SOLUTION TO CLIMATE INDUCED MIGRATION: SOONER OR LATER?

 “The choice is not between the current crisis and blissful isolation. The choice is between the current crisis and an orderly, managed system of mass migration. You can have one or the other. There is no easy middle ground.” Although Patrick Kingsley, the author of The New Odyssey: The Story of Europe’s Refugee, wrote this line in a slightly different context, it also stands true for the question been asked here.

                                              

Climate change is not a neoteric phenomenon as we have beheld it since the beginning of the mysteries of existence. The migration of Homo Sapiens from Africa into other parts of the world was solely due to environmental factors. But it wasn’t a problem back then. And now it has become a big deal. Why?

The answer lies not in the process, but the factors affecting the process. It is the increased rate of climate change with all the natural resources depleting and the human population growing at an unbelievable pace, which is the real culprit here. The overconsumption by both abled and equally or more abled individuals accentuated the situation.  Compartmentalized solutions provided from time to time by various organizations at national and international levels did not help either. 

 Discussing solutions for climate-induced migration not only demands, general awareness in the world but also the political will to do so.  Now before scrutinizing the problem, we should dig deeper and get a complete understanding of the crux of the matter. 

The most natural obligation right now is to officially recognize the existence of a group of people who are solely or mostly induced by climatic changes to migrate within the country or into any other country per se. Even now, climate-induced migration has failed to get recognization under the framework of the International Legal Regime for Protection of Refugees or the definition of the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees & 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. There is also a conflict of terminology amid migrants, refugees and, evacuees. Using the term refugee would neglect the Internally Displaced people and also pose a threat to dilute the available international mechanisms and goodwill to cater to the problems of other existing refugees. Climate evacuee has a temporal connotation associated with it while migrants incline to focus more on the pull of destination than the push of origin country. But we generally see the campaigners and the victims use refugee more often probably because of the negative meaning it carries with itself and sympathy it invokes at a glance. I believe that the existing definitions given by International organizations and scholars are too broad or too narrow to deal with, which makes their acceptance troublesome.

       

The second problem somewhat related to the first argument deals with the absence of a legal framework to help out these seemingly stateless folk. None of the legalities promises to cover the issue in one go simply because many of the first-world countries are still reluctant to accept the gravity of the situation and its aftermath. 

When we don’t approach these vulnerable groups with a solution-oriented framework, we miss out on a larger picture and therefore overlooks the threats harboring on women and children in specific. It somewhat hinders the growth of the very base of their institutional development. The hostility inflicted upon women, undermining their safety(dangers they face during fuelwood and water collection), and sanity is necessary to be acknowledged, and, for that, a clear-cut definition of these climate-induced migrants should be engendered. 

The international Human Rights treat these groups of people as ordinary civilians and don’t guarantee them to stay in another country. 1988 UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and 2006 operational Guidelines on Human rights Protection in Situation of Natural Disaster reiterates the loopholes present in their structure and arrangement. But the lack of any further reformative step to deal with the predicament insinuates at their vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Moreover, the threat of losing statehood further widens the gap in the existing protection framework. Even if these gaps are aligned, the implementation problem is eternal. And with countries backing out of conventions, proper execution of laws seems to be a very distant goal to achieve.

Therefore, innovation is the need of the hour since there is a meager amount of guaranteed participation and scare resources available. Community resettlement as a suggestive redressal should be a last resort in and only in case of statelessness and loss of territory of countries such as islands. However, China’s current measure of Resettlement with Development ( RwD) is really commendable as it touches upon the issue of sustainable development and ensures proper utilization of added human resources. It basically hangs on the country’s frame of mind and ability to turn a liability into an asset.

 It would be wrong to say that none of the developed countries have taken any initiative towards providing relief to these climate-induced migrants: the Russian Federation supported the Adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration. 

But, on the other hand, the Brazilian government’s indifference related to tackling the causes of the Amazon forest fire shows that something is just not right. What we need is a collaborative approach towards making this world a safe haven for all those who were forced to leave or have voluntarily left their homes because their climate was not habitable anymore. 

                  

The need of the hour is to have decentralized, integrated, and self-sufficient economies to instrumentalize this difficulty. The collaborative approach should be implemented on various levels, including on a local level. But first and foremost, people should be aware that they are facing a potential threat so that preventive approaches can be adapted and accommodated, especially in the second and third world countries with a definite change in attitude in the advanced economies.