The latest research indicates that climate change could put a third of global food production at risk under high emission scenarios. According to this report, “[t]he most vulnerable areas are the ones at risk of leaving [Safe Climate Spaces] with low resilience to cope with the change, particularly South and Southeast Asia and Africa’s Sudano-Sahelian Zone. The Sudano-Sahelian Zone is a bioclimatic belt extending from the southern edge of the Sahara Desert into the Sub-Saharan savannahs of many African countries. In Ghana, worsening climatic conditions have already displaced many agricultural workers from the Sudano-Sahelian Zone in Ghana’s Upper West Region. The Water & Development Research Group at Aalto University indicated that these trends in agricultural migration, if planned for sustainably, could provide a solution to potential decreases in crop yields.
A study published in Nature Communications expands on the concept of ‘crop migration’ — whereby agricultural workers migrate to more suitable areas for cultivation, which mitigates damaging impacts of climate change on crop yield. But when unplanned, climate displacement creates refugees prone to higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, and poverty. The researchers conclude that crop migration is substantially responsible for maintaining crop yields in the face of changes to the climate sustained over the past few decades. But they warn that “continued migration may incur substantial environmental costs and will depend on socio-economic and political factors in addition to land suitability and climate.”
Current projections indicate that climate change is likely to raise global temperatures above the 2°C goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement. However, climate change will have differing effects on agriculture in various regions. Shifts in the winemaking industry illustrate this phenomenon clearly. While grape cultivation is expanding to include regions that have historically been too cold, vineyards in California and Australia have been devastated by wildfires which have displaced agricultural workers. While crop migration can help maintain current levels of agricultural production, the lack of supportive policy leads to unsustainable outcomes for migrants. Without such policies, current trends in crop migration could collapse, resulting in more climate refugees and reduced global agricultural production.
India’s rising air and sea temperatures and rapid urbanisation have had damaging domestic climate effects primarily impacting the poor, marginalised, indigenous and women. Studies show that up to 15% of maize crop areas are affected by flash droughts every year. Agricultural policies also exacerbate climate change; a reliance on thermal power (68% of GHG emissions) brings low quality, high yields. Crops such as rice and wheat in dry conditions worsen monsoon variations due to their high water consumption. Approximately 65% of India’s population live in rural areas, many of whom rely on climate sensitive sectors such as agriculture, fishing and livestock.
Climate change resilience, alongside mitigation efforts, is key for countries where climate disasters are currently common. Carbon sequestration through the protection and nourishment of forests and urban green spaces improve drought, flash flood, landslide and coastal infrastructure resilience. It also lowers ambient temperatures. Access to water can be improved through the implementation of solar pumps, water sprinklers, drip irrigation, mulching and bed plantation – all of which are low cost relative to irrigation projects. Empowering local communities to take part in water harvesting and conservation ensures that efforts suit local ecologies too.
Whilst India is committing to climate change mitigation efforts for 2030, longer-term goals and on-going changes to technology, policy and social efforts must be made. A low carbon growth route with clear domestic climate policies and incentives is necessary if India is to hit net-zero targets.
Research conducted by Earth Refuge Advisor Dr Chris O’Connell in Bolivia and Peru, and published by Anti-Slavery International, indicates that climate change is a big – but not the only – factor driving displacement and vulnerability. He summarises his core findings in this article.
Climate change is the primary cause of migration worldwide. It presents an existential threat that is undermining traditional livelihoods, worsening the vulnerability of already marginalised groups and communities, and driving displacement. According to the World Bank, if sufficient action is not taken, over 140 million people could be displaced by 2050. Indeed, there is growing evidence that this is already occurring, with research linking northward migration from Central America to climate variability.
Under the right circumstances, migration represents an important form of climate adaptation, helping to mitigate economic precariousness and escape hazardous conditions. However, as highlighted in my report – ‘From a Vicious to a Virtuous Circle’ – if communities are not adequately listened to and supported, this situation can expose migrants to the risk of exploitation, including trafficking, debt bondage and forced labour.
