Growing concerns over the fate of climate refugees in the coming decades are raising the issue’s profile among international policymakers and diplomats, with the United Nations General Assembly prepared to vote on a resolution linking climate change to global security. However, stark differences of opinion among countries remain on what, if any, action should be taken.
There could be 200 million climate refugees by 2050, according to a new policy paper by the International Organisation for Migration, depending on the degree of climate disturbances. Likely areas to be battered first include Bangladesh and nations in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Some experts call the Darfur region of Sudan, where nomads battle villagers in a war over shrinking natural resources, the first significant conflict linked to climate change.
The UN is shortly expected to adopt the first resolution linking climate change to international peace and security. The hard-fought resolution, brought by 12 Pacific island states, says that climate change warrants greater attention from the UN as a possible source of upheaval world-wide and calls for more intense efforts to combat it. While all Pacific island states are expected to lose land, some face possible extinction.
A 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change detailing shifts expected in the South Pacific, said rising seas would worsen flooding and erosion and threaten towns as well as infrastructure. Some fresh water will turn salty, and fishing and agriculture will wither, it said.
To read a New York Times report on climate change and security, see