This morning I attended Conversations about Climate Change Adaption: Displacement, Migration and Planned Relocation at the Brookings Institute. I found this event particularly interesting because I am currently taking a Climate and Human Ecology class at George Washington University. In my class we recently talked about how climate has influenced history and events. For example the Irish potato famine in 1845 led to the Irish migrating to the Americas and New Zealand among other countries. This historical migration relates to today’s event, which covered the impact on human mobility from climate change and how it is becoming increasingly discussed as it becomes more and more relevant.
The panelists held the event in the form of a conversation, exploring the potential impacts of climate change on migration, displacement and planned relocation. They first introduced approaches to climate change and how there is a shift from trying to only practice climate change mitigation to also incorporating adaptation efforts. One form of adaption is migration. Climate change will lead to droughts and food shortages in certain parts of the world, while flooding and inundating others. This means that migration is necessary. In fact, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that, “the greatest single impact of climate change might be on human migration.” Panelist Dr. Beyani, a rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons by the Human Rights Council, presented the statistic that by 2050, 100 million people may be displaced by climate change. In some African countries such as Ethiopia, recent droughts and subsequent famines have already led people to move to other areas.
The last panelist, Dr. Mearns, presented criticisms of the argument that migration is an effective form of climate change adaption. He argued that it is impossible to record exactly how many people migrated only for reasons of climate change. He also pointed out that people should be careful about seeming deterministic in saying that migration is due directly from climate change. Climate change does not directly cause migration; however there are many reasons for migration deriving from climate change such as economic incentives if the effects of climate change prevent someone from making a living how they previously did, such as farmers who live in an area that will be affected by an increasingly hotter and drier climate.
There will have to be a lot of policy written to accommodate all the future migration taking place, such as the planned relocation of peoples in islands that will be inundated, and policy of who or who doesn’t qualify as an urban resident. In China a household registration system called hukou (户口) exists which keeps rural people in rural areas, and perpetuates China’s urban-rural divide.[1] If your hukou says you are from the countryside but you work in a city, you don’t get many of the benefits that come from having a city hukou, and you probably have to pay more in fees. Anyway it will be interesting to see what new policy is made across the world as migration becomes increasingly more relevant from changes in climate.
Liz
[1] Keith B. Richburg. “China ‘hukou’ system deemed outdated as way of controlling access to services.” The Washington Post. Aug. 15, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/14/AR2010081402009.html
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