Migration & Climate Change

The Fourth Academic Summit of UCL IRDR was held on the 16th June 2016, and the topic of focus was on mobility and climate change. While people have historically been moving about due to impacts on livelihoods due to changes in their local environment, the term “environmental migrants” was not coined till this millennium. Although “environmental migrants~ are used interchangeably with “climate refugees”, the conventional term of ‘refugee’ does not include those who flee their origins due to climate issues.

Evidence has linked climate change with a number of slow developing natural hazards such as drought and desertification, which are major causes of food shortages. Researchers think the most common cause of climate migration is the decrease in food safety in migrants’ local surroundings. With the increase of natural hazards, the number of migrants that have to move due to such climate changes will only be on the rise. As small islands are most impacted, such populations will most likely to have to leave their homes due to changes in the climate. IPCC claimed that ‘the single greatest impact of climate change could be migration’ (1990).

With the problems of the European refugee influx and other various natural disasters around the world, the humanitarian system is potentially at its breaking point where there is lack of capacity to respond to the increasing emergencies in the world. Humanitarian aid is required for those who move and also for those who do not. Those who were not able to move due to incapability adds a complex implication.

Although Hong Kong maybe relatively less susceptible to severe climate change effects where citizens have to migrate, it is nevertheless within the range of the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, hence might act as a destination for climate migrants. It may be effective to have more discussion locally to raise awareness towards such issues, and measures could be put in place in order to better deal with such matters if such events were to occur.

ECHO produces a daily map of significant humanitarian events around the world. On the 22nd June, a map of  refugees and internally displaced people by country of origin at end of 2015 was produced: