After an exciting week of collaboration with CARE USA, the Population Resource Center is excited to enter a new phase of its development. Robert J. Walker, former President of PRC, began his new role as Executive Vice President of the Population Institute this week. In his place, founder and former President Jane DeLung shall serve as President. We are excited for the new opportunities offered to Bob, and we welcome Jane's return to PRC.

Putting Names to Faces

Aborigines to bear the brunt of climate change

Heightened fears for lowering lands

Paradise Lost: When climate change leaves millions without a home

With headlines like these appearing in global newspapers, the effects of climate change are hitting home – literally. While the 111^th Congress is expected to create a cap-and-trade program to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions over the next 40+ years, media coverage illustrates immediate challenges facing some populations. When Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed announced last November that he planned to invest part of the country’s tourism revenues in securing another homeland for future environmental refugees, climate change suddenly became painfully tangible. The fact that people around the world may lose their homes and livelihoods to sea level changes is for many organizations, a human rights issue.

For some, however, the phenomenon of climate migration may seem far-fetched. Is this really happening? How many people are being affected? Have people already been displaced due to global warming? How many people will be displaced by a slight change in sea level? Where are they located and where are they migrating to? What policy options exist to address climate migration, mitigation and adaptation? Below, I’ve compiled a short series of facts and recommendations on environmental displacement.

How many are being affected?

A 2007 World Bank study identified the relationships between sea level rise (SLR) and its impact on population, and geography. This study does not provide a timescale for SLR, but it does project the percentage of individuals who will be adversely affected by SLR. The effects of sea level rise (SLR), one result of climate change, differ across the globe.

Using 2008 population estimates, one can calculate that a one meter SLR could affect 3.3 million citizens in Latin America and the Caribbean while a five meter SLR potentially impacts 15.5 million people in the same region. In the Middle East & North Africa and East Asia, a SLR of one meter is projected to affect 31.7 million people while a five meter SLR could uproot up to 36 million residents. In South Asia, one of the most populous regions of the world, a one meter SLR could negatively affect 5.8 million people while a five meter SLR could harm as many as 39 million individuals.

How will they be affected?

The shifting of the Earth’s temperature increases vulnerability to natural disaster; food, air, and energy security; the ability to sustain livelihoods, and the establishment of permanent residences.  As a result of unmitigated climate change in the most vulnerable developing countries, agricultural production will likely decline.  Less reliable rainfall will impact planting seasons, crop growth and livestock health.  Flooding will further diminish the quality of already-marginal soil and cause outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as cholera and dysentery.  Longer dry seasons will take a serious toll.  Ongoing population growth, with its increased demand for irrigation and industrial development, will continue to compound the crisis.

Where are they located?

A CARE/UNOCHA 2008 analysis identified Sahelian Africa, the Horn of Africa, Central Africa, Central and South Asia, and Southeast Asia to be particularly vulnerable to disaster in the next 2-3 decades. When overlaying hazard hotspots to areas of high population density, the coastal and mountainous regions of India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma, Laos, Indonesia, and China exhibit the greatest risk of disaster to the largest populations of people. When the relationship between risk to drought and presence of sociopolitical conflict is examined, countries in Central and East Africa, Central and South Asia, and Southeast Asia are shown to be at higher risk for climate-induced conflict.

What policy options are under consideration?

Policy recommendations espoused by CARE include

• reducing greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale in order to avoid shooting past any safe emissions scenario and committing future generations to a very different and more dangerous world;
• investing in emergency preparedness and disaster risk reduction;
• helping people get back on their feet after an emergency has been tackled;,
• supporting interventions that address underlying causes of vulnerability, such as detrimental policies and poor governance, social discrimination and degraded ecosystems;
• scaling up funding for adaptation in developing countries; and
• ensuring that adaptation funding reaches the most vulnerable people, which will require systematic identification of socio-economically vulnerable groups; inclusive, participatory and transparent decision making on the design and implementation of adaptation activities; and mechanisms to support community-based adaptation.

In a 2008 presentation by Oliver-Smith, recommended policy considerations include recognizing the legal and economic rights of displaced persons; climate change mitigation and adaptation; the monitoring of areas projected to be affected by SLR; and educating and training resettlement practitioners.

If you are interested in learning more about climate displacement and disaster risks, come join PRC and CARE USA at our upcoming briefing featuring Alex de Sherbinin (CIESIN), Christina Chan (CARE USA), and Cynthia Awuor (CARE International).

Disaster and Displacement: The Human Face of Climate Change

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

2200 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC

2:00pm-3:30pm