BLOGS | CLIMATE | NAMATATI

With COP27 ending, many issues were discussed, and many resolutions were reached on planting more trees, cutting carbon emissions etc. 

But little was discussed on climate change refugees. This looks like a farfetched story from the future, but it is getting nearer and nearer for it to happening. 

And it is happening, but countries are just refusing to acknowledge climate change refugees. 

With the existence of so many mainland nations like Bangladesh and small island nations like Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Maldives being threatened by climate change and the rising sea levels, there is an urgent need for world leaders to respond with solutions. 

Intergovernmental panel on climate change puts it that climate change-induced sea level rise, sea surface warming and increased frequency and extremity of weather events puts at risk the long-term ability of humans to inhabit low-lying islands (atoll) countries. 

With the current commitment to climate change caused by greenhouse gases, it means that annual warming of 2C by the 2050s and 3C by the 2080s is projected. 

This is as well with a modest decrease in precipitations with heavy rainfall intensity. 

Sea level is projected to rise between 9cm to 88cm by 2100 even if all countries followed the agreed emissions according to the Kyoto Protocol commitments.

This predicted raising sea levels and warming are not unique to these pacific islands alone. Climate change is affecting the whole world and having different impacts on the different nation-states. 

From changing seasons, sea levels rising, and transborder fires to deserts eating up fertile lands. Africa is facing the brute of it. 

Constant flooding destroying cities and millions of properties. Planting and harvest seasons change and the rural farmers who are the greatest percentage of the African population can’t predict anymore. 

One metre rise in sea levels would result in nearly a fifth of Bangladesh being submerged and 30 million people being displaced. 

Over the past century, the Sahara Desert has been expanding by more than 7,600sq km a year and is now 10% larger than it was in 1920. 

The creep has been particularly pronounced to the south, where it has spread into the Sahel by more than 554,000sq km over the same period. 

Countries in the Sahel region each year are losing land to the Sahara Desert. Developing countries in the Sahel region are already plagued with extreme weather, floods, droughts, locusts and conflict. 

It is a near impossible task to deal with all of these issues at once, yet each exacerbates the others. Of course, near home, we have seen what is happening in Karamoja or Kenya’s Dadaab refugee centre which is technically more of a climate change refugee crisis than conflict in Somalia.

To bring it closer to home, have we thought of what happens to the people living on islands in Lake Victoria or even those on the shores of the lake? 

We have seen Hotels and resorts already losing beaches and investment to the lake. 

How about Mombasa, Dare salaam and other coastal settlements which are directly next to the Indian Ocean? Zanzibar’s beaches would be no more and the tourists will be gone. Of course, this is now generating a new type of poverty and economic migrants. 

Bringing up economic refugees both internally and externally.

According to the Environment justice foundation, Extreme weather events – from floods and storms to heatwaves and drought – are already displacing an estimated 41 people each minute, and as temperatures continue to increase, climate extremes will worsen, sea levels will continue rising, and the world’s most vulnerable will bear the brunt. 

Now that we know that people are leaving their homes due to flooding, desertification etc, they need somewhere to live and experience similar rights. 

The challenge is climate change refugees are not recognised by the UN yet. 

‘’Climate change [is] now found to be the key factor accelerating all other drivers of forced displacement. These persons are not truly migrants, in the sense that they did not move voluntarily. As forcibly displaced not covered by the refugee protection regime, they find themselves in a legal void,” UN Secretary-General, António Guterres. 

With the above statement, how will countries like Uganda be able to take on refugees who have truly fled their homes due to climate change knowing that the UN won’t fund such refugees?

Both internal and external climate change refugees might not flee in doves as refugees fleeing conflict, but these refugees are more complex than the previous one. 

These refugees genuinely have no point of return. At least with war, the conflict might end, and people go back to rebuild their lives. 

The case in point is Northern Uganda where people have now moved out of refugee camps and gone back to their homes and livelihoods. 

This is not the case with climate change refugees, most of the livelihoods once destroyed cannot be rebuilt, and if rebuilt, it might not be in their generation. 

This means this type of refugee once they leave their land might never go back. 

Wealthier countries are ignoring this challenge and easily ignoring refugees seeking asylum on climate change grounds by easily labelling them as economic migrants. 

This is half true because once a dessert eats up your land or a lake either dries up like Lake Chad or swells and claims your land like Victoria, what have you got to live on?

How different is that from someone fleeing war? These questions need to be raised in government cabinet rooms and maybe African countries need to be at the frontline pushing this to be part of the UN charter on refugees because now, the global north won’t do it. 

‘’It is only when problems begin to affect wealthier nations do these find impetus to act, and even then, still at a sluggish pace. For example, the state of Florida is being submerged with rising sea levels, yet part of the US government still doubts climate change is real. 

The Sahara situation is similar: desertification could actually spread across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe within the next century, which would certainly stir up its member states,’’ Earth.org

In conclusion, I think climate change refugees should be taken seriously as we genuinely have people fleeing their homes. For example, the an increased Karamojong people living on the streets around towns and cities in Uganda. The government has attempted a few times to send them back, but they have ended up coming back. 

This is simply because there is nothing for them to eat or survive on when back there. This will be the same for any external refugees from South Sudan or Somalia. 

African governments should work hand in hand with the UN to have a recognised status for this refugee because the way things stand, it is not about ‘If’ but ‘When’ the refugees start flowing in or when we actually realise that economic migrants, we have are actually climate change refugees.

The writer Lives in Bristol UK, Works in Finance and is an International Development Practioner.