Chain Reaction, #91, 2004

Environmental Refugees

Public debate in Australia on population became considerably more focussed after the policies of the current Australian government stepped up its campaign to stop 'illegal boat people' from attempting to seek asylum in Australia. In 2001, around 400 people arrived in Australian waters aboard the Tampa, triggering a vigorous debate about how we, as a nation, respond to people seeking asylum.

At the time of the Tampa crisis, former US president Bill Clinton commented "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." This was lost in the hysteria of the time, but points the way to an issue that is both complex and exceedingly urgent. More recently, in February 2003, UK PM Tony Blair said in a speech “climate change … remains unquestionably the most urgent environmental challenge. The facts are clear: The Red Cross International has documented the number of people affected by floods worldwide to have already risen from 7 million in the 1960s to 150 million today. “

Worldwide, the damage from extreme weather events last year reached US$55 billion. The United Nations Environment Program has estimated that economic losses from severe weather events will reach US$150 billion within ten years, and many within the Insurance industry, including major re-insurers like Munich Re, have also warned of the economic costs and human costs of climate change.

In his speech, Tony Blair continued: “And in the longer term? The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates devastating (impacts), particularly in the developing world. We face a situation in which 50 million people in Asia could be killed or displaced by floods, further swathes of Africa could be reduced to desert, accompanied by massive deforestation in central and South America, and huge increases in disease, particularly malaria. And it is the poorest countries, particularly in Asia and Africa, which will suffer the most devastating effects of these changes.”

There is an immediate threat to the habitability of islands and nations in our region: with the impacts of climate change resulting in increased periods of drought and shorter periods of high rainfall (i.e. floods) will affect food and water security. Rising sea levels will impact on low-lying atoll nations. These factors are probably going to be less ‘spectacular’ than a hurricane or cyclone, yet will probably cause many island states to become uninhabitable. In recent years, a number of Pacific Island leaders have made bold statements about climate change being a form of genocide, and there can be little doubt that loss of an entire homeland is a form of cultural genocide.

Of those who are displaced, where will they go? Do we believe they will stay where they are and quietly starve? No, they will do what any of us would: move and seek refuge elsewhere. And, do we, as one of the highest per capita greenhouse gas emitters on the planet, really feel like we have a right to oppose them coming here?

While the concept of environmental refugees is not new (the term has been in use since the late 1940s), the rise of climate refugees is an emerging phenomenon. The International Red Cross, in its World Disasters Report 2001 suggested that 25 million people (up to 58% of all refugees currently on the earth) may already be environmental refugees. These people are fleeing a multitude of disruptions, and, it appears, global warming is one of them. But, if current modelling and trends are correct, then even these rather daunting numbers start to fade against what looks possible in less than a human lifetime. One of the major sources on the topic of climate refugees, Norman Myers of Oxford University, says that there could well be 150,000,000 environmental refugees on the move within 50 years, including at least 75 million in the Asia Pacific region.

No one would argue that any specific extreme weather event is caused by climate change, but both in most peoples personal experience of the weather and the scientific record, it is clear that climate change is happening. While debate remains bogged down in targets, international treaties and the like, the human dimension of climate change is largely missing from the public realm. Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer, the authors of Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming warn that "extreme weather events" are already normal items of daily news, but global warming has only begun, and today's record droughts and floods foreshadow a murderous future.” Already it is becoming obvious that, without immediate action, the costs of this will be economic tragedy and human misery, and the worst of the pain will be paid by the poorest nations (ironically, those least responsible for global warming).

There seems little doubt that, in coming decades, we will experience a growing tide of humanity seeking refuge from global warming: this is already happening in the Pacific, with the island nation of Tuvalu signing an agreement with the NZ government to relocate most of its citizens to New Zealand over the coming decades. To raise this issue is not to unduly conjure up alarm or panic. It is not an argument to ‘close the borders’, nor to despair, or bury our heads in the sand. However, it is to underscore what we already know: that what is required is immediate and dramatic action on global warming. Strong and visionary action now will greatly ameliorate the human costs of climate change, and hence the creation of climate refugees in the future.

Therefore, we need to understand that countries like Australia, as major per capita contributors of greenhouse pollution, bear a significant responsibility for this displacement. Accordingly, in recognition of this fact, we must make room for environmental refugees, as well as changing policies that contribute to the creation of more ecologically displaced people. Sadly, the Australian government has consistently shown that it has no intention of making deep cuts in our greenhouse gas emissions through reducing consumption or broadscale requirements for energy efficiency on building codes or transport policy. They are obsessively looking for a technical fix to the problem of climate change, and currently chasing the idea of ‘geosequestration’, collecting and pumping greenhouse gases deep into the ground to stop them escaping to the atmosphere.

So, it will be up to the Australian community to ensure that the necessary actions take place: we will need to become more engaged in climate change and energy policy and demand that the government cease subsidies for coal and fossil fuel intensive industries, supports renewable energy research, sets high mandatory targets for renewable energy, develops efficient integrated transport systems and stops broadscale land-clearing.

We also need to begin to scan for environmental refugees, to accept that they are real, and that they result from genuine ecological disruptions (including various manifestations of global warming). Perhaps in the slightly longer term Australia will need to create an environmental refugee program as an element of our broader refugee program. We would argue that this should not be at the expense of other refugee intakes. Australia should also consider how its aid program is delivered, and investigate whether there needs to be increased funding available for communities who are impacted by human induced climate change. Australia’s foreign aid program is shamefully low and should be increased to reflect an adequate proportion of our Gross National Income (it is currently 0.25% of GNI; the OECD target for developed countries is 0.7%, a figure already met by a number of European nations).

It is not often that potentially massive disasters can be averted through a proactive, visionary and international response. Inaction could well mean disaster for Australia, and literally millions of displaced people in our region: causing mass migrations on a scale previously only imagined. As the Tampa crisis showed, by the time people are physically seeking refugee in Australia, the chances of having a reasoned and compassionate debate is non-existent with the current politics at play in this country. But if we act now as a community and force the government to do the same, we will potentially be able to turn a disaster around before it reaches a point of crisis. This is exactly what can, and must, happen with climate refugees. We have the knowledge; the only thing lacking is will.

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For further information, please see: http://www.foe.org.au/population

Author: Cam Walker