Extreme weather, rising seas and damaged ecosystems could threaten the safety and livelihoods of billions of people, according to an article published in the web-magazine of Zurich.com. It says collective effort is needed to find solutions to help the ‘world’s forgotten victims’ of climate change.
In March 2018, the UN Human Rights Council found that many people forced from their homes due to the effects of climate change do not fit the definition of ‘refugees’ and calls them ‘the world’s forgotten victims’. This means they cannot access legal protections to their human rights, which could protect them from threats like deportation.
According to the UN high commissioner for refugees, an annual average of 21.5m people have been forcibly displaced by weather-related events – such as floods, storms, wildfires and extreme temperatures – since 2008.
The article said, “Climate change doesn’t just mean extreme weather – rising sea levels, damaged ecosystems and environmental changes all adversely impact people’s lives with the potential to cause massive upheaval on a global scale.”
These numbers are expected to surge in coming decades with forecasts from international thinktank the Institute for Economics and Peace predicting that 1.2bn people could be displaced globally by 2050 due to climate change and natural disasters.
When two category 4 hurricanes hit Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in November 2020, people poured across the border into Mexico and headed towards the US as torrential rains and landslides meant they lost their homes, livelihoods and access to clean water.
In this case, the cause and effect are clear. It is easy to see how unliveable conditions in their home countries caused by extreme weather led people to cross borders as climate refugees.
One way to tackle climate migration is by creating economic opportunity in societies threatened by environmental change. For example, in Bangladesh, cyclones causing floods have increased the salinity of 53% of farmland, meaning farmers are no longer able to grow their normal crops. This poses a deadly threat to communities who rely on agriculture to survive. M