My research in Bolivia and Peru reveals that climate change is not the only factor that is driving displacement and vulnerability, however. Until recently, the issue of environmentally destructive activities – such as mining and export-oriented agriculture – was predominantly treated as a ‘pull factor’ for migration by creating a demand for cheap labour. But as research participants made clear, in many places it is also a significant ‘push factor’ by making other economic activities – and even life – unviable in certain places.
Around 90% of the poorest people depend directly on natural resources, while 75% make a living from small-scale farming or fishing. These are more than just economic activities for many communities: they are deeply intertwined with their culture and identity, and often rely on ancestral knowledge passed down through generations. This same knowledge is increasingly recognised as crucial to preserving and restoring biodiversity, and for successful adaptation to the climate crisis.
Nevertheless, vital lifelines for communities and indigenous peoples are being shut down or restricted due to the expansion of extractive activities. Not only do these activities contaminate the air, soil and water, they are also associated with ‘staggering’ rates of deforestation and heavy water usage at a time when climate change is driving water scarcity.
Over and over, research participants described the negative environmental and human impacts of pesticides from industrialised agriculture, toxic oil spills, and pollution from mining residue that contains chemicals and heavy metals. This situation is also endangering the food security of these communities. In the words of an indigenous broadcaster I interviewed in the Peruvian Amazon,
“it is due to pollution, but also to the changes that are happening to the climate – both things are affecting us. The rivers used to be full of fish, but not now; we are eating our last fish…”
For many families and communities, this combination can represent the ‘last straw’ in pushing them to migrate. The cruel irony is that in countries where economic activity relies on natural resource extraction, the only choice for many citizens is to accept offers to work in these same environmentally destructive sectors. This work often consists of highly exploitative and degrading conditions, including instances of debt bondage and forced labour, which causes further human degradation and contributes to further greenhouse gas emissions. This is the vicious circle from which many struggle to escape.
The distinction between environmental impacts linked to climate change and those arising from man-made environmental harm is an important one. While the roots of both lie in the history of unequal development, their immediate drivers and control levers differ. Mitigating climate change is a long-term global challenge, but action to reduce environmental destruction should, in theory, be more straightforward.
Yet, rather than regulating these activities, governments in many countries are actively facilitating them via state policy, including tax breaks, subsidies, and infrastructure projects, while often turning a blind eye to human rights abuses against land- and environmental-rights defenders. This situation must be tackled as a matter of urgency, and must also involve the meaningful participation of affected groups and communities.
Responsibility for this scenario extends beyond national governments to include transnational corporations, consumer demand, and the architecture of global trade and investment – all of which restrict the ‘space’ for governments and suppliers to improve labour and environmental standards. Measures such as mandatory environmental and human rights due diligence legislation and a ‘Just Transition’ that respects workers’ rights are essential steps to taking a holistic approach to climate resilience.
All of this points to the need to not only improve legal safeguards for those who are displaced, but also to actively prevent or mitigate such vulnerability. Whether moving or staying, the fundamental rights of those most affected by climate and environmental breakdown must be upheld. Many of the tools required to tackle this situation already exist in the form of International Labour Organisation conventions, and UN human rights treaties, declarations, and principles such as the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights among others. What is needed now is corresponding action to translate these commitments into tangible change.
Germany’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the country’s current climate protection measures are insufficient to protect future generations. It said that current climate change measures “violate the freedoms of the complainants, some of whom are still very young” because much of the action needed to reach the Paris climate deal targets is delayed until after 2030.
Germany’s Climate Protection Act was approved by the government in 2019 and under it Germany is obliged to cut greenhouse gas emission by 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. However, the judges of the Constitutional Court have deemed the regulations insufficient. “The regulations irreversibly postpone high emission reduction burdens until periods after 2030,” the court said. The court added that this is unconstitutional, and criticised the current law because it does not go into enough detail on how emissions will be reduced after 2031.
