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nef pocketbooksEditor: David Nicholson-LordDesign: the Argument by Design

ISBN 1 899 407 70 7First published: 2003

Cover photo by Andrew Simms

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Current priorites include internationaldebt, transforming markets, globalfinance and local economic renewal

Current priorites are climate change,ecological debt and local sustainability

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Environmental RefugeesThe Case for Recognition

Molly Conisbee and Andrew Simms

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

1 Borders and Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

2 A Brief History of Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

3 Hostile Planet:The Forces Driving Displacement . . . . . . . . . . . .14

4 On the Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

5 Environmental Persecution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

6 Summary: A New Status for Environmental Refugees . . . . .36

Introduction

Hysteria walks in the footsteps of refugees and immigrants.In Britain barely a day passes without scare stories of crime,fraud and intolerable burdens placed on public services.They are depicted as people out for themselves and “on themake”. They are “benefits tourists” or “economic” refugees– not real ones. In August 2003 the Conservative Partysuggested that all asylum seekers should undergocompulsory health tests, adding suspect personal hygiene tothe list of migrants’ implied crimes. Those found with aninfectious disease could have their asylum claim rejected –an ironic footnote to the history of genocide over the last500 years caused by Europeans exporting disease to the restof the world.

The reality is that immigrants have always made, andcontinue to make, an important contribution to the Britisheconomy and cultural life – although this does little todampen the moral outrage and indignation.

Amidst the fear and loathing, however, there is now adeeper irony. In the near future, and as a direct result of thekind of lives we lead, refugee numbers are set to increasedramatically. More than any war or political upheaval,global warming stands to displace millions of people. Andglobal warming is being driven by the fossil fuel-intensivelifestyles the West enjoys.

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We have written this pocketbook because nothing has beendone at official level in the international community toprepare for what is now a sad inevitability. Governmentsare in denial; the specialised United Nations agencies washtheir hands of the problem. The only people in officialdomfacing up to the challenge are those who cannot escape it –the governments of small, low-lying island nations such asTuvalu. Along with four other small island states, Tuvalu isfacing the prospect of extinction – making it possibly thefirst nation to be obliterated as a result of climate change.Many other states – Bangladesh, for example – have large,heavily populated areas also under threat.

The spectre of wholesale relocation of populations raisesfundamental questions about citizenhood and nationality.Once land has been lost, will a residual nationality be ableto persist, or does there need to be a new category of“world citizen”? Could such a status be created inacknowledgement of the fact that climate change is acollective problem and requires a collective solution? In theevent of full-scale national evacuation, what happens to anabandoned country’s exclusive economic zone, its territorialwaters and nationhood? As the example of Israel andPalestine shows only too well, few things could be moresensitive than carving out new territory to create space fora nation.

Environmental refugees are already with us. Problems suchas climate change mean they will grow in number. Thechoice is now between proper international management –

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The Case for Environmental Refugees

providing protection to people forced to flee through nofault of their own – or growing international chaos. This isa plea to avoid the latter.

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Introduction

1 Borders and Boundaries

On July 7 2003, three young men were killed in a vancrushed by the 7.03 train travelling from Hereford toLondon, at Evesham. Variously reported as Kurds, Iraqis orArabs, they were part of Britain’s burgeoning army ofmigrant labourers – picking onions in the west Midlands inthe midst of a heatwave.

Migrant labour in the UK has increased 44 per cent in thelast seven years. Some of it is “managed” through seasonalagricultural schemes, enabling workers to find jobs inlabour-intensive low-wage sectors such as agriculture, meatand fish packing. Much of it is illegal or informal. Thereasons people come to countries such as the UK to live atwilight existence in often appalling conditions are complexand many – the search for a better life, the hope of beingable to send money home. Much of this migrant experienceis beyond the remit of this pocketbook. There is one keyfigure that barely registers in the media, however – the“environmental refugee”.

The demand of the global economy for cheap mobile labouris not the only factor pushing the movement of peopleacross borders. Its waste products – chiefly in the form ofcarbon dioxide, the gas mainly responsible for globalwarming – play a critical role. For wealthy countries, theuncomfortable truth is that the forces driving the global

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growth in refugees lie very close to home – in their ownenergy-rich lifestyles.

Estimates suggest that at present approximately 170 millionpeople have left the country of their birth. Within Europealone migrants make up around 20 million of thepopulation. Some of these are part of “managed” migrationflows – skilled workers moving from job to job. But manymore have had no choice but to escape to save their lives.

Migration in history

People have been on the move since history began – seekingbetter resources, driven by curiosity or adventure, fleeingfrom persecution or environmental disaster. Many havemade homes thousands of miles away from their place ofbirth. Go far enough back and we are nearly all migrants,spreading out around the planet from a few valleys inAfrica. But with the exception of the Biblical exodus, theidea of mass-migration or “refugees” did not really comeinto play until the development of the nation state. Withoutborders there can be no transgressing of geographicalboundaries.

Benedict Anderson wrote convincingly about the birth ofthe nation state and the consequent notion of “nationalidentity”. In his book Imagined Communities, he“propose[s] the following definition of the nation: it is animagined political community – and imagined both as

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Borders and boundaries

inherently limited and sovereign. It is imagined because themembers of even the smallest nation will never know theirfellow-members, meet them or even hear of them, yet in themind of each lives the image of their communion.”

As nations were forged, states sought to control themobility of their populations. Increasingly this was part of amove to develop a notion of “national identity.” There weremany reasons behind these moves – in some instancesrepressive, in others protective. In Western Europe, andlater much of the rest of the world, the growth of thenation state and industrial capitalism led to increasing needsfor population control.

