In most instances – while resilient – they are the least resourced to manage the effects of climate change and are presently without any international agency mandated to protest and defend them.

I returned in March from Syria from a mission that was assessing the protection needs of approximately a million Iraqi refugees who have been displaced to Syria due to the conflict in Iraq.

The Temporary Protection Regime (TPR) has been applied to all Iraqi nationals in Syria upon the consent of the Syrian authorities. With this protection the Iraqis are considered as refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a representative in Syria – currently the biggest UNHCR operation in the world.

Because the Iraqis in Syria are considered to be refugees they have a number of entitlements – they are accorded international refugee protection, receive some material assistance, and the UNHCR is seeking a durable solution for this case load (resettlement, local integration, voluntary return).

At the same time, it is estimated that there are more than two million Iraqis¹ who, because of the events surrounding the conflict in Iraq, have fled their homes but have not yet crossed international borders. They are still in Iraq and are called the internally displaced.² Because they

1.Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre Website.Accessed 3 March 2008. http://www.internaldisplacement.org

2. Internally Displaced Persons are “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border.’ (Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, Introduction, para.2)

To try to separate economic factors from political has been increasingly difficult.You only have to look at our own political landscape to appreciate this.

The conflict in Darfur is often characterised as an ethnic conflict, pitting Arab militias against black rebels and farmers. Interestingly, the majority of the people in Darfur are actually IDPs, Sudanese displaced within their own country, but for reasons too complex to go into here they are of concern to UNHCR and are commonly referred to as refugees.

However, in June 2007 in an article in The Washington Post⁴ the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, wrote:“[a] mid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change”.

Here Ban Ki Moon is unpacking some of the complexity of why people have fled in

Climate change refugees
are outside the mandate of international protection

Darfur.This move to explore the underlying and historical factors is similar to how explanations of conflict and genocide in Rwanda shifted from a narrative of ethnic conflict between Tutsi and Hutu to a much more complex analysis centring on colonial powers and access to resources, education and political power.

The refugees in Darfur ‘fit’ within the classic international framework of forced migration because the situation has evolved from drought and lack of access to traditional grazing land, to conflict, displacement and encampment.

By 2010 Anke Strauss, of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), predicts that the world will see an additional fifty million ‘environmental migrants’ which she defines as “persons or groups of persons who, because of sudden or progressive changes in the environment affecting adversely their livelihoods, have to move from their habitual homes to temporary or durable new homes, either within their country or abroad”.⁵

At present this population falls outside of the two principle tools for providing international protection,assistance and advocacy to the forcibly displaced – the 1951 Refugee Convention and the Guiding Principles for the Internally Displaced.

New patterns of migration and displacement are rapidly emerging and they are not addressed by the current instruments of international law.

Those moving because of climate change and environmental degradation are outside the mandate of any of the present international recognised instruments and mechanisms for protection and assistance.

Very recently,⁶ the UN High Commissioner for Refugees,Antonio Guterres,wrote that there are three main causes for people moving:

4. ‘A Climate Culprit in Darfur’ Ban Ki Moon, The Washington Post, 16 June 2007, p.A15 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061501857.html

5.Anke Strauss,Address to the High Level Segment of the Fifteenth Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, 9 May 2007.

6.‘The nomads of no-man’s land’Antonio Guterres. The Advertiser, 1 March 2008.

have not crossed an international border their plight receives less international attention.

In recent years, you might be surprised to know that the number of refugees in our world has been decreasing. At the same time however there has been a large increase in the numbers of internally displaced.

There are many reasons for these variations, including the nature of the modern conflicts and the restrictions states place on people trying to cross borders and seek protection.

It is presently estimated that internally displaced people now outnumber refugees by two to one.

As there is no single UN agency mandated to protect and assist the estimated twenty-five million internally displaced persons UNHCR has joined with other UN agencies, the intergovernmental organisation IOM, the ICRC and International non-government organisations to share the responsibility for assisting and protecting those displaced within their own country. For UNHCR this has required a large institutional shift in focus and capacity.

As the plight of the twenty-five million internally displaced persons has become apparent there has been considerable international effort to develop some guiding principles, which, in line with international human rights and humanitarian law,set out the rights and guarantees relevant to the protection of IDPs in all phases of displacement: providing protection against arbitrary displacement; protection and assistance during displacement; and during return or internal resettlement and reintegration³.

The reasons why people flee their homes are always complex and again in recent times we have seen attempts to restrict peoples’ access to protection by arguing, for example, that some people are economic migrants and not ‘genuine refugees’.

3. See the website http://www.internaldisplacement.org/ for more details

 

page 2

• Poverty

• Climate change and environmental degradation

• Conflict and persecution

He wrote that the international community was ill-equipped to deal with these movements, and urged civil society, media and the private sector to engage in all these areas, especially in the area of advocacy.

Focusing on the effects climate change, Guterres acknowledges that while discussions about climate change are taking place there is still no real strategy for how to cope with it.

In October last year I visited Kiribati, a nation state in the Pacific formerly known as the Gilbert, Phoenix and Line Islands. Kiribati, consists of thirty-two low-lying atolls and one island. It has a population of approximately 92,000 people. It is one of the nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Kiribati is amongst the nations that emit the lowest levels of CO² but it is at the forefront of experiencing the devastating effects of these emissions. The water table has been inundated with salt water and there is infrastructure damage to roads and sea walls.

The people of Kiribati are often characterised as a ‘conservative’ people, unsure of the science of climate.They frequently attribute the changes that they are experiencing to the actions of God.

Without adaptation Kiribati could face economic damage of up to 34% of its 1998 GDP due to climate change and sea level rise.

The President of Kiribati, Anote Tong, has said that many forms of climate adaptation are possibly too late for his nation and that now is the time to be talking about the ultimate form of adaptation – migration.

While climate change is now firmly on the political agenda, high costs are currently being paid by those already affected. Arguably these people, while resilient in spirit, are the least resourced to meet the costs of climate change.

It is important that we anticipate the needs of people who are already experiencing the effects of climate change.

Australia needs to plan now for how we as a nation will assist those affected and displaced by climate change, especially our neighbours.

Dr Maryanne Loughry RSM is Associate Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service, Australia. This is an edited version of her lecture at this year’s Jesuit Lenten series entitled Climate Change: Who pays the price?