Category: Current Affairs

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Ethiopian Refugees Face Double Displacement As Floods Wreck Havoc Across Eastern Sudan

body of water during night time

21 June 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz

Refugee shelters are being destroyed as rains begin in Sudan. Thousands of Ethiopians fleeing violence in Tigray over the past few months have found themselves facing extreme weather conditions, from scorching heat to long rains.

Climate change is responsible for the unpredictable rainfall and high temperatures across Sudan’s arid and semi-arid areas. Sudan’s already vulnerable position has made combating climate change in the country difficult; conflict, poverty and displacement limit potential investment into climate mitigation or adaptation efforts.

Heavy rains and flooding is not new to Sudan’s refugee population; last year hundreds of thousands of people were affected, which included refugees and internally displaced people.

The Sudanese government, the World Food Programme (WFP) and UN organisations (United Nations Development Programme), have made efforts to address the energy needs of refugees by creating sustainable conditions. For example, energy saving stoves and solar panels have been implemented to improve conditions for refugees. Plant drought-resistant plants are also providing food and greenery.

Despite such adaptation efforts, Sudan’s vulnerable position makes climate mitigation difficult. Preventative measures to protect refugees from further displacement and suffering are necessary to shield refugees from future floods and other climate disasters. Climate mitigation may only be possible in Sudan if vulnerability factors such as conflict and poverty are addressed, too.

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Unemployment, Migration and Climate Change in Morocco

tree in a desert field

21 June 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz

On Tuesday 18th May, 2021, 6,000 migrants from Morocco swam and walked across the border to Spain. Video evidence showed Moroccan soldiers allowing migrants through security gates, sparking tensions between the two countries. The European Union stands in defence of Spain, condemning the mass incursion as a breach of borders. This comes following policy disputes over Western Sahara, which Spain maintains must be resolved via a United Nations agreement.

Migrants fled Morocco seeking economic opportunity, in pursuit of education or to flee poverty and human rights abuses. Unemployment in Morocco has been rising in recent years, with a significant rise of 2% as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Urban areas have been hit harder by unemployment compared to rural areas, although sectors across both have been affected. Whilst socio-economic crises and the pandemic are major causes of unemployment in Morocco, growing rural-urban migration – largely due to climate change, is also a factor.

Rising temperatures makes agricultural productivity more difficult. The High Commission for Planning (HCP) predicts that by 2050 only 15% of Morocco’s population will live in non-urban areas; this compares to 40% in 2018. With rural populations shrinking, (both water scarcity and floods causing a decline in agricultural production and an increase in poverty) a growing urban population needs employment.

Unemployment is particularly high amongst the youth in Morocco (1,500 of the 6000 migrants last Tuesday were teenagers). Green job initiatives is one channel to reduce unemployment whilst implementing climate adaptation measures; Morocco’s recent shifts to renewable energy is to help boost labour employment according to the Forum Euro Mediterraneen des Instituts de Sciences Economiques. 

Morocco has taken numerous commitments to combat climate change via adaptation initiatives such as the Green Generation 2020-2030 plan – to support the agricultural sector through water irrigation and reducing dependence on rain-fed farming. Water irrigation projects are expected to save 2.4bn metres of water by 2030. On-going protection of rural areas is vital for agricultural livelihoods that make up 34% of employment. The links between climate change, rural-urban domestic migration, unemployment and cross-border migration requires further investigation; such as the percentage of rural verses urban migrants leaving their home country, Morocco.

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Climate Activists March 400 Miles From New Orleans to Houston to Demand a Green Job Market

green grass in close up photography

7 June 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

Climate activists from the youth climate group Sunrise Movement have been marching 400 miles from New Orleans to Houston, following the path of thousands of families who permanently fled New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The activists’ aim is to pressure President Biden into including a Civilian Climate Corps in his $2.26 trillion infrastructure plan, which will create good-paying jobs for young people within environmentally friendly careers.

Along the way the group is making stops in communities disproportionately affected by the climate crisis. At these stops the group will be holding protests and rallies, and will be joined by many figures including political leaders and environmental justice activists. One of these stops was St James parish, a community about an hour outside of New Orleans, where the group protested the proposed construction of a petrochemical complex. St James parish sits on an 85-mile industrial corridor along the Mississippi River, which has been dubbed “Cancer Valley” due to housing more than 150 chemical plants and oil refineries. Last year, the government approved permits for plastic company Formosa Plastics to build 14 plastic plants in St James parish.

Environmental justice group, Rise St James, has been leading the fight to block Formosa from building the facility in their community. The Sunrise Movement organised the protest along with Rise St James, to bring greater awareness to the issue. Researchers have found that if the proposed Formosa complex is built it would leave communities vulnerable to extreme flooding, due to the destruction of nearby wetlands. The facility is also expected to emit and discharge a variety of pollutants, including carcinogens, into the air and water. St James parish is a predominantly black community, and Varshini Prakash, the co-founder and executive director of Sunrise Movement, has described the situation as “the epitome of environmental racism”.

