Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
In practice, European policy on climate and migration remains ambivalent. It is
well-known that EU member states have gradually tightened rules on migration
into Europe. The formal EU policy has been to elaborate a balanced policy
through its so-called Global Approach to Migration. This involves non-EU states
agreeing to cooperate on stemming
ows of irregular migrants, while in return the
EU frees up the
ow of legal migration. In general, the
gures suggest a tightening
of entry conditions. In the period 2007
11 immigration into Europe declined by
6 per cent, while emigration from the EU increased by 13 per cent. Asylum
applications have fallen by a third since the early 1990s; acceptance rates have
tumbled to only 29 per cent. Member states still treat claims di
-
erently, despite
attempts since 1999 and the Dublin regulation to agree a common EU asylum
system; this was supposed to be completed in 2012.
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In May 2011 a Commission
communication advocated a new series of dialogues on this balanced approach.
Commitments were made for increasing the powers of Frontex, the border control
agency; appointing an EU anti-tra
cking coordinator; a stricter returns policy; and
an entry
edged
EU border guard. The European border surveillance system (Eurosur) proposed by
the Commission in 2008 and the
-
exit control system.
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Some member states have pressed for a fully
for building up border guards are
now being beefed up dramatically. After the Tunisian revolts, member states
changed Schengen rules to make it easier to reintroduce national controls.
The in
'
border fund
'
uence of climate-induced migration in explaining these policy trends has
been negligible. Indeed, it is striking how absent climate concerns have been from
the evolution of European migration policies. The aforementioned October 2012
EP report worried that EU institutions had failed to devise contingency plans for
an increase in climate-driven migration.
41
Former minister Charles Clarke laments
that there is still no linkage of migration aims with foreign, security, trade and aid
policies.
42
Migration is one of the areas of climate security most exhaustively
covered by analysis, but least incorporated into policy-making. In private, o
cials
from DG Home (the Commission
s interior ministry equivalent) admit they have
expressly eschewed any involvement in the climate security agenda. Their view
is that the general provisions for strengthening border controls and emergency
surveillance mechanisms will be appropriate to and increasingly available for
climate-induced migration. Migration o
'
cials see the climate security agenda as
unduly complicating the picture when even the current drivers of mass movements
are proving so hard to manage.
The EU still has no mapping of what migration
erent
parts of the world as a result of climate change. It lags behind the US in preparing
for climate migration. US government bodies have begun running exercises
focusing on the impact of displacements within other regions, for example how
ows are likely from di
ooding in Bangladesh will drive migrants into India, causing instability which in
