Climate Change and Who Should Accept Refugees

Ecology Debate

The problem of rising sea levels and the displacement of vulnerable populations is one that scholars and researchers have addressed from different perspectives. However, one of the problems of wading into this debate is understanding whether the points of view provided by researchers adequately address the problem at hand. This paper provides a synthesis of the ideas of several authors to show that even though the issue of climate change is one that nations can address effectively in different ways to various degrees it is also an issue that can be exploited by the military defense industry, which represents a threat to the application of appropriate climate policy overall.

What’s at Stake?

What is at stake in the issue of climate change is the well-being of ecologically vulnerable countries, whose populations could be displaced as a result of rising sea levels. Many scholars agree that climate change is a problem, but the question is: how best should it be addressed? One thing that some may not realize is that climate policy is capable of being corrupted by third party groups that have their own agenda, distinct from addressing climate change. The defense industry is one such example of a group that can influence this debate for its own benefit. Nations have to be careful about accepting policies that have been influenced by the defense industry while simultaneously realizing that not all nations can address policy in the same ways or to the same extent. Every country can play a part in addressing this issue, but they must be on guard against wolves in sheep’s clothing. For that reason, it is important to look at the various scholars who have voiced perspectives on this matter. When taken individually they represent but one view; but when synthesized and analyzed, they offer a much greater understanding of the actual nature of this problem. Examining the evidence, conducting analysis, and framing the argument for why this problem has to be approached carefully should be the goal of all.

Evidence

As Jolie notes, climate change is already displacing millions of people in ecologically vulnerable regions. She cites a study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which pointed out that Bangladesh alone could lose 17.5% of its land mass due to rising sea levels. Jolie goes on to argue that this is an issue that demands international cooperation, and shows that this is already underway: “The new Global Compact on Refugees, adopted this year by the U.N. General Assembly, puts forward new international arrangements for sharing responsibility for refugees” (4). Bayes Ahmed goes one step further to argue that based on the amount of pollution each country produces around the globe, these countries should accept an equal percentage of refugees displaced by climate change: “Australia and the USA each should take responsibility of 10 per cent each of the overall global share of climate refugees, followed by Canada and Saudi Arabia (9 per cent each), South Korea (7 per cent) and Russia, Germany and Japan (6 per cent each)” (1). This approach is somewhat similar to that offered by Eckersley; however, Eckersely argues that refugees should have the right to choose their host countries.

Hartmann urges caution on this matter. She points to conflicts in states like Darfur as examples of how the defense industry can spin a power-play into a climate change issue: “The construction of Darfur as a climate conflict should serve as canary in the coal mine that something is amiss when environmental determinism overrides serious analysis of power relations” (237). She also notes that studies conducted in Kenya and Senegal showed that climate change actually led to positive outcomes in terms of the development of better strategies for managing resources. She references numerous studies, which indicate that “there is a rich body of empirical case studies of African agriculture, pastoralism and forestry that challenges conventional neo-Malthusian narratives about population, scarcity and conflict” (237). She also references scholars who have shown that “migration is too complex a process to label simply as environmental or climate-induced” (238). The danger of discussing this issue simplistically, Hartmann argues, is that it can lead to the application of policies that are mere power-plays for the defense industry. Hingley sides with Hartmann on this matter in terms of lamenting the use of the term “climate refugees,” which she says is “detrimental at both the conceptual and experiential level, making its deconstruction a complex but necessary task” (158).

Kabisch et al. note that while there are many different ways to think about climate responsibility, one area that is often overlooked is how much of a positive impact nature-based solutions can have. The authors explain that simply by urban green parks in areas where urbanization has depleted green fields, high temperatures can be ameliorated; green roofs can help bring down temperatures, which can reduce pollution caused by the need to consume energy to keep cities cool.

Analysis

Starting first with the evidence provided by Jolie, one can see that climate change is a serious threat: the displacement of millions is at stake. However, when one broadens one’s perspective and includes the studies performed by Hartmann and Hingley, one sees that the issue is actually more complex than Jolie makes it seem. People become refugees for many different reasons—not always or even ever because of climate change. Both of these authors provide sufficient evidence to argue rather compellingly that using the term “climate refugees” simplifies a problem that is actually complex. This simplistic approach makes it possible for other groups, like the defense industry, to step in with their own proposals of how to control the issue, which typically leads to smaller states and populations losing their sovereignty as a result of imperialistic operations on the part of larger states with big military budgets. Bayes tries to situate the issue within a framework of responsibility, showing how certain developed nations pollute the most and thus should bear the majority of the responsibility of caring for refugees—but Bayes fails to address the complexity of the situation to the extent that Hartmann and Hingley do. Eckersley argues on behalf of refugees, saying that they should get to choose where they want to go rather than have other states decide their fate. This is a reasonable and fair argument, but it also avoids the complexities highlighted by Hartmann and Hingley, which do alter the manner in which one must view this issue. Kabisch et al. help to show that states can take a non-interventionist approach to combating climate change by addressing matters domestically—i.e., by implementing green solutions in urban areas to help reduce energy consumption and pollution. This is another reasonable argument, and while it also avoids the complexities and problems raised by Hartmann and Hingley it also does not really need to address them because its focus is on domestic action rather than on international policy. If each state takes measures on its own to curb its own contribution to pollution, Kabisch et al. rightly reason that the issue of climate change can be curtailed, which would help to reduce the risk of ecological disaster in ecologically vulnerable countries in the first place.

Argument

One of the most important points to consider from the synthesis of information is the term “climate refugee,” which is problematic as Hingley points out because it simplistically labels a population without considering all the different reasons and factors that lead into a person moving from one place to another. Hingley shows, for instance, that ecological factors are rarely the whole story when it comes to refugee crises, and even that many people in Oceanic regions prefer to stay in their native lands in spite of any climate changes that might occur. Jolie falls into this trap when she lumps all refugees in with climate change: she does this subtly by arguing that most refugees want to return to their homes, but that climate change may not allow them to do so because there will be no homes to go to. The main reason people become refugees, however, as Hartmann points out, is that war breaks out in their region, as in Darfur—or Syria—and it has more to do with military interventionism than it does with changes in the ecology of the region. So it is important to understand how the term “climate refugee” is used: it carries a great deal of assumption, that is not necessarily reasonable. Refugees typically pick up and move because their communities are decimated by war, not by changing climate, which is also Hingley’s main point. Hingley’s use of evidence is much more substantial than Jolie’s.

The other authors, Bayes and Eckersley focus on the problem of what to do about refugees, and Eckersley makes the same assumption that Hingley warns against: Eckersley assumes that refugees are a result of climate change—but that is not the case in any real sense of the word. The situations are more complicated than that and various factors, such as politics, conflict, family, economy all factor into people’s decisions to leave their native land. The assumption that people are leaving because of changes in the climate is not substantiated. It may become a problem in the future, as the authors point out, but currently there is not data enough to validate the term “climate refugee.” Yet the defense industry uses this expression to validate its own defense budget and intervention policies, which can lead to an increase in refugees over time, as foreign interventionism would be the kind of factor that makes people want to leave.