{"id":3962,"date":"2015-12-03T09:01:18","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T17:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/legal-limbo-awaits-millions-of-future-climate-refugees\/"},"modified":"2015-12-03T09:01:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T17:01:18","slug":"legal-limbo-awaits-millions-of-future-climate-refugees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/legal-limbo-awaits-millions-of-future-climate-refugees\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal limbo awaits millions of future ‘climate refugees’"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI \u2014<\/strong> Farmer Ajmad Miyah has given up on ever settling down again. Three years after the sea swallowed his home on the Bangladeshi coast, he still has no property or possessions, and survives by tilling other people\u2019s fields in exchange for food.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve accepted that this is reality,\u201d the lean, 36-year-old Miyah said in the island district of Bhola, where the Meghna River spills into the Bay of Bengal. \u201cMy house will always be temporary now, like me on this Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least 19.3 million people worldwide were driven from their homes by natural disasters last year \u2014 90 percent of which were related to weather events, according to the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.<\/p>\n

Most have stayed within their own countries, including millions displaced in the South Asian delta nation of Bangladesh. But as their numbers rise, more will feel compelled to cross international borders in search of safe haven. They could end up in a state of a legal limbo with no rights or guaranteed help.<\/p>\n

A study in November suggested 470 million to 760 million people worldwide could lose their land to rising seas in this century if global warming is allowed to continue unchecked. The study, by the nonprofit research and news organization Climate Central, looked at global population data and sea rise projections.<\/p>\n

Some countries like Bangladesh and the Philippines stand to lose large portions of land; some small island nations like the Marshall Islands or the Maldives could effectively disappear.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Defense has called climate change \u201can urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources such as food and water,\u201d according to a report this year.<\/p>\n

Yet climate change does not make one a refugee, a designation for people forced to leave their home countries because of war, persecution or other violence. Someone seeking refuge from environmental disaster cannot apply for refugee status, lacks protection under the U.N. High Convention for Refugees and can be sent back to their countries of origin without question at any time.<\/p>\n

The issue may remain unresolved through the two-week summit in Paris, aimed at hammering out a new treaty to limit global warming and deal with its effects. The U.S. is among the countries that oppose addressing migration issues in the treaty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is actually becoming a fast-developing disaster,\u201d said Harjeet Singh, the international policy manager for the advocacy group Action Aid International. \u201cThe world is still not talking enough about the climate migration that is going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Refugee crisis in the making<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carlon Zedkaia doubts his 11-year-old daughter will be able to remain in their home in the Marshall Islands, a cluster of coral atolls near the equator in the Pacific that was flooded this year by an extreme high tide.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if she has a future here,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we humans do something about it, about climate change, then yes, she might have a future here. If not, then she might have to move somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of his neighbors have already left for Arkansas, taking advantage of a three-decade-old agreement allowing Marshallese to live, work and seek education in the landlocked U.S. state. Most vulnerable countries, however, have no such safety net.<\/p>\n

New Zealand deported a man back to the tiny South Pacific island nation of Kiribati earlier this year after its Supreme Court dismissed his appeal \u2014 the world\u2019s first \u2014 for asylum as a climate refugee.<\/p>\n

Some in vulnerable countries fear they could face the same hostile reception that Syrian war refugees have received from some countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s happening now in Europe with all these refugees will be a small thing compared to what will happen when climate change takes effect,\u201d Marshall Islands President Christopher Loeak told The Associated Press in his nation\u2019s capital of Majuro.<\/p>\n

Yet, many of them believe rich nations should shoulder most of the responsibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.N. protocol on refugees has to be revised, and responsibility for climate change migrants has to be taken by the developed countries, who are responsible for climate emissions,\u201d said Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, head of a Bangladeshi organization that aims to help people affected by climate change called COAST. \u201cThis is a matter of these countries\u2019 survival.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Sinking Bangladesh<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bangladesh is considered one of the world\u2019s most vulnerable countries to climate change. Scientists have projected seas will rise an average of around 3 feet this century. But just a 26-inch rise would swallow some 40 percent of the country\u2019s productive land, according to World Bank experts helping the country devise ways to cope with this change.<\/p>\n

Yet, Bangladesh has no specific plan for dealing with its own people displaced by climate-related disasters, other than offering them temporary shelter. Many have fled to Dhaka\u2019s overcrowded slums, living precariously on menial work. Others live marginal lives at the water\u2019s edge, unsure of where they can go.<\/p>\n

For an already jam-packed country like Bangladesh \u2014 with one of the world\u2019s highest population densities with almost 2,500 people per square mile \u2014 losing so much land is disastrous.<\/p>\n

As the country becomes more crowded, incentive will grow for displaced Bangladeshis to cross the border into India. Yet New Delhi also has no plans for dealing with its own citizens displaced by climate change, let alone people from other countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething has to be done now. We are already seeing people moving,\u201d said Mariam Traore Chazalnoel, a climate change and migration expert with the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration. <\/p>\n

Industrialized countries \u201care beginning to understand that there is a stake for them, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

In October, poor and developing nations known as the Group of 77 & China submitted a proposal for the Paris talks to deliver a plan for climate migrants \u2014 an effort started in 1991 when the island nation of Vanuatu suggested a global insurance scheme to compensate climate-induced losses.<\/p>\n

Many industrialized countries, however, are wary of talk about migration or having to compensate those affected by climate change. The U.S. is leading other industrialized nations including Japan, Australia and Switzerland in opposing the inclusion of measures on migration in the hoped-for Paris treaty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what the developed countries are scared of is that millions of people are going to come and knock on their door because of climate disasters,\u201d Chazalnoel said. \u201cBut there are ways to ensure that this does not happen\u201d \u2014 mainly by making sure countries can adapt to weather and environment changes so that \u201cpeople won\u2019t actually have to move.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the sidelines of U.N. climate talks, Cazalnoel said the first step in this direction is to have a reference to the issue of climate refugees in the climate agreement being negotiated in Paris.<\/p>\n

Other challenges in addressing the issue include determining who would qualify as a so-called climate refugee, and what rights they might have in other countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf migration is not mentioned in the Paris treaty, it\u2019s a step back but not necessarily the end of the world,\u201d said legal expert Cosmin Corendea with the United Nations University in Bonn, Germany. \u201cThis is a continuing discussion, and it will not die.\u201d<\/p>\n

The European Union remains undecided on whether to include a provision on migration in the Paris treaty, though European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in his Sept. 9 state of the union address that \u201cClimate refugees will become a new challenge \u2014 if we do not act swiftly.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Bangladesh\u2019s island of Kutubdia, the situation is already bleak.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur parents and grandparents lived a much better life,\u201d said 61-year-old Rahima Begum, now huddled temporarily in a makeshift bamboo shanty. \u201cWe had so much rice in stock … God has taken everything away, into the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Nick Perry in Majuro, Marshall Islands, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Athar Parvaiz and Karl Ritter in Paris, and Shahria Sharmin in Dhaka, Bangladesh, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Katy Daigle: http:\/\/twitter.com\/katydaigle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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