Climate Change is the biggest threat to the livelihoods of people's of the world. Phenomenons like sea level rise, heat waves, droughts, increased wild-fires, storms, and many of the other climatic catastrophes that are to happen as a consequence of global warming (and let's remember here that according to IPCC reports we have already warmed out planet an average of 1°C) will destroy the infrastructure of communities displacing millions of people from their towns and cities. It is most preoccupying for those living in the global south, developing countries and small island-states because they generally do not possess the resources to quickly respond and adapt to these events. When presented to with eco-systemic change, species generally have two strategies to ensure their survival: they adapt, or the move, and if they do not manage to do this in the critical period they have to do so, they die.
It is recognizing this context, that Climate Change will most likely produce millions of migrants that will have to leave their communities in order to survive this global change we are all living through. The question of climate migrants, thus, becomes particularly important because once their home communities are gone, where will all these people go?
The easy answer to this is: well, to the countries with more space and resources to provide asylum and social integration, which also happen to be those who have played a bigger role in getting us in this trouble. However, the problem is a lot more complex than that. The rise of fascism across the world makes this question a particularly complex one. For European countries, as well as other countries in the middle-east and North America, the latest wave of migrants came from the Syrian war, where people entered (and are still attempting to do so) in the quality of war refugees. In Latinamerica, we are currently seeing migration waves from the ongoing conflict in Venezuela. Both European and North/Latinamerican nations did not have any plans to address this issue and dealt with the crisis in different ways, but as a result of it, many of the governments of these nations closed their boarder and started installing extremely fascist migrations policies to limit the people who came in.
In the case of war, it should be easier to take a look at the historical context in which the war occurs and identify which places should have strong inclusive migration policy, whose countries have a debt. But even in the case of Syria, where the Untied States played a gigantic role, acknowledging the historical debt did not necessarily helped the refugees have easier access to asylum. So what will happen with the case of climate migrants?
If we do not act now, and start demanding our governments for comprehensive and inclusive policy towards climate migrants, then we might end up facing international conflict similar to the one that resulted off the Syrian war, or might end up even worse, closer to the case of World War I and II. So my question now is: when the small nation of Kiribati, or the Maldives, disappear; where will their people go?
From where I see the issue. We need easily accessible structural bodies that deal with this matter, we need comprehensive, inclusive, and intersectional migration policy that acknowledge climate change.
In other words, wee need climate justice, for climate migrants.
The brief mention of some context I made above does not do justice whatsoever to the reality of the situation, but it is way better if you hear it from those who live it. Please find below a recording from a press conference organised by the Climate Action Network (CAN) on the matter featuring stories of climate catastrophes in developing regions and countries of the world.