Climate change could force 1 billion from their homes by 2050
There were calls yesterday by the UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, for a proper global consensus on the status of people forced from their homes and countries because of climate change. Under the Geneva convention, refugees are defined as people escaping persecution by the state but there is no mention of climate related issues. Despite this the UNHCR does respond to natural disasters such as the 2004 tsunami. However, it has neither the money nor the mandate to cope with the expected numbers of climate refugees and it wants the rules clarified, and fast.
Craig Johnstone, the UNHCR deputy high commissioner, said yesterday that humanity faced a “global-scale emergency” whose effects would accumulate over the next four decades. He said it was impossible to forecast with confidence the numbers of people who would lose their homes through climate change. But he pointed to assessments of between 250 million and one billion people losing their homes by 2050. He said: “This will be a global-scale emergency, but … it will take place gradually and over a long period of time.”
From my own experience people are quite generous in the face of sudden emergencies but tire or get distracted in the face of long term, drawn out events. We forget that Somalia is still a failed state, that the Rohingya Refugees in Chittagong, Bangladesh are still waiting for formal acknowledgement of their status after 15 years, or that the West Bank and Gaza strip are not really refugee camps but IDP - Internally Displaced Person camps within what was once their own country.
When the long emergency that is climate change/peak oil begins to bite, which evidence shows is already happening, we will need international mechanisms to cope with the movements of millions across borders that really only exist in our imaginations.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
This is absurd when the effects of Climate Change and Peak Oil hit we need to be realistic and accept that this planet isn’t going to support the 6 or 7 billion humans on this planet.
Come on people get real or are the greens actually proposing to take in 1000’s of third world refugees into NZ. Why don’t you start by planing for the return of all the nz expats.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Turnip28, that should be the priority - first returning NZers, and secondly people from the South Pacific countries we have traditionally had close relationships with.
While we have some spare ecological population carrying capacity, it is probably only about 2 million. So we shouldn’t get carried away at either extreme of the argument about climate change refugees. We have the capacity to accept some, but not to accept untold hundreds of thousands, and we should aim to maintain that capacity.
We are in a far better postion to respond to a crisis such as this than are many already overpopulated countries.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Poses an interesting question:
Which will end first - the Long Emergency or the War on [of] Terror?
Or are they one and the same?
May 1st, 2008 at 3:07 pm
turnip28 - That is exactly what I would expect. Significant planning for the return of kiwi expats. Plus a deluge of Ozzies who also have a right to enter here from treaties. Then we have the Pacific Island people, some of whom will be the earliest climate refugees from rising sea levels. (Earliest to our shores, anyway) Population is definitely the elephant in the room, of this there is no doubt. Where in my post did I even hint that I thought NZ should be taking any quantity of refugees? I was merely highlighting that we have a big global issue brewing that kiwis don’t want to acknowledge.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
toad - I would argue that the war of terror and the long emergency are part and parcel of the same thing. The US is in the Middle East primarily but not exclusively for the oil, and certainly not for the spread of democracy! The fact that key members of the current administration as well as the Republican candidate acknowledge that the war will go for 100 years is a good indication that it’s not about terror but about controlling the natural resources over time.
Anyone who has been alive a while knows that terrorism is not new and that 9/11 really didn’t change anything, it only involved the US in what always happens to superpowers at their zenith - terrorism. I believe that the seventies were much more rife with terrorism, all over the world. Good solid policing and criminal justice systems put the lid on that. No point using a sledge hammer to swat a fly!
May 1st, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Not aiming at you Frog more at the UN I think.
As for the kiwis not acknowledging this I think its because people paint this wonderful picture of climate change that goes something like this.
If we cut down our CO2 emissions don’t worry everything will be fine, the problem is that both the US and China don’t appear to have done anything about CO2, the US certainly hasn’t done anything in the last 8 years and China seems to think that because it is in the process of an industrial revolution it can get away with murder (Now that i’ve insulted China expect 1000’s of chinese students to protest all over the world about western media bias).
May 1st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Well turnip the US has been going down recently http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html (bit of a hodge-podge of graphs there), maybe something to do with the (other) hodge-podge of different state regulations, and the McCain-Lieberman bill would facilitate domestic, mandatory, and economywide emissions reductions through a cap-and-trade system.
China has er, a “plan that calls for a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency between 2006 and 2010.”
Your ego must be bigger than Winston’s if you expect that to happen
May 1st, 2008 at 5:04 pm
i heard you on radio fm 95 fwog where you said that basic wage should be $15, yet you don’t tell us how to do it,
and that, that wage would consolidate the NZ population,
yous a joker fwog,
we need basic wage around $30,
it don’t easy fwog but I agree with you and when i am the king we will do it.
but first yous have to coalition with
NZ GOVT 2008 NAT GREEN
May 1st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
if we’re going to be stretched to capacity by global warming refugees, shouldn’t we stop having regular immigration immediately
May 1st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
turnip28 - Indeed. We not only have the waning super power who won’t budge for fear of losing top dog status, we also have the waxing super power who don’t want anyone or anything to interrupt their meteoric climb to the top dog spot. If we fail to get either of them to act on climate change, there’s not much point. The tipping points are too close at hand, so the latest science says. I fear to post the latest science as I get labelled as a fear monger. (It also pays to wait for further peer-reviewed science to back up the early leaders, lest it turns out to truly be fear mongering!)
May 1st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
StephenR Says:
May 1st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
> China has er, a “plan that calls for a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency between 2006 and 2010.”
> Your ego must be bigger than Winston’s if you expect that to happen
It will happen. Their current level of efficiency is quite low, and they’re building lots of new power stations that are more efficient than the old ones. Only trouble is, it won’t reduce their emissions because their energy consumption is rising so fast.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:08 am
Sorry, regarding ego I was referring to the ‘protests’ that Turnip referred to.
Can’t be too hard to improve on the efficiency of dirty old coal now can it? (with different sources I mean, I suppose you can improve efficiency of coal itself, but I thought that mostly depended on the type of coal).
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I’d say there is already consensus - people displaced by climate change are not refugees as defined by 1951 convention.
Refugees are seen to be a huge problem by governments across the globe. They wish the existing refugees would just go away, and certainly wont be keen to increase the scope of the problem.