The judges said the government now has until the end of next year to revise its Climate Protection Act and ensure that goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are more urgently met. The government was quick to respond to the ruling, with the finance minister, Olaf Scholz, and the environment minister, Svenja Schulze, having “resolved to very quickly prepare a draft bill to advise the federal government.” The bill will amend the current Climate Protection Act to ensure it complies with the requirements set out by the Constitutional Court. Scholz has stated that he expects the bill to receive the approval of the entire federal government.
In Dhaka, one of the most rainy cities of Bangladesh, hefty rainfall brings about flooding, water pollution and various diseases for a population of up to four million. Similar conditions are experienced by climate migrants that are forced to move due to the subpar conditions in the Ganges Delta.
According to the data, 10 million people, mostly living in Asia and the Pacific, were displaced in eight months due to natural disasters, especially those induced by climate change. Even once displaced, they still remain vulnerable to new threats.
According to the report published in 2018, erosions in Bangladesh and floods affecting Dhaka in the last 50 years have dragged thousands of people into poverty, forcing them to look elsewhere for resources. In the South Pacific, a storm caused by unusually hot waters in April 2020, posed similar challenges. In Afghanistan, 370,000 people had no choice but to leave their homes due to an extreme drought in 2018 and only the year following, 42,000 people were once again forced to migrate, but this time due to floods. The number of displaced persons in the Asia-Pacific Region, who make up 80% of the 20 million people displaced due to climate disasters, will very likely reach millions, and that even even if global warming is kept constant at 2 °C.
An article published in TIME by Aryn Baker offers a harrowing glimpse into how climate change is destroying the lives of residents in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Unprecedented precipitation over the past decade has already demolished homes, businesses, and lives – many of which are now entirely submerged by expanding lakes. According to Baker, thousands from this region have already been displaced by climate change. Evelyn Ajuang has been forced to relocate from her rural home on the edge of Lake Nakuru, to the nearby city just a few kilometres away. She spoke with TIME about the impact that relocation has had on her way of life, and the risks it poses for her future.
The residents of Rift Valley are urging their leaders to implement policies that better prepare cities for the emerging wave of climate migrants and prevent the crisis from developing further. According to Baker’s article, many major cities have already “launched programs to build climate resilience while making sure new arrivals have opportunities for both safe housing and fair employment.” Cities in Bangladesh have innovatively planned physical and social migration infrastructure in anticipation of the already increasing flow of migrants into more urban areas. But most cities in developing countries often lack the budget to build the infrastructure needed to accommodate the influx of migrants.
Climate migration experts — such as Alex Randall of the Climate and Migration Coalition (UK), Saleemul Huq of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (Dhaka), and Vittoria Zanuso of the Mayors Migration Council — insist that more international investment be directed towards climate adaptation in developing countries. Baker points out that urbanization can create opportunities for residents and foster economic development for countries, but it can also “create unprecedented mega-slums” if cities don’t plan properly or lack the resources to do so.
A public interest lawyer and entrepreneur who has worked in DC and throughout Asia, Rebecca Ballard founded @MavenWomen to meet an unmet market need for additional socially conscious options for professional women’s attire, and went on to found the recently launched @The.Fashion.Connection (FTS) to “move the needle” in the global garment industry through product creation and partnership, consumer education, and advocacy. This year, FTS is highlighting the links between the impacts of fast fashion and human trafficking. During this interview, she discusses the vulnerability of the – largely female – fast fashion workforce, the modern day slavery landscape, and the overlaps between fast fashion, human trafficking, and climate justice.
A landmark case brought by six young Portuguese citizens in November 2020 against 33 signatory states to the 2015 Paris Agreement continues to gain momentum at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In early May, the European Commissioner for Human Rights and a number of NGOs filed third party interventions to the Court in support of the applicants’ claim. Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and Others centers on the alleged violation of the applicants’ right to life (article 2) and right to respect for private and family life (article 8) as well as the prohibition of discrimination (article 14) due to the disproportional effects of climate change on younger generations. Due to the urgency of addressing climate change, the applicants won a legal battle confirming the court’s decision to fast-track the case.
