Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The bulk of forced migration due to climate change is expected to involve
poor people who are most vulnerable to climate change impacts, and most
resettlement is also expected to occur within poor countries. (Although these
migrants often described as climate refugees, they are not strictly refugees within
the meaning of the Geneva Convention since they are not seeking to escape
a more accurate descriptor.)
Landlessness, homelessness, socio-economic marginalization, food and health
insecurity, and loss of belonging are some of the most important effects of
displacement due to climatic changes. Climate-induced migration will increase
pressure on infrastructure and services; enhance the risk of conflict; and lead
to deterioration of social, health, and educational indicators for those who
are forced to move. Forced migration in Australia's region will also impose an
important potential brake on the region's recent rapid economic growth, with
significant consequences for patterns of trade and general prosperity. Climate-
induced migration is most likely to have destabilizing effects when it involves
significant numbers and when the recipient country has limited or no capacity
to accommodate displaced persons.
Against this background, it is a national self-deception to frame climate-
induced migration as an external 'threat' to national security, as has been the
habit in Australia with certain other border movements over the past decade.
Such a response signals a return to paranoid nationalism, which views our island
continent as a fortress to be defended through border patrols and fails to draw
connections between Australia's fossil-fuelled affluence and the reasons why
many in our neighbourhood may be uprooted.
Most people do not wish to move from their homes, neighbourhood and
country - it is a choice forced upon them by circumstances over which they
have no or very little control. Recent experience in the Asia Pacific region
with communities devastated by extreme events (such as super typhoon
Bopha, which struck the Philippines in early December 2012 and killed over
1,000 people) has indicated that severely impacted communities are - partly
because of the nature of the impact inflicted upon them - unlikely to have
the resources to migrate. From a national
and
human security frame, the
best response to the growing prospect of climate-induced displacement and
migration is not simply to provide emergency relief but also to assist vulnerable
populations to adapt to climate change while simultaneously giving priority
to mitigation, which will reduce the likelihood of migration and ensure that
climate impacts remain within a range that can be managed by vulnerable
communities.
However, since significant climate change-induced migration is still expected
to occur in the region even at 2°C global average warming, then Australia, as a
rich, developed country, should play a key role in developing an international
and regional response to ensure a fair and orderly resettlement. This could
possibly take the form of initiating and framing discussions about stand-alone
agreements such as a regional agreement on climate-displaced peoples, and an
