Many countries are at risk of losing landmass if sea levels continue to rise. Bangladesh could lose 20% of its landmass if sea levels rise by 1m (as predicted by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the end of the century). In such a scenario, up to 20 million people may lose their homes and need to move. What will happen? We barely know.
With this in view, Bread for the World, the Pacific Conference of Churches and the World Council of Churches organised a Conference on “Protection and Reparation for Climate Refugees” from 4th to 5th May in Chavannes-de-Bogis near Geneva. The goal of the meeting was to stimulate discussion between academia, civil society, governments, intergovernmental institutions and churches on the phenomenon of climate displaced people, and to take stock of the challenges and possibilities for responding.
The Conference explored the concepts of ‘climate refugees‛ and ‘compensation‛ as well as best practices and lessons learned from actions seeking to address the problem on national, regional and global levels.
The following are excerpts from a report prepared by Kasia Snyder, Theodor Rathgeber and Stephen Humphreys:
Among the many concerns raised by the phenomenon of climate change, the likelihood of mass population displacement is among the most pressing and worrisome. For small island states such as Tuvalu, the reality of land loss is already apparent. As to the broader phenomenon of climate-related migration, even conservative figures are daunting. However, there has been relatively little substantive discussion of this crucial issue at the international level, and there is as yet no clear international policy direction for addressing a problem of potentially immense magnitude.
There are a number of reasons for the relative lack of movement on this crucial topic. First, there are no solid estimates of the numbers of likely migrants or refugees, and little certainty as to who will be affected and where the affected are likely to take refuge. Available estimates range from hundreds of millions (according to the Stern Review) to a billion (Christian Aid). But all such estimates involve making choices about relevant timescales and climate scenarios, and also predictions of the likelihood of credible mitigation and adaptation action.
This is a second reason for the tardy appreciation of this problem: mass migration, were it to happen, will signal the effective failure of policies to deal with climate change—mitigation efforts will have failed, and adaptive funding or activities will have failed to materialize, leaving migration as the adaptation policy of last resort. To begin to take mass migration seriously, for these reasons, may appear pessimistic or defeatist—but more to the point, such a discussion risks taking place in a relative vacuum. What is, in fact, the likely scenario for population displacement? The answer at present is: we barely know.
For similar reasons, third, climate change refugees are likely to prove extremely defiant in political negotiation. It may seem wiser to states not to engage with the issue as long as they are still grappling with so many other difficult sticking points, with these others at least known and, to a degree, quantifiable. Fourth, the bodies that might naturally be expected to think ahead on this issue—UNHCR and IOM—have signally failed to take the issue seriously, at least in public.
These bodies deny the legitimacy of the term ‚climate refugees‛ but have not put forward a credible alternative; they have dampened expectations of compensation for those needing to flee their homes even in advance of concrete cases appearing; they appear more comfortable referring to climate migration as largely concerning internally displaced persons (IDPs), thus obscuring the likelihood of cross-border migration. In general, they have failed to show leadership on a topic where they would appear the natural experts.
And yet it is vital to begin to think through the policy implications of climate migration and climate refugees. As mentioned, some small island states are already preparing for the likelihood of the disappearance of their territories, and are negotiating deals with other countries to take on their populations. Those conversations are necessarily precarious and the international community as a whole should be paying attention, as precedents set today are likely to be of great importance in future. The islands in question are generally inhabited by relatively small populations, but in some parts of the world, large scale population moves are foreseeable. Bangladesh, for example, could lose 20 percent of its landmass if sea levels rise by 1m (as predicted by the IPCC for the end of the century). In such a scenario, up to 20 million people may lose their homes and need to move. What will happen? Again, the answer, at present, is: we barely know.
With this in view, Bread for the World, the Pacific Conference of Churches and the World Council of Churches organized a Conference on “Protection and Reparation for Climate Refugees” on May 4-5, 2010 in Chavannes-de-Bogis near Geneva. The goal of the meeting was to stimulate discussion between academia, civil society, governments, intergovernmental institutions and churches on the phenomenon of climate displaced people, and to take stock of the challenges and possibilities for responding. The Conference explored the concepts of ‚climate refugees‛ and ‚compensation‛ as well as best practices and lessons learned from actions seeking to address the problem on national, regional and global levels.
In a first session, Prof. Frank Biermann presented his proposal for a sui generis regime for climate refugees under the UNFCCC, with comments from Ms. Margit Ammer of the Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights and Mr. Peter Emberson of the Pacific Conference of Churches. Three country case studies followed, focusing on Bangladesh, Mozambique and Papua New Guinea.
The remainder of the conference was taken up by three panels, discussing legal, humanitarian and political challenges respectively. These involved debates between representatives of the ACT Alliance, the United Nations University, Bread for the World, the World Council of Churches, the German Forum for Human Rights, Prodipan of Bangladesh and a member of the Bangladeshi parliament, the London School of Economics, the Mozambique Mission to the UN and global and regional church alliance.