Climate Refugees: Being Displaced by Climatically Induced Environmental Disasters

Climate refugees, also known as environmental refugees, are those who have been forced to leave their location as a result of long-term or sudden changes to their local environment which has compromised their well-being. These types of environmental changes include desertification, droughts, sea level rising and harsh seasonal weather patterns. Climate refugees then flee to another area to seek a better livelihood, away from difficult weather conditions.

The term “environmental refugee” was first coined by environmental analyst, Lester Brown, in 1976. Since that time, there has been a propagation of the term into a variety of categories and sayings. Other terms include, climate refugee, environmentally displaced person (EDP), environmental refugee-to-be (ERTB) and forced environmental migrant, among others. Although there are slight differences in all of these definitions, they satellite around the same core point, there is a relationship between environmental drivers and the migration of human beings.

According to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951, a refugee is officially defined as an individual who leaves an area or country for fear of persecution as a result of their nationality, religion, political opinion or membership in a specific group. The term was expanded in 1967 to include violence and war but its present definition does not include environmental change.

Climate refugee is part of a subset of environmental migrants that have been forced to move as a result of sudden or gradual natural environment alterations as a result of one of three changes:

1) Sea-level rise

2) Extreme weather events

3) Drought

Of course there is no universally accepted definition yet so the International Organization for Migration created a working definitions that covers all subsets. The definition recognizes that environmental migrants have been displaced by a negative environmental event that forced an individual or group to move to another country or region within their own country. The event can be long and short-term and the movement can be forced or a matter of choice.

Types of Climate Refugees

According to the International Organization for Migration, there are three types of climate refugees including:

Environmental Emergency Migrants

The environmental emergency migrant is an individual or group who temporarily vacates an area as a result of an environmental disaster or sudden event. For instance, many residents of New Orleans left the area to move further inland during Hurricane Katrina.

Environmental Forced Migrants

This type of migrant is one who left due to deteriorating environmental condition. For example, a Brazilian tribe leaving a specific area of the rainforest due to logging companies chopping down the trees where they gather food and shelter.

Environmental Motivated Migrants

Also called, “Environmentally induced economic migrants,” these are individuals who choose to leave to avoid future problems. This could be a farmer who leaves his land as a result of a declining crop productivity as a result of desertification.

The Solution

Experts predict that up to 1 billion individuals could be displaced as a result of climate change over the next 50 years. Finding a solution is a tricky exercise that has experts perplexed at the moment. There are endless computer models, simulations and analyses that determine which cities and regions will be affected. The agreement among experts is that developed and developing nations must find a way to manage migration that has resulted from severe weather.

The solution is not necessarily to move to another country but includes ideas such as sustainable development, extended aid to areas impacted by weather and climate change and migration within one’s own country. Other global ideas include, a new United Nations convention that can manage the problem while others propose a new official refugee category – climate refugees. Some feel that it is important to allow those who are facing displacement to remain at home and develop a more sustainable economy but removing them from harm’s way inside of their own country.

Other experts believe that countries need additional regulations developed within their current immigration laws to include temporary protection. In Canada, the idea that humanitarian grounds could create a deal among the waves of climate refugees is currently on the table and being discussed among politicians and scientists alike.

Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians

In Louisiana, the government has implemented a “climate resilience” grant that helps resettlement to those who will soon become climate refugees. Residents of the Isle de Jean Charles Band who are part of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Native American tribe are the first climate refugees to receive $48 million to relocate to a drier area. This is a small part of a $1 billion federal program to manage the effects of climate change.

There are 60 residents on the Isle De Jean Charles who have lived on a small strip of the bayous in Southeastern Louisiana for 170 years. The same ancestors that created the town, their home and their entire livelihood are buried in the island’s only cemetery. As a result of climate change, the land is waterlogged as it sinks into the swamp. The residents are going to lose all of their heritage and culture to the water.

Their ancestors moved to the area to escape the Indian Removal Act which gave President Andrew Jackson the authority to negotiate with the southern Indian tribes to relocate to federal territory out west as an exchange for their homelands. The tribe moved onto the island and has survived using subsistence farming and fishing since then. Due to coastal erosion, the tribe has struggled in finding fish and their crops are continuously waterlogged.

The $48 million grant will finance the first resettlement plan anywhere in the world as a result of climate change. The program will relocate the island’s entire population to drier land where there is no community yet. All funds will need to be spent by 2022. The head of the program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) notes that this is an opportunity to save a town while setting the precedent for the entire country and even the world.