Climate migrants could face a world of closing doors

France24 ^ | February 28, 2022

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Paris (AFP) – People driven from their homes as global warming redraws the map of habitable zones are unlikely to find refuge in countries more focused on slamming shut their borders than planning for a climate-addled future, according to a top expert on migration.

From fleeing a typhoon to relocating in anticipation of sea level rise, climate migration covers a myriad of situations and raises a host of questions.

But one thing is sure: the number of climate refugees is going to increase in the coming decades, according to a major UN report on climate impacts and vulnerability released on Monday.

"We are on the cusp of a major environmental change that is going to redistribute populations on a planetary scale," Francois Gemenne, a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, told AFP.

Most people forced to abandon their homes due to droughts, storms and floods made worse by global warming are in the global South, and most remain within the borders of their countries.

Many of those who do wind up on the edge of Europe or the southern border of the United States are often labelled "economic migrants", suggesting that they are pulled by opportunity rather than pushed by catastrophe, Gemenne said.

Sea level rise alone could displace hundreds of millions of people by century's end, with low-lying coastal regions expected to be home to more than a billion people by 2050, according to the IPCC report.

But predictions of how many climate migrants there might be in 30, 50 or 80 years are confounded by unknown variables and choices not yet made.

"It's very complicated and hard to say because we're talking about human behaviour, which can sometimes be irrational", Gemenne said.

"It's not really something that the IPCC can model."

[BiteYourSelf]

🐄🖕💩

[Organic Panic]

I trust Obama’s beach front mansions will not be effected.