The ECHR has constructed a notable body of case law which acknowledges the direct impact of certain environmental issues on human rights, and requires states to mitigate resulting violations of these rights. The ‘environmental admissibility criteria’ for the ECHR, established in Fadeyeva v Russia (2005), stipulates that interference on an applicant’s private life must be concrete and severe, a requirement which the applicants have already satisfied.
There is scientific and governmental consensus that climate change impacts human life, but a state’s legal obligation to mitigate the risk has yet to be established by the Court. By demonstrating causation between the defendant states’ greenhouse gas emissions and global warming induced heatwaves, the Duarte Agostinho case could set a new precedent for a state’s legal obligations to mitigate the effects of climate change. The third party interventions provide the Court with evidence linking national inaction on climate change to ensuing negative impacts on the applicant’s health and human rights.
The group of NGOs that recently filed supportive third party interventions includes Amnesty International, Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, Germanwatch, Notre Affaire à Tous, and 2Celsius. These organisations have provided evidence supporting the claim that current national contributions will not reduce emissions to a level that will prevent global temperatures from rising above 2°C, in accordance with commitments of the Paris Agreement. According to Wendel Trio, Director of CAN Europe, “Current efforts by our governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are highly insufficient as the world is still heading for a temperature rise around 2.5°C, alarmingly above the objectives of the Paris Agreement.” The court should appreciate the expert knowledge on this subject as it waits for government defenses which are due by May 27th.
It is well understood that less economically developed countries will be impacted harder by climate change compared to more developed countries. However, climate action to combat climate change could also worsen poverty by increasing prices for basic necessities, i.e. land-mitigation measures could drive up food prices. In addition, at the international level, a uniform carbon price would lead to higher relative policy costs for developing countries.
A new study has examined the ways in which climate policies could also help to reduce extreme poverty, rather than exacerbate it. The study’s researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany found that if socioeconomic efforts to reduce global poverty are continued at the current rate, then 350 million people globally will remain in poverty by 2030, with a large majority of them in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The study predicts that ambitious climate policies introduced to meet the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement could push this number up by 50 million. However, the authors stress that if ‘progressive redistribution’ is considered in climate policies, this could instead lead to a small reduction in global poverty by about 6 million people. ‘Progressive redistribution’ means that countries would redistribute revenues from carbon tax back to all their citizens implemented as an equal-per-capita climate dividend.
However, despite this overall decrease in global poverty, the researcher calculated that this ‘progressive redistribution’ strategy could result in sub-Saharan Africa becoming poorer, with 10 million more people in this region being pushed into extreme poverty. To counteract this negative consequence to sub-Saharan African countries, the authors suggest the implementation of an international finance scheme whereby developed countries redistribute 5% of their carbon carbon revenues to sub-Saharan countries. This scheme could result in 30 million less people in extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, and 45 million less people globally in extreme poverty, by 2030, compared to the current trends.
This research highlights the importance of considering other sustainable development goals (i.e. eradicating extreme poverty) when undertaking climate action, in order to achieve climate change mitigation in a fair and equitable way for all people.
The Nature Climate Change journal released an article on Thursday 6th May 21, detailing findings that demonstrate the importance of gender equality in mitigating climate change. Collated evidence from eighteen sources show how conservation, natural resource management, the protection of Indigenous peoples’ tenure rights and forest-dependent communities can only be achieved with the participation of women in decision-making processes on both a local and governmental level.
Differences in gender roles across many communities impacted by climate change has meant that women often use forest products to support their families as opposed to exploiting them commercially. However, conservation and natural resource management have been slow to include women in their programmes. Involving more women in conservation projects in communities, where conservation is in women’s interests due to gender roles, is likely to lead to more sustainable practices. When governments fail to include women, they are at greater risk of being killed, falling victim to gender-based violence and/or be at the receiving end of legal harassment.
Evidence is presented in this article demonstrating that the inclusion of women in forest management groups brings positive outcomes for both government and conservation efforts. The article urges governments to incorporate this evidence within climate action plans, adapt policies that improve both the rights of women and forest-dependent communities, and bringing tenure security for local communities – in particular women.
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