8 December 2021 – by Johanna Wassong
COP26, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, took place in Glasgow from the 31st October – 12th November 2021, and was branded as an attempt to “unite the world to tackle climate change”.
Though undoubtedly an important goal, the Conference’s agenda neglected a vital consequence and aspect of climate change: climate migration, potentially harming the sustainability of the negotiations and giving the impression that one of the most frightening consequences of climate change is being ‘swept under the rug’.
The main target of the UN climate change conference was to solidify the targets presented in the 2015 Paris Agreement, namely, to limit warming of the Earth’s temperature to 1.5 °C from pre-industrial times. The published aims of the negotiations are to:
- Reduce emissions
- Strengthen adaptation and resilience to climate impacts
- Scale up finance and support.
The summit’s introductory document, website, and published targets hardly mentioned climate-induced migration. The only time where one could see negotiations approach the topic was on a single day under the theme of “adaptation, loss and damage”, whilst other agenda items ranged from the World Leader’s Summit to discussions relating to finance, energy, nature, science, and innovation,
Whilst this commentary does not intend to down-play the importance of such a conference as a positive first step, it must be acknowledged that to sideline climate-induced displacement is to ignore some of climate change’s most devastating impacts upon individuals, cultures and communities. Though COP26 mentions that “the international community must unite and support people who are most vulnerable to the impacts of the changing climate”, there do not appear to be any elements of this conference dedicated to those who are, and will be, forced to flee their homes as a result of increasingly hostile climates.
The approach of the United Kingdom
The UK’s leadership page itself is mainly focused on the economic aspect of climate change and its following ‘Green Revolution’, with every target or accomplishment listed on its presentation being associated with either economics or finance. Whilst it is true that long-term, durable solutions to the climate crisis do require financial backing, emphasising the economics at the expense of a focus on the lived experiences of the individual severely undermines the possibility of developing tenable solutions which are inclusive of people across the globe, living in countries with differing economic ‘buying power’.
Moreover, Boris Johnson’s statement that “securing a brighter future for our children and future generations requires countries to take urgent action at home and abroad to turn the tide on climate change” is firmly juxtaposed with the UK’s policy towards refugees, specifically the Home Office’s recently proposed ‘New Plan for Immigration’. At a time when the UK seeks to penalise, criminalise, and limit protections for those fleeing their homes as a result of persecution and violence, it seems sadly fitting that provisions for those made to leave their homes for environmental reasons are also neglected. Hostile attitudes towards climate migrants, and of displaced persons in general, occur for a multitude of reasons that are often shared across nations, including a denial of the existence of environmental refugees and also a generally negative attitude towards immigration.
For the UK at least, it seems difficult for the former to change whilst the latter still holds true; all the time that hostile policies are continually implemented towards those fleeing persecution, furthering the rights of those displaced through the effects of climate change will be an uphill battle. This is despite the fact that Western Nations are often disproportionately involved in the perpetuation of the factors which drive both forms of displacement.
The consequences of failure to address climate migration
Given that there are so many topics relating to climate change to cover, and such a long road ahead before rights are upheld for those forced to leave their homes, why is it necessary to include climate change migration issues in today’s discourse? The answer is simple: there is no time to wait. Climate migration will be one of the most important contemporary issues of the next 50 years as climate change causes environmental degradation in more and more areas of the world.
For example, today 1% of the world is a barely liveable hot zone, meaning that humans could not live in these areas due to their extreme weather conditions – specifically heat. By 2070 that zone could go up to 19% – almost a fifth of the planet. This means that more and more people across this type of territory will be displaced due to the destruction of their habitat, whilst others will be forced to flee due to flooding, natural disasters, extremes of weather, and rising sea levels. People have already begun to flee, not only from natural disasters and short-term environmental damage, but also from slow onset environmental decay.
In Southeast Asia the agriculture sector is suffering as rainfall patterns and droughts become more intense, causing the displacement of around 8 million people who have moved toward the Middle East, Europe and North America. The World Bank’s Groundswell Report suggests that by 2050, if no action is taken, there will be more than 143 million climate change migrants in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America alone.
Concluding thoughts
Despite having good intentions and aims in terms of prevention and economics, the COP26 summit failed to mention this and its potentially dire consequences for the international effort to tackle human displacement. This could in turn lead to a lack of funds, resources, and political will to provide help to people who have witnessed the destruction of their homes. Climate change migration deserves more academic, policy and political attention, and COP26 is a perfect example of this. Those at risk of becoming displaced deserve protection from long-lasting environmental damage, and those already displaced deserve international support and access to their full human and legal rights. Alongside affected communities, it is up to activists, environmentalists, and the general population to bring attention to the cause of climate migration, and to establish a protection and assistance framework.
Johanna Wassong is in her final year, studying International Relations at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, specializing in human rights and refugee rights in sub–Saharan Africa. She is currently writing her dissertation on the refugee politics after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Johanna initially started working with refugees in her hometown Cologne, Germany during the European Migrant Crisis in 2015-2016 and was specifically confronted with the issues of environmental migration after the floodings in Ahrtal in Summer 2021.
This article was originally published in the Earth Refuge Archive as part of our collaboration with Human Rights Pulse on the COP26 Summit.
