Refugees of Climate Change from the Pacific

The Pacific region by virtue of being at the frontline, climate change threatens the very existence of these developing and least developed island nations. The atoll nations of Tuvalu, Kiribati and Marshall Islands have already started sinking with their populations having no place to take shelter. As an adaptative measure, the governments have purchased land in Fiji with an aim to relocate their sinking populations there. This has put the governments in a conundrum, which cannot fully implement its planned relocation project effectively. In the meantime, people from outer islands have migrated to relatively elevated islands, which has caused massive overpopulation and a huge strain on the already dwindling resources such as water and land.

Climate change has therefore been a major factor behind displacing millions of people particularly in the Pacific region who would be in dire need of shelter and assistance. Climate-induced forced migrants do not have legal protections internationally (Castles, Haas and Miller 2014). The 1951 Refugee Convention was formulated in the immediate aftermath of World War II, which aimed to protect war refugees from Western Europe. The geographically limited convention had to be amended because of its limited scope and global reach. During the Cold War era, given that the realpolitik between the two erstwhile ideological rivals was producing yet more war refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) adopted a new Protocol in 1967. Under this protocol the earlier geographic limit of refugee protection expanded to make it more globally inclusive (Steiner 2009).

According to the 1951 Refugee Convention: “[Any person who] owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country” (quoted in Foster 2007, p.15).

Given that in the post-World War II order climate change was not an issue, the focus of the world leaders was exclusively on war refugees. However, the term “environmental refugee” was brought to the fore by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for the first time in 1985 (El-Hinnawi 1985). Ever since, the new coinage has received wide coverage in the academic as well as political circles (Castles 2002). This, arguably, was a tipping point for the climate refugees because it aroused a growing body of concern from the global community about the ‘consequences of migration resulting from environmental deterioration’. The global concern was further strengthened by the publication of the 1990 United Nations Intergovernmental report on climate change, which highlighted that “the gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration as millions will be displaced” (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 1990, 20).

Despite all these lobbying from various stakeholders at national and global levels, the international community has not been convinced to recognise climate refugees and give them refugee status in a bid to get legal protection internationally. It has now become a mainstream belief that climate change will irrefutably impact upon people’s enjoyment of their basic human rights (Kneebone 2009). Coastal erosion, flooding, drought and ocean level rise as well as more frequent and intense severe weather events such as storms and destructive tropical cyclones will badly affect croplands, infrastructure, social services and continued habitability of the Pacific region (Henry 2018). This, in turn, “may threaten rights such as the right to life, health, housing, culture, means of subsistence, and, in extreme cases, self-determination” (McAdam 2012, p.52).  

The most significant effects of climate change are likely to be felt in the poorest parts of the world where human rights protection is often very weak. Starting from a place of disadvantage hampers responsive capacity of climate-affected countries. McAdam (2012:52) argues, “poor levels of education, technical capacity, resource availability, and institutional support make lobbying for assistance and adaptation difficult.” In addition, it is worth highlighting that while international law defines a ‘refugee’ in a particular way, this does not suggest that affected people not falling within this definition are not worthy of protection, or ‘necessarily denied it’. Definitions of certain laws and their interpretations are just ‘bureaucratic labels’, which attempt to “delimit rights and obligations and may seek to bolster some kind of ethical claim to protection or assistance” (McAdam 2012, 42).

There are counterarguments from a wide array of stakeholders who believe that climate refugee cannot fall within the purview of the 1951 Refugee Convention definition. According to the latter, the refugee definition applies to those affected people who have already crossed international borders without due legal processes in an attempt to rescue their lives from harm’s way (Steiner 2009). By contrast, the climate related displacements have taken place internally where governments have not persecuted them (Castles, Haas and Miller 2014). Thus, they do not meet the preliminary requirement. McAdam (2012:43) argues that “this criterion also means that the Refugee Convention does not facilitate direct resettlement from the country of persecution.”

Secondly, it is legally challenging to characterise climate change as ‘persecution’ per se because the latter entails gross violation of human rights, which the international community would not disregard. McAdam (2012:43) asserts, “whether something amounts to ‘persecution’ is assessed according to the nature of the right at risk, the nature and severity of its restriction or impairment, and the likelihood of the restriction or impairment eventuating in the individual case”. Although environmental impacts such as ocean levels rise, salination of sources of drinking water and croplands by tropical cyclones, increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events are undeniably destructive and fatal in nature, they still do not amount to ‘persecution’ under the provision of international law (McAdam 2012). It is therefore argued that climate migrants cannot be termed as refugees because “refugee flow and population displacements are driven in large part by the gross violation of human rights” (Zutshi, Satpute and Tahir 2011, p.25).         

Despite all these arguments and counterarguments vis-à-vis ‘climate refugees’, it has now become a fact that climate change is undeniably causing havoc in the world particularly in the Pacific region where small island states are dispersed in the vast Pacific ocean and subject to frequent tropical weather disturbances. Climate change hampers their social development, hinders their economic growth, increases poverty and unemployment rates and make them perpetually aid dependent. Moreover, climate change affects agricultural lands and destroys coral reefs, which are breeding habitat for marine species and sources of food and income to local population. Sea level rise is claiming more land and most low-lying areas are expected to be rendered uninhabitable before the end of this century (Henry 2018; Wright 2012). To put it more crudely, climate change is an existential threat to the Pacific region as a whole, which scientists predict might disappear from the face of the earth by the end of next century or even earlier (Wyeth 2017).