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Border Tensions in South-Eastern Europe Will Be Intensified by Climate Change

barb wire

3 June 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

A recent report “Regional Assessment for South-Eastern Europe: Security implications of climate change” calls climate change a “risk multiplier” in South-Eastern Europe. This region, having been afflicted with wars throughout the 1990s, is already prone to border tensions and this new report anticipates that climate change will only amplify these existing tensions. In addition, South-Eastern Europe has been identified as one of the world’s “warming hot spots”. In a business as usual scenario, temperatures could rise by 4°C by 2100, and the number of drought days is forecasted to increase by 20% across the region.

Potential negative consequences of climate change to this region are highlighted by the report. Climate change can change the access to or availability of natural resources, resulting in increased competition both within and across borders. Climate-induced extreme weather events and disasters can aggravate political instability and put livelihoods at risk, which could lead to people being pushed to emigrate from the region or to turn to illegal sources of income.

The report highlighted that two of the region’s main sectors, agriculture and tourism, are “very climate-sensitive and are expected to be negatively affected by climate change, leading to a potential loss of livelihoods and jobs.” The report goes on to predict that “this could contribute to political discontent and pose challenges for political stability. In addition, negative climate change impacts could put pressure on vulnerable groups to migrate or to take up adverse livelihood strategies, including crime.”

Two of the main aims of this report were to identify potential climate-security hotspots in the South-Eastern Europe region, and develop and implement climate change and security risk reduction measures. The report identified a large number of potential transboundary hotspots that are of concern, including shared river basins, shared mountain ecosystems and mining areas. The report also identified two security challenges that are transboundary, but not geographically constrained, and will likely be exacerbated by climate change: mixed movements and emigration, and air pollution. A range of cooperation opportunities for each hotspot was established in the report, including advancing transboundary cooperation around nature protecting or mining hazards, and developing action plans for transboundary water management.

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An Expert Panel in Germany Explores the Idea of Climate Passports

white and red labeled box

2 June 2021 – by Hazal Yilmaz

Recently, a German expert panel discussed the importance of fighting climate change in order to prevent a refugee crisis in Europe. It further stated that Germany should provide support to developing countries which are prone to environmental disasters, as a way of reducing the potential risk of forced migration in the future. Another solution the panel entertained was the concept of “climate passports”, which would ultimately allow refugees from disaster-struck areas to resettle in other countries. The climate passport proposed in the report is predicted to be primarily a legal form of protection for people living in island regions adversely affected by rising sea levels, and may protect 2.2 million people in the Indian and Pacific Ocean.

The report further called on Canada and the U.S. to share the burden on immigration, arguing that wealthy countries should commit to receiving a number of refugees which would make up 0.05% of their population. The Minister of the Interior of Germany also urged that we must all work together in tackling the impending crisis. The final report is planned for publication after the pandemic.

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Sustainable Climate Migration Strategy Could Bolster Global Agricultural Production

31 May 2021 – by Ben St. Laurent

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.

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Technology, Policy and Social Efforts Key For the Future of Climate Change Mitigation in India

28 May 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz

India, one of the world’s fastest growing economies, has the third highest Greenhouse Gas Emission (GHG) emissions in the world behind the United States and China. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) reported that the air temperature had risen by 0.7 degrees Celsius 1901 – 2018, and the sea level 1 degrees Celsius between 1951-2015.

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.

At the Paris Climate Summit [COP21], India’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) pledged to reduce emission intensity by 33-35%, increase its share of non-fossil based fuel to 40% by 2030 and boost forest cover to absorb 2.5-3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030.  Climate Action Tracker, a joint initiative by two climate research organizations based in Germany, state that India is the only major country whose climate mitigation efforts are in line with the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

During the pandemic, India’s proportion of renewable energy rose from 17 per cent to 24 per cent while coal-fired power declined from 76 per cent to 66 per cent. Renewable energy in India has the potential to increase employment, improve air quality, water and land use and biodiversity. Scientific and financial incentives by the Indian government would help shift farmer reliance away from crops that worsen arid land.

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.

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Court Rules That Germany’s Climate Change Law Violates Freedoms of Young People

26 May 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

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.

The ruling backed complaints from mostly young climate change activists and environmental groups between 2018 and 2020. One of the complainants, Luisa Neubauer, an activist from Fridays for Future, welcomed the ruling, saying: “This is huge. Climate protection is not nice to have; climate protection is our basic right and that’s official now. This is a huge win for the climate movement, it changes a lot.”

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Climate Displacement in Numbers Across Asia

24 May 2021 – by Hazal Yilmaz

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.

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Unprecedented Floods Displace Thousands in Kenya’s Rift Valley

22 May 2021 – by Ben St. Laurent

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.