Koser. “No state is going to give up control of this issue, just as it wouldn’t give up control of defence or the economy.”

For this same reason many see little chance that the European Commission is likely to achieve its goal of agreeing a common policy on immigration by 2012. Countries in the 27-nation bloc have differing ways of handling the challenges: Italy, for example, has struck deals with Libya to intercept migrants; France is unilaterally expelling the Roma people, who have a legal right under EU laws to be in that country; Greece has been accused of abuses including sending children back across the border to Turkey while Spain has granted several amnesties to illegal immigrants.

Across the EU, several countries are also demanding the lifting of quotas on immigrants with certain skills, especially in financial, IT and science sectors. Last month British business leaders warned that a cap on the number of immigrants from outside the EU was causing problems for companies trying to recruit the best international talent. The EC has also made clear the 27-nation’s bloc need for more skilled workers and believes a proposed “Blue Card” scheme will alleviate the problem.

However even many economists say individual countries must be wary of satisfying business ahead of its national interest.

First societies must become strong enough to cope with newcomers, according to Hugo Brady, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a think tank that focuses on the EU. “It’s disingenuous to say business needs migrants and we’re all getting older so it’ll all be fine. It skips over the fact that it doesn’t follow that we can solve our demographic problems with lots of immigration.

“And it ignores the fact that our societies need to be set up for that. I’d be sceptical that societies could absorb immigration on the scale suggested by our demographics.

“The nub of the entire issue is whether Swedish society, for instance, is strong and confident enough, as the United States is, to absorb large numbers of newcomers.

“What we have here in Europe is a very high quality of life which is protected and guarded. But unfortunately a large welfare state and conservative societies don’t really lend themselves to large numbers of people coming and going.

“To a certain extent it’s illusory that countries can control immigration: really it can only be sensibly managed, but nothing controls immigration numbers like the economy,” Brady said, adding that global migration had fallen during the recession.

There are now 200 million migrants in the world, one in 35 people, equivalent to the population of Brazil, the fifth most populous country in the world. Many see that figure as terrifying, but an optimist might see the flip side — that one in 35 is just 3 percent, which means 97 percent of the world’s population never moves — as equally valid. It could be said that one’s position on the migration debate really boils down to whether one sees the glass as half full or half empty.

Source: CNN

I have posted before about the Environmental Justice Foundation which is a UK-based NGO working internationally to protect the natural environment and human rights. Their “Climate Refugees: No Place Like Home” campaign is dedicated to arguing the case of those displaced by climate climate change, putting the call to governments and our political leaders for a new agreement on environmental migrants.

Together with the Hay Festival Maldives, EJF has developed a collection of ideas from Heads of State, philosophers, explorers, scientists, lawyers, actors and experts in their field. These filmed discussions consider the potential cultural, emotional and physical impacts of forced migration, who should be responsible and what the potential options are for dealing with the impending human rights crisis (ejfoundation.org).

Click here to see the online discussion panel »

This question has been at the forefront of my mind since the earthquake ravaged Haiti on January 12. Simply having the chance to leave Haiti has lifted more Haitians out of extreme poverty than all of the billions of dollars in aid, all of the foreign investment, and all of the trade preferences that Haiti has received from the United States during the past thirty years. (The research underlying that statement can be found in this CGD paper. I further describe the dynamic impact of mobility, particularly for Haitians, in these Washington Post and Foreign Policy articles.) It doesn’t make sense to me that allowing some flexibility in human mobility—one of the most effective, lowest-cost ways to help Haitians—has been playing such a tiny role in international efforts to help Haitians.

While the U.S. has worked expeditiously to assist Haiti’s people and government to rebuild and recover from this catastrophe, we lack a systematic mechanism for leveraging human mobility—one of the most powerful ways that people in poor countries cope with and overcome shocks. Because natural disaster victims are not fleeing group-based violent persecution, they do not qualify as refugees under international law. Thus, I contend that the U.S. and other rich countries must either create a new category of entrants or find some means of handling a finite number of natural disaster victims through existing policy or administrative channels.

Note well: Creating a category of entry does not mean allowing unlimited numbers. A category of entry now exists for refugees fleeing violent persecution, for example, but this doesn’t mean that anyone fleeing violent persecution can come. Each year the U.S. and other rich-country governments decide how many people to admit in that category in accordance with national goals and ability to help.

I was thrilled by the quality of conversation among the roundtable participants, which included representatives from the refugee advocacy community and other research institutes. The group discussed the complexities of existing migration and refugee policies, while raising important questions about the purpose and implementation of a new program. Specifically:

• What criteria should determine what individuals and/or countries are eligible?
• Should victims of natural disasters be eligible temporary refuge or should they be offered a path to long-term residency or citizenship?
• Would such a program require legislative action or are there existing tools that could be used to accomplish similar goals through administrative channels? (The United States previously brought hundreds of thousands of Indochinese, Cuban, and Kosovo refugees, among others, into the country when it was deemed it to be in the interests of national security.)
• How do we differentiate between forced and voluntary migration following a natural disaster?

CGD plans to commission new research to explore these questions and others, as well as current systems and new possibilities. Building on the findings of this paper, I plan to launch a new CGD initiative to move forward toward a viable policy solution.

Source: Center for Global Development

Author Cara Nine

Cara Nine of the University College Cork recently submitted the paper “Ecological Refugees, State Borders, and the Lockean Proviso” to the Journal of Applied Philosophy. In this essay she expounds on the term “ecological refugee,” which we might better understand as environmental or climate-induced migrant. She analyzes the question: what may the people of an ecological refugee state legitimately claim on the basis of their right to self-determination?

She also answers the questions:  should we redraw state borders to accommodate a New Tuvalu? She argues that a plausible position regarding territorial rights is that when (1) a people clearly is (or recently was) self-determining and has a legitimate claim to continue to be self-determining, and (2) the self-determination of a people is existentially threatened because the people lacks territorial rights, that (3) the people becomes a candidate for sovereign over a new territory. The result is that existing state borders may need to change to accommodate something like a New Tuvalu.

She also examines the principles of the system of territorial states. Because the system of territorial states is a system of exclusive rights over goods, especially land, it is possible that it is subject to the conditions of a Lockean proviso mechanism. This paper is dedicated mainly to adapting a version of the Lockean proviso for use in territorial rights theory. First, she argues that the Lockean proviso mechanism applied to territory should be employed to protect the interests of self-determining groups. Second, she develops a version of the Lockean proviso appropriate for use regarding territorial entitlements— and argues that the proviso mechanism applied to territorial rights should not be interpreted as a constraint on the acquisition of rights over territory, but rather it should be understood as a restraint on current territorial holdings. Finally, she develops some suggestions from the Lockean proviso mechanism regarding the location and conditions involving the establishment of something like New Tuvalu.

Read the paper in its entirety here.