HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

“They did everything they could to stay at home, but when their last crops failed, their livestock died, they had no option but to move; movement which often led them into greater harm’s way,” he stated.

The Last Resort

Most of those interviewed for the report, which was produced with the support of the London School of Economics and Bonn University, were farmers and pastoralists from Eritrea, Somalia and eastern Sudan. They were asked questions about the extent to which climate change contributed to their decision to leave their homes, and, eventually, their countries.

Most refugees reported that leaving their homes was a last resort and their first displacement was temporary and to an area close to home, according to a news release on the report.

The majority fled their countries after the areas they moved to were affected by insecurity or a lethal combination of violence and drought. “Cross-border movement, as a direct response to climate change, was exceptional,” the news release noted.

While many refugees described disrupted rainfall patterns in the past decade, with longer and more severe droughts than in previous years, none cited these negative shifts in weather as a direct catalyst for violent conflict, according to the report.

Scarcity of Food, Crops

Some did, however, speak about the scarcity of food and crops after severe drought as exacerbating pre-existing conflicts, persecution and repression.

While most people displaced solely as a result of extreme weather conditions stay within their national borders, those that cross international borders are not necessarily covered by the 1951 UN Refugee Convention – the treaty that forms the legal foundation on which UNHCR’s work is based.

The Convention, adopted to resolve the refugee problem in Europe after the Second World War, provides a definition of who qualifies as a refugee – a person with a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion – and spells out the rights and obligations between host countries and refugees.

The Nansen Initiative

The Nansen Initiative, due to be formally launched in October 2012 by Norway and Switzerland, with the support of UNHCR and the Norwegian Refugee Council, aims to address this legal and protection gap for people displaced across borders owing to environmental change and extreme weather events.

“I am convinced that climate change will increasingly be a driver in worsening displacement crises in the world,” said Mr. Guterres. “It is very important for the world to come together to respond to this challenge.”

“Climate Change Will Result in Increased Migrations, Displacements of People”

On 6 June 2011, the UN refugee agency chief said that climate change will result in increased migrations and displacements of people,  and the world needs to develop new methods to deal with it.

António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a conference on climate change and displacement in Norway that “it has become increasingly clear that natural disasters and climate change cannot be regarded or addressed in isolation from the other global mega-trends that are conditioning the future of our planet and its people.”

“Population growth, urbanization, water, food, and energy insecurity will increasingly interact with each other and create the potential for competition and conflict over scarce natural resources,” he said. “As a result we are also likely to see growing numbers of people being displaced from one community, country and continent to another.”

Guterres called on the countries which bear primary responsibility for climate change to establish “a massive programme of support to the most seriously affected countries, thereby reinforcing the resilience of their citizens and their ability to adapt to the process of climate change.”