Refused refugees
Ratification of Paris climate agreement by some countries was a success but not addressing plight of climate refugees was a failure
Sep 30, 2016- For the United Nation’s climate regime, it has been something really extraordinary. The world body’s general assembly last week saw 31 countries ratify the Paris climate agreement signed in the French capital last December. That took the total signatories to 60, accounting for nearly 48 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. To come into force, agreement needs ratification by countries accounting for 55 percent of the total emissions. Many thought it was a long way away. But the sudden rise in the number of ratifiers surprised many, with UN officials now saying that the agreement is set to become a law by the end of this year.
Climate negotiators remember how long the Kyoto protocol—the first international treaty to cut carbon emissions—took to come into effect. It was signed in 1997 but came into force only in 2005. The Paris deal does not seem to be facing the same fate.
UN secretary general Ban ki Moon’s initiative to host a special event during the general assembly for the ratification of the Paris agreement yielded remarkable results. Many involved in climate negotiations toasted the achievement. If the deal really sees ratification from the number of countries accounting for 55 percent of the total emissions—and if signatories walk the talk—the world will have an instrument to fight climate change. Who will ensure that this is happening and how that mechanism will work, no one knows yet. But at least the goal to get the ball rolling appears to be in sight.
Migration and climate change
While the special session to ratify the Paris agreement had that level of success to show, another event at the same general assembly a few days earlier was disappointing for people suffering—and those who can suffer—from climate change. The UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants saw many deliberations and in-depth discussions, but the New York declaration made at the end of the meet did not address the plight of climate refugees. The declaration was largely limited to dealing with the issues of people displaced due to conflict. It stopped short of including specific commitments towards people who are displaced by climate change induced disasters.
In other words, people forced from their homes by climate impacts and disasters remain uncovered by the same legal protections that cover those who flee conflict.
A study in 2014 found that natural disasters displaced three times as many people as war in 2013. The report prepared by the Norwegian Council said that 22 million people were driven out of their homes by floods, hurricanes and other hazards. It also said that twice as many people now lose their homes to disaster as in the 1970s and more people move into harm’s way each year.
According to the study, more than 80 percent of those displaced between 2009 and 2013 lived in Asia. In 2014, the picture remained the same as nearly 19 million of the 22 million displaced globally were Asians.
“The number of people uprooted from their homes each year by more by more extreme weather, growing food insecurity, and coastal erosion already far exceeds those displaced by conflict, and will continue to rise sharply in coming decades,” said Alice Thomas of Refugees International.
“However if we want to get out ahead of the problem, the summit will need to go further. States will need to commit to supporting the most-climate vulnerable countries to take concrete measures to avert, minimize and address climate displacement through increased investments in disaster risk reduction, building the resilience of the most vulnerable, and by addressing gaps in the international legal framework for those forced to flee climate change,” she said after it was known that the draft New York declaration on the Refugees and Migrants summit had almost nothing for climate refugees.
“Migration and climate change are the two most pressing issues of our time. Neither can be addressed without consideration of the other,” said Janani Vivekananda, Head of Environment, Climate Change and Security Programme, International Alert after the summit failed to make specific commitments for climate refugees.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body on climate science, has described climate change and migration as a key risk, with a changing climate having “significant consequences” for migration flows at particular times and places, creating both risks and benefits for migrants and states.
So, why then did the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants declaration choose to keep out climate refugees? There has been no official explanation yet. Understandably, it may have left that for the Paris climate agreement to handle, because the global deal has aspects like adaptation and a mention of “loss and damage.”
No recognition yet
While adaptation is mainly to help communities live and cope with inevitable impacts of climate change, “loss and damage because of climatic changes” still remains a vague provision for which compensation, as demanded by several severely vulnerable poor countries, is still out of question. Negotiators from poor countries say the developed world never wanted the concept of compensation recognised as that would open the floodgates to all sorts of compensatory demands whether the disaster is climate related or not.
As a result, the issue of climate refugees has become nobody’s baby. One may say at least we are soon getting a global climate law once the Paris climate agreement is ratified and that will slow down climate change. That may—if the ratified words of the deal are translated into action. That
is a big if.
Even if that happens and the world makes drastic cuts in carbon emissions by phasing out fossil fuels, the greenhouse gases so far dumped in the atmosphere will still cause some degree of climate change, scientists have warned. And that would mean droughts, sea level rise, floods and landslides, wildfires, among other disasters, will continue to create waves of climate
refugees. And yet, the world refuses to recognise them.
Published: 30-09-2016 08:34
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