Climate refugees: there will be 200 million by 2050

Causes of migrations

The latest warning, in chronological order, comes from a study published in the authoritative journal (PNAS) (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), the official journal of the United States Academy of Sciences. Over the past six thousand years, humankind has lived in areas of the Earth where average temperatures ranged between 11 and 15 degrees Celsius, and therefore in conditions that allowed survival, including agriculture and livestock farming. Within the next fifty years, however, due to climate change, approximately one-third of the world's population will find itself living in areas where the average temperature will hover around 29 degrees Celsius, the same temperature currently recorded on 0,8 percent of the Earth's surface, predominantly hot deserts like the Sahara. Decidedly unlivable. Therefore, by 2070, these very arid areas characterized by drought extreme, where the supply of water and food becomes difficult, could expand in number to cover almost a fifth of the Earth's surface. And this, according to the study, will cause "a change in the geographical distribution of the population," that is, mass migrations.

“Persons or groups of persons who, due to sudden or gradual changes in the environment that adversely affect their living conditions, are forced or choose to leave their homes, temporarily or permanently, moving within their own country or across national borders”: this is how the International Organization for Migration defines “environmental migrants”. However, there is no real internationally recognised definition: there is still no real legal recognition of the figure of the “climate refugeePeople forced to migrate because of climate change are therefore not recognized or protected by international law and cannot be granted refugee status. The 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees restrict the status of "refugee" to those forced to flee because they are persecuted for their ethnicity, religion, citizenship, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. The lack of an international agreement on the figure of the "climate refugee" is therefore equivalent to the absence of international legislative protection..

The need to provide for a long time has been discussed specific convention capable of protecting this category of migrants. The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement also called for a special committee established at the 2013 Warsaw Climate Conference to develop guidelines to establish a legal definition of environmental migrants. However, defining the status of "climate refugee" is not without its challenges. Another issue to consider is that not all climate-related migrants move to a country other than their country of origin, while refugees are those who abandon their country of residence to seek refuge in a foreign country.

Climate

The alarms about migration as a major and dramatic consequence of global warming are now thirty years old: the problem had already been put down in black and white in 1990 by the first report of theIPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeAccording to the latest World Bank report published in March 2018 entitled “Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration", by 2050, there will be at least 143 million people forced to migrate due to climate changeThe study focused on three areas: sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, and solely on "internal migration," which causes people to abandon their homes and move within their own countries. These three areas of the world represent 55 percent of the entire population of developing countries and will be affected more than others by mass population movements in the coming years. Specifically, the migratory flow could affect 86 million people in Africa, 40 million in Asia, and 17 million in Latin America. It will cause people to abandon rural areas and increase the pressure on urban centers. This phenomenon will especially affect Mexico in the coming decades. In general, it is estimated that By 2050, there could be 200 million climate migrants.

Drought

The fact that there is no more time to waste was also highlighted in one of the last climate reports of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which reiterates that, in the coming years, it will be essential prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1,5 degreesThe risks posed by even a half-degree Celsius increase are significant: extreme heat waves, drought, melting glaciers, and rising sea and ocean levels. The excess heat absorbed by the seas and oceans, on the one hand, slows global warming, but on the other, it causes a rise in water levels and increases the power of hurricanes and typhoons, with devastating consequences for coastal cities and their inhabitants. Numerous islands, including Fiji, could become uninhabitable by the end of the century. And not only that: cities like Bangkok, Thailand, and our own Venice are also at risk. Bangladesh, too, could face frequent flooding in the coming decades and face water supply difficulties. Or Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, which sinks a few centimeters every year and will be submerged by water by 2050. Rising sea levels are associated with increased soil salinization, a condition generally counteracted by rainfall. Obviously, periods of drought negatively affect the possibility of cultivating the land, with negative consequences on their agricultural yield.

The aridity of the soil associated with extreme climatic events would make agriculture and cereal cultivation, the main source of livelihood for billions of people in various regions of the world. Just one degree above average is enough to see the yield of a grain field drop by 10 percent. And increasingly poor harvests could have very serious consequences on the nutrition of billions of people.For example, in Ethiopia, a country with an agricultural economy and characterized by high population growth, declining land yields could lead to massive migration in the coming decades.

Africa

In Africa The situation is increasingly alarming: here the average temperature is increasing at a faster rate than the global average. According to data from a study published by Greenpeace Africa and the scientific unit of Greenpeace (Weathering the Storm: Extreme Weather and Climate Change in Africa) it has emerged that the average temperature increase within the continent will exceed 2 degrees Celsius, reaching a rise of between 3 and 6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. This will lead to an intensification of extreme weather events capable of severely impacting the poorest communities, communities forced to suffer the effects of climate change because they lack the resources to move elsewhere.

War

As already mentioned, drought caused by climate change is severely impacting the availability and access to foodIn recent years, Ethiopia has faced a severe drought that has caused agricultural production to collapse, completely eliminating it in some areas, decreasing access to water resources for grazing, killing livestock and causing more than 8,5 million people to suffer from hunger. As the latest edition of the Global Report on Food Crises Published by the Global Network on Food Crises, the international alliance of UN agencies, both governmental and non-governmental, working to combat the root causes of extreme hunger, during 2019 were 135 million people are exposed to acute food insecurity in 55 countriesMore than half of these people live in Africa (73 million), 43 million in the Middle East and Asia, and 18,5 million in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is the highest level of food insecurity and acute malnutrition documented by the Network since 2017, the year the first edition of the report was published. In addition to conflicts that have affected 77 million people and economic instability that has affected 24 million, Extreme weather events have caused 34 million people to become acutely food insecure..

Drought and wars lead to massive famines, such as the one that in recent years, in addition to Ethiopia, has also gripped South Sudan, the Lake Chad Basin area, and the Horn of Africa, leaving 30 million people without water and food. Chronic water shortages spark revolts and push people to move and migrate.

As Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated, 40 percent of civil wars are caused by the degradation of environmental conditionsClimate change can therefore have significant geopolitical consequences. In Africa's Sahel, the loss of arable land—Bachelet reiterated—is intensifying competition for control of already scarce food resources. Growing desertification is forcing herds to search for crops, and this leads to hostility between farmers and herders. These situations ultimately increase territorial instability.

Read also:

• How to reuse dryer water
• How not to waste water at home
• Rainwater: How to Make It Drinkable

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