Transcript The impact of climate change on policy and migration of people

The impact of climate change on
policy
and migration of people
Sandor Szalai
Szent Istvan University
[email protected]
History
• The complex societies of Egypt and
Mesopotamia, for example, emerged as people
migrated away from desiccating rangelands and
into riverine areas.
• During the 4th century, growing aridity and frigid
temperatures from a prolonged cold snap caused
the Hun and German tribes moved to west.
• The 8th century Muslim expansion into the
Mediterranean and southern Europe was, to
some extent, driven by drought in the Middle
East. (Dupont, Pearman, 2006)
Effects of migration (IOM, 2008)
• Forced migration hinders development in at
least four ways;
– by increasing pressure on urban infrastructure and
services,
– by undermining economic growth,
– by increasing the risk of conflict and
– by leading to worse health, educational and social
indicators among migrants themselves.
Terminology
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Climate refugees (definition problems)
Climate migrants
Climate evacuee (temporal within the national borders)
“Environmental migrants are persons or groups of
persons, who, for compelling reasons of sudden or
progressive changes in the environment that adversely
affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to
leave their habitual homes, or chose to do so, either
temporarily or permanently, and who move either
within their country or abroad”.
The problem is wider
• Economic “pull” and environmental “push”
• Katrina hurricane was more than just a
meteorological event: the damage it caused was
a product of poor disaster planning, consistent
underinvestment in the city’s protective levees as
well the systematic destruction of the wetlands in
the Mississippi delta that might have lessened the
force of the storm. Labelling it a “climate change
event” over-simplifies both its causes and its
effects.
Climate drivers (McLeman)
• Climate processes are slowonset changes such
as sea-level rise, salinization of agricultural
land, desertification, growing water scarcity
and food insecurity.
• Climate events, on the other hand, are sudden
and dramatic hazards such as monsoon floods,
glacial lake outburst floods, storms, hurricanes
and typhoons.
Yield changes 2002/2003
The ratio of the stable species (Bakkenes,
M. et al. 2004)
Millennium Development Goals
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Gender issue (men migration)
Poverty and Hunger
HIV/AIDS
Environmental sustainability
Global partnership
Maternal and child health
Migration
• Within the country (resettlements, ongoing)
• International
• By 2050 one in every 45 people in the world will have
been displaced by climate change
• This prediction is still very tentative, estimates range
between 25 million and 1 billion people by 2050.
(Myers, 2005)
• Past environmental migratory movements suggest that
being able to migrate away from severe climatic
conditions, requires would-be migrants to have some
“social and financial capital” such as existing support
networks in the destination area and the funds to be
able to move
Managing risks - buying down risks
Thank you for your kind attention!