1. At the forthcoming meeting of the parties to the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-15) in
Copenhagen in December 2009, states are expected to reach a new
binding global agreement on climate change action. This agreement
will replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.
2. As long ago as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) wrote that the gravest effects of climate change might
be those on human migration.
In
its report of 2007, the panel further substantiated these findings
by providing indications that climate change will raise the risk
of humanitarian emergencies, as a result of,
inter
alia, increasing intensity of natural hazards.
However,
the issue was only very recently introduced in climate change negotiations
and agreements. The international community has focused primarily
on the scientific aspects of climate change, with the aim of understanding
the processes at play and mitigating the impact of human activity.
This is also reflected in the report prepared by Mr Prescott on behalf
of the Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional
Affairs.
3. Yet global warming and subsequent environmental degradation
are likely to pose serious humanitarian and human rights challenges
as well as challenges in terms of human security, which should be
the core concerns to the Council of Europe. In this context, the
rapporteur recalls the Assembly’s recent
Recommendation 1823 (2008) on global
warming and ecological disasters and
Resolution 1655 (2009) on environmentally
induced migration and displacement: a 21st century challenge. The
latter emphasised that the movements of persons who are compelled
to move as a consequence of natural disasters and other environmental
events caused by global warming will be among the major challenges
facing countries in the decades to come. It called for a better
co-ordination at international level for working towards a common
action plan that would include risk reduction, humanitarian response,
adaptation and development. It also encouraged improved identification
of the existing gaps in operational and normative protection of
those forced to move because of environmental degradation.
4. The rapporteur is pleased to note that a certain breakthrough
in this direction, albeit a modest one, has been achieved in the
current process of negotiations of the post-Kyoto agreement. While
the 1997-2012 Kyoto Protocol commitments focus primarily on climate
change mitigation, the new draft negotiation text for Copenhagen
addresses the consequences that can no longer be avoided, and the
need for climate change adaptation.
Several UN and non-UN aid agencies have
been negotiating to include an established link between the effects
of climate change and human mobility in the agreed outcome, including
these as part of the adaptation activities.
It
is to be welcomed that the latest draft negotiating text
makes a reference to migration
(national and international) in the context of adaptation action.
The humanitarian community requests that displacement should be
explicitly mentioned along with migration, arguing that the majority
of movements prompted by changes in climatic conditions and environmental
degradation will occur within the borders of countries, and that
people forced to move internally fall under a specific protection
mechanism.
5. In addition to a paragraph recognising migration as means
of adaptation, the draft agreement includes language on risk management
and disaster risk reduction. There is also text suggesting that
priority be given to the needs of the most vulnerable people (rather
than states). The rapporteur considers that this is a good first
step in the right direction; however, given the opportunity that
the Copenhagen agreement presents, more should be aimed at.
1. Consequences of global warming on human life,
livelihood and mobility
6. Whereas migration is known to be one of the oldest
coping strategies for dealing with a degradation of environmental
conditions, it is the role of human activity in contributing to
global warming and environmental degradation, and the scale of its
impacts, that calls for urgent action.
7. Natural disasters and gradual environmental degradation –
such as floods, storms, droughts, rising sea levels and desertification
– are impacting on an increasing number of people each year, adversely
affecting human lives and livelihoods in many communities. Nine
out of ten disasters today are estimated to be climate related,
which does not necessarily mean that they are caused by global warming
but are a consequence of adverse weather conditions. The total number
of people affected by these disasters has risen sharply over the past
decade with an average of 211 million people directly affected each
year, nearly five times the number affected by conflict in the same
period.
8. An estimated 50 to 200 million people will have to move by
the middle of the century as a result of degrading environmental
conditions, either within their countries or across borders, on
a permanent or temporary basis. Already today, according to some
estimations, over 30 million people worldwide are being displaced
because of the increase in desertification, droughts, sea-level
rise and extreme weather events, which exceeds the number of those
obliged to flee because of armed conflicts and persecution. The
Norwegian Refugee Council recently indicated that as many as 20
million people may have been displaced by climate-induced sudden-onset
natural disasters in 2008 alone.
9. While migration is already a form of adaptation for some,
the many millions expected to be displaced by prolonged droughts,
repeated floods or storms will be especially vulnerable and require
significant assistance and protection. As the Assembly’s recent
Resolution 1655 (2009) underscores, environmentally-induced human
movement is almost never mono-causal; and the different degrees
of force and the complex set of influencing factors blur the traditional
concepts of migration and displacement.
10. There is a growing recognition among scholars and policy makers
of the fact that the dramatic increase of people compelled to move
inside their countries or across borders because of environmental
reasons will pose major challenges for human security, peace and
social and economic development on an international scale.
11. The effects of environmental degradation on peoples’ lives
are not experienced uniformly. It is well known that the burden
of providing for migrants and displaced persons will be borne by
the poorest countries that are heavily dependent on agriculture,
lacking resources and possibilities to prevent further environmental crisis.
Most in danger are vulnerable groups such as women, children, the
elderly, persons with disabilities and indigenous peoples in the
least developed countries, whose capacity to adapt to the effects
of environmental degradation is extremely poor, those residing in
low-lying costal areas and areas of considerable over-population.
12. Another challenge will be posed to low-lying small island
states by rising sea levels. It is estimated that some small island
states such as Tuvalu or Kiribati may disappear altogether, raising
difficult questions of statelessness.
2. Responses to environmentally induced human movement
patterns
13. The fundamental issue in the global warming and migration
nexus is that it is a global process, and as such, it is the responsibility
of the global community to engage in proactive intervention. Adequate
measures for prevention, adaptation and mitigation need to be taken
by the global community in order for the hotspot countries to reduce
their vulnerability to the impacts of environmental disasters and
manage the evolution of environmental disasters.
14. Approaches, which address environmental issues in isolation
from other variables and processes, will not be sufficient to solve
the problem.
There
is thus a need to combine emissions reductions with other strategies,
so that environmentally induced migration may be reduced and international
security increased.
15. The rapporteur wishes to emphasise two key spheres of global
action that are vital to be incorporated in any future international
negotiation on curbing the effects of global warming. These include
strengthening of adaptation capacities and risk reduction measures,
and enhancing protection and assistance mechanisms that apply to
persons compelled to move as a consequence of natural disasters
and other environmental events.
16. Migration may be used as an effective adaptation mechanism,
particularly
in the early stages of environmental degradation, allowing for the
diversification of sources of income, for example. In other instances,
leaving their places of habitual residence on their own, or being
evacuated or relocated, may be an expression of failed adaptation,
which constitutes the only survival option. The latter instances
need to be managed by national authorities in co-operation with
the international community to ensure adequate assistance to and
protection of the persons concerned. These considerations need to
be factored into national policies,
but
also into international policies.
17. Global adaptation policies should be based on coherence at
national and international levels with mitigation and other relevant
policy domains, such as development, humanitarian action, migration
and health. International humanitarian and development agencies
have suggested that adaptation strategies and action should consider
the human mobility, health and demographic implications as well
as their economic and social consequences. They would need to consider
the humanitarian consequences of global warming induced environmental
degradation, including migration, displacement and the need to prepare
for and address them. Finally these strategies would consider giving
priority to the particular needs of the people most vulnerable to and
the people most affected by environmental degradation, including
the displaced and those at risk of displacement.
18. From the Council of Europe perspective, the protection of
people compelled to move due to climate and environmental factors
is of paramount importance.
19. The majority of those displaced by a natural disaster or the
effects of adverse weather conditions will remain within the border
of their country of origin. The protection of persons displaced
within their country due to sudden-onset disasters or environmental
degradation falls under the normative framework of the United Nations
Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which outlines their
specific rights inherent in and derived from international human
rights and humanitarian laws.
20. However, some displacement is likely to take place across
internationally recognised state borders. Unlike the situation of
internal displacement, there is a major legal gap for those who
are forcibly displaced across an international border by a sudden
onset disaster or gradual environmental degradation. They are unlikely
to qualify as refugees, unless the government has consciously withheld
or obstructed assistance in order to punish or marginalise them
on one of the five grounds specified in the 1951 Convention relating
to the Status of Refugees. Consequently, they are not eligible for
protection under existing refugee law, as environmental factors
causing movements across international borders are not grounds,
in and of themselves, for granting refugee status under the 1951
Refugee Convention.
21. Nonetheless, cross-border movements due to natural disasters
and environmental degradation raise specific issues of responsibility
for both the state of origin and host states. Both the legal status
and the rights of these persons are unclear. States should therefore
consider enhancing protection mechanisms for those persons who do
not qualify as refugees but whose return is not feasible or not
reasonable due to circumstances in the place of origin and/or personal
conditions, including particular vulnerabilities.
22. The fundamental principle of
non-refoulement,
which finds expression in a large number of human rights instruments
and international customary law, establishes that no person, regardless
of status or conduct, may be returned in any manner whatsoever to
a country where his or her life or integrity would be at risk.
Arguably, where return
is impossible or cannot reasonably be required from the individual,
an obligation of the foreign state also exists to at least temporarily
admit a person to remain. What the principle of
non-refoulement lacks, however,
is to provide more practical indication as to how to regulate the
entry and the specific status of the displaced in the receiving
country.
It would
therefore be desirable that subsidiary protection to those displaced
across an international border, either temporarily or permanently
if return is impossible, be granted as suggested by the Assembly’s
Resolution 1655 (2009).
3. Conclusions and recommendations
23. The rapporteur is encouraged by the overall growing
recognition of the consequences of global warming on human mobility
as well as of the humanitarian consequences, and the fact that these
notions have been introduced to the current draft of the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). He considers
it desirable that the final version of the draft resolution on the
challenges of climate change prepared by the Committee on the Environment,
Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs would take into account
this evolution within the negotiation process.
24. The rapporteur wishes to underscore that, while recognition
is important, the real challenge lies in developing consistent global
policy and action commitments in such areas as:
- the prevention of environmentally
induced displacement through mitigation, adaptation, disaster risk
and vulnerability reduction, public awareness, early warning and
improved preparedness, while preserving the choice of individuals
to migrate;
- strengthening of the international assistance and protection
measures concerning those displaced by the negative effects of global
warming and environmental degradation, and finding durable solutions
for them;
- bridging the gaps in or lack of enforcement of existing
international human rights standards in the protection of environmentally
induced migrants crossing international borders due to natural disasters and
environmental degradation.
25. Governments of the Council of Europe member states should
be called upon to support these issues in the ongoing UNFCCC negotiations.
The new agreement will be the cornerstone document for any major initiative
related to environmental change in the years to come. It is therefore
of utmost importance that the humanitarian consequences, including
that of migration and displacement, and action commitments are integrated
in this document.