In addition, climate change forcibly displaces millions of people from their ancestral homes who do not have a secure place to continue with the rest of their lives. It is true that the climate migrants do not face persecution in their home countries or do not flee from the brutal actions of their governments. However, people are escaping from ‘climate persecution’, which claims their lives and livelihood and ultimately even their state. Thus, right to life is one of the core principles of international law, which obliges states to abide by (Kneebone 2009; Foster 2007). It is in this spirit that the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) target 10.7 calls for signatories to “facilitate orderly, safe, and responsible migration of people, including through implementation of planned and well-managed policies” (quoted in Podesta 2019).

Contribution of Pacific islanders to climate change is miniscule currently standing at 0.04 percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions (Coelho 2019). By contrast Australia’s per capita contribution is one of the largest in the world (Cassella 2019). It is the actions of other states that cause climate change but the fall out of their environmentally unfriendly behaviours is on the Pacific and severely affect the islanders. Leaders of these small island nations have time and again reiterated that people have no desire to escape from their countries or flee from their governments. They are escaping climate persecution, which would otherwise claim their lives (Carter 2015; Goulding 2015). The persecutor enshrined in the Refugee Convention could be the ‘international community’, and industrialised nations in particular “the very States to which movement might be sought, whose failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions has led to the predicament now being faced” (McAdam 2010, p.41).

This begs the questions as to why the developed nations, despite the fact that they are the biggest global polluters, decline to recognise climate refugees and give them refugee status. The most convincing answer to the dilemma so far has been increasing number of war refugees and shrinking resources. Podesta (2019:4) observes, today there are more than 20 million war refugees under the protection of UNHCR. Climate Change and severe weather events displace an additional 21 million people annually. The UNHCR has “thus far refused to grant these people refugee status, instead designating them as ‘environmental migrants’, in large part because it lacks the resources to address their needs”. According to World Bank 2018 report, climate change and ‘sudden onset’ of weather patterns will forcibly displace more 143 million people from Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia by 2050 (Henry 2018, Podesta 2019). In 2017 alone, more than 68 million people were displaced, “more than at any point in human history”. Climatologists predict that in the years to come, climate change will be a major push factor in human mobility due to shrinking resources such as clean water, food security, agricultural degradation, loss of land to rising oceans and seas and violent conflict over access to resources (Podesta 2019).

It, therefore, necessitates that as the number of climate migrants is rapidly increasing, the international community has to fulfil its legal obligations vis-à-vis climate migrants who live in destitute conditions. These affected people are the victims of the industrialisation that is taking place in the civilised nations. Climate change and global warming are the by-product of many decades of industrialisation. As climate change is gradually worsening and greenhouse gas emissions as a result of huge industrialisation and urbanisation is rapidly increasing, more people choose to abandon their sinking islands and seek refuge in places where they could survive. However, these climate-induced migrants do not have legal protection beyond their national borders. Consequently, they cannot access social services, seek employment or even face deportation.

According to international law, the principle of non-refoulment is applicable to endangered people regardless of their legal status. “The principle of non-refoulement thus applies to all asylum seekers irrespective of their immigration status…. It applies to persons both lawfully and unlawfully in a state or attempting to enter a state” (Kneebone 2009, p.12). Nonetheless, in 2013 the New Zealand High Court refused to grant asylum to a climate-affected family from Kiribati – Mr Loane Teitiota as a climate change refugee. “The Tribunal found that Mr Teitiota had undertaken what maybe termed a ‘voluntary adaptive migration’, and that his decision to migrate to New Zealand could not be seen as ‘forced”’ (Fry 2019). Despite such a ruling, the UN Human Rights Committee in a ‘landmark judgement’ stated that under international human rights law, it will be unlawful for the governments to deport people to their places of origin where they are threatened by climate crisis.  

In conclusion, climate change and destructive weather patterns is wreaking havoc in the Pacific region. The sudden onset of weather events such as catastrophic tropical cyclones, rising ocean level that inundates coastal communities and agricultural lands, droughts, flooding and sea flooding take a heavy toll on the already shrinking resources in the Pacific. As a result, the impoverished population do not have any other option but to migrate to urban areas or even to other nations where they think could be safe and out of harm’s way. These environment-induced migrants are oblivious of the fact that they are not legally protected beyond their shores. The absence of a legal framework to protect climate migrants, in essence, ingulfs them into yet another layer of socio-economic as well as legal problems. They cannot legally access social services and get employment in their host countries, which then results in chronic poverty and outbreak of fatal diseases. 

Bearing these challenges in mind, the global community has a legal obligation towards climate refugees to bestow on them international protection by giving them refugee status. In the post-World War II set up, climate change was not a major international concern. Thus, the overwhelming concern and focus of the signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention was on the war refugees coming out of Western Europe. Although the geographic expansion of the Refugee Convention was adopted through formulation of a new protocol under the auspices of UNHCR, the scope of the convention remained limited to war refugees bypassing any future trigger point that could produce more refugees. Today, climate change and associated weather events cause massive human mobility, which has already surpassed the number of war refugees. Scientists predict that the number of climate-induced forced migrants will exponentially rise given that there is no sign of reduction in global pollution in sight.

The international community must therefore come to this realisation that climate refugee is becoming a reality, which cannot be ignored. Climate change and unbearable weather events claim lives, destroy homes and is an existential threat to millions of people around the world with Pacific bearing the biggest brunt. Thus, it is about time that the global community must fulfil their legal obligations by either redefining the term ‘refugee’ to include climate migrants or create a new legal institutional framework to include climate refugees. Without such a legal mechanism in place, the plight of climate migrants will deteriorate even further. It is now realised across the board that climate change will worsen in the years to come because of the absence of a strong global governance to implement laws and punish perpetrators. Hence, the onus is on the United Nations to convince its member states and legalise climate refugees and bestow international protection to them.

(Pic Courtsey-Maria Teneva at unsplash.com)

(Saber Salem is Doctoral Research Fellow with OP Jindal Global University’s School of International Affairs, India.)

References

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