Environmental refugees

Who is a refugee?

According to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who:

"owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." (1)

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness that many people are being forced to flee their homes because of environmental factors. As early as 1948, writer William Voight was using the term ‘ecological displaced persons’ to identify this category of person. In 1984 Timberlake and Tinker began using the term environmental refugee, but it was a report written by El-Hinnawi in 1985 for the United Nations Environment Program that began to popularise the term. Patricia Saunders, in the book Political Ecology (2000), suggests that Lester Brown and the Worldwatch Institute should be credited with creating the term in the late 1970s (2).

Some have suggested that the use of the word ‘refugee’ to describe ecologically displaced people is inappropriate as they are not currently formally recognised under the UN definition. However, a short term aim would be to achieve recognition, by both the UN and individual governments of environmental refugees as a separate category. In short, the aim is to extend the definition, not limit or undermine the current one.

How many environmental refugees?

Estimates vary. Given that these people are not recognised as a separate category of displaced person, it is impossible to establish exact numbers, although according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (3), more people are now forced to leave their homes because of environmental disaster than because of war.

Estimates suggest that there are 25 million people who could be classified as being environmental refugees - 58 per cent of the world's total refugee population. According to Norman Myers of Oxford University at a conservative estimate, climate change will increase the number of environmental refugees six-fold over the next fifty years to 150 million (4). This equates to 1.5 percent of the predicted global population in 2050 of 10 billion.

It should be noted that there are three ‘categories’ of ecologically displaced people:
-    those fleeing non-human created natural disasters (eg, earthquakes; although human actions often increase the impacts of these natural disasters);
-    those fleeing human human-induced causes (for instance, externally funded projects which displace communities – hydro dams, conversion of primary forest or agricultural land into plantations, etc); and
-    those fleeing indirect human-induced causes (in particular, the enhanced greenhouse effect, with corresponding impacts on ecosystems and the human communities that depend on them). It is this last category, sometimes known as ‘climate refugees’ who are rapidly growing in number.

Environmental refugees may be either internally displaced within their country, or pushed into external exile and hence become asylum seekers in other countries.

In China, the government estimates that some 30 million people are already being displaced by the impacts of climate change. Some authorities set the figure higher at 72 million. A one metre rise in sea levels would flood all Shanghai, plus 96 per cent of the province around it. The province of Shanghai has over 12 million people; by 2030 it is expected to be 27 million. (5)

The Bangladeshi Environment Minister, Mrs Sajeeda Choudhury, has said that if climate change causes sea levels to rise in line with scientific predictions, her country will have millions of homeless people within the next few decades. (6)

Total refugees foreseen by 2050 (millions) (7)
China 30
India 30
Bangladesh 15
Egypt 14
Other delta areas and coastal zones 10
Island states 1
Agriculturally dislocated areas 50

Total 150

"If you're worried about 400 people, you just let the world keep warming up like this for the next 50 years and your grandchildren will be worried about 400,000 people."
Bill Clinton, in reference to the Tampa, 10th Sept 2001. (8)

produced by Friends of the Earth Australia 

References
(1)    http://www.unhcr.ch/un&ref/who/whois.htm
(2) http://www.arnoldpublishers.com/support/politicalecology/chapter11.htm
(3)    http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2001/
(4) Norman Myers, Environmental Refugees in a Globally Warmed World, 'BioScience' V. 43 No. 11 Dec 1993 p758. http://archive.greenpeace.org/~climate/database/records/zgpz0401.html
(5)    B. Wang, C. Shenling, Z. Keqi & S. Jiang, 'Impacts of Sea Level Rise on the Shanghai Area,' J. CCoastal Res. Special ISsue No. 14, cit. G. Foley, Cold Catches Fire, A SEED, Europe.
(6)    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/613075.stm
(7)    Norman Myers
(8)    Quoted in the Herald Sun, 10/9/2001. http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/