Initial migrations tended to be internal – from rural tourban areas in search of employment, as enclosure ofcommon lands and the increasing mechanisation ofagriculture threw huge numbers of farm workers and theirfamilies out of work. In The Country and the City,Raymond Williams says that even by 1690 there were fivelandless labourers to every three occupiers in England – andthat the growth of those without rural subsistence was onlyintensified by the boom in population between the 17th and19th centuries. The development of factory-basedproduction meant that large, urban centres rapidly filled upwith displaced rural migrants, desperate for work

In earlier phases of economic development, individuals andfamilies had been identified with a particular settlement orparish. This was a product of feudal relationships of

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bonded labour, where communities were directlyresponsible for each other, under the beady eye of a feudallord and his estates. After the Black Death labour shortageseffectively fractured the feudal order. Waged labour becamea feature of the local community, as men and women wereable to hire themselves out for pay.

Internal migration posed a challenge both to public servicesand to perceptions of social order. The church providedrelief for poorer or vulnerable members of the parish, laterformalised by the infamous Poor Law of 1601, which wasnot properly reformed until 1834. Eighteenth andnineteenth-century rural migrants to the cities often faced ahostile reception. They were plunged into the inhumaneworking conditions of mass production or left to thedubious charity of the state workhouse.

As with today’s Oakington barracks, buried deep in ruralCambridgeshire, which serves as a reception centre forincoming asylum seekers, it was hoped that workhouseconditions would have a deterrent effect, so that peoplewould do virtually anything to avoid them. The workhouseswere designed to counter what was perceived as theinherently slothful nature of the poor, who would not beencouraged to better their situation if they were too kindlytreated by the state.

The migration from rural to urban areas generated muchanxiety. Artists and writers from Constable, Hogarth andGainsborough to Dickens, Mrs Gaskell and William Morris

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sentimentalised the death of the pastoral, with itssupposedly contented peasantry, and were much exercisedby the corruptions of the Victorian city. The poor werefrequently portrayed as a terrifying, faceless horde –threatening a mass usurpation of power should they cohereinto a political movement. Thomas Malthus’ Principles ofPopulation, published in 1798, reflected these anxieties,arguing that uncontrolled “breeding” by the poor wouldlead to starvation. With an exploding birthrate andmigration on a large scale across the country, manytheorists feared they were about to be overwhelmed by ananarchic and unbiddable “mass”.

Wars and migration

In the last two centuries, diaspora – the forced relocation ofe n t i re peoples – has become more common. The Irish PotatoFamine of 1845–46, which appeared to bear out thep redictions of Malthus, led to thousands migrating abroad toescape near- c e rtain starvation. During the 20th century thebiggest concentrations of population movement have beenc o n c e rned with wars and, to a lesser extent, labour migration.

Major waves have included: displacement by the FirstWorld War and the subsequent break-up of the OttomanEmpire; refugees from Nazi Europe in the 1930s and 1940s;and immigration in the 1960s from former colonies such asthe West Indies, Jamaica, India, Pakistan, when manyimmigrants were invited to take up jobs not being filled by

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the UK population. In the 1990s the increased freedom ofmovement in the post-Communist period added tomigrations caused by wars and civil strife in places such asthe Middle East, Yugoslavia and Africa.

Lessons of history

Certain recurrent themes emerge clearly from anexamination of migration in history. Much of the Victoriandebate about the new urban masses and funding the“feckless poor” bears striking similarities to the current rowover asylum-seekers – even to the marginalisation andcontainment of poverty in special detention centres.Similarly, internal displacement of rural communities, theIrish situation and the Highland clearances are all earlyexamples of migrancy with both an economic and anenvironmental motif – and where it is often difficult todisentangle the two. Thrown off the land – or left tocontend with disease-ridden crops – people had no choicebut to seek new life elsewhere. In doing so, as the nextchapter demonstrates, they encountered an increasing arrayof controls.

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2 A Brief History of Control

Passports are not a new invention. The ancient Egyptianshad a passport system linked to the movement of labour.The Romans required documents for those travelling acrossthe empire on official business. In the time of William theConqueror’s “Norman Yoke”, no one was allowed to leaveEngland without the King’s express permission. Thisevolved into the so-called King’s Licence, which had to beobtained by any potential traveller before leaving thecountry.

But the development of the modern passport occurred muchmore recently, with the huge increase of leisure travel in the19th century, and the emergence of the nation state fromunder imperial umbrellas. Prior to this period, foreign travelhad been so limited – either to those engaged in trade ordiplomatic work – that passports could be personallyoverseen and signed by monarchs themselves, or by a seniorpolitical figure. By the mid-19th century this was no longerpractical. It led to the widespread practice of replacinghitherto handwritten documents with an early pre-printedbooklet-style precursor to today’s passports.

The word “passport” was first mentioned in England in1548 and referred specifically to soldiers in the act ofwarfare. It determined that no captain would be able togive a soldier freedom, or “passport”, to leave military

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service. During the 18th and 19th centuries governmentsacross Europe tended to be laissez-faire about passport orother paper identification controls. The Grand Tour mayhave been an essential facet of a young gentleman’seducation but it was not widespread enough to warrant abureaucracy of its own. Population movement wasstraightforward and in some instances actively encouraged;in any event, mass travel was not really a possibility for thevast majority.

As John Torpey, author of The Invention of the Passport,notes, however, the “generally liberal” attitude towardfreedom of movement that carried the day in Europe duringthe late 19th century did not prevent governmentsbecoming “increasingly oriented to making distinctionsbetween their own citizens / subjects and others, adistinction that could be made only on the basis ofdocuments.” This solidified as a policy after the First WorldWar, as increasingly nationalistic sentiment was drummedup to mobilise popular opinion in favour of the war, andcontrols on population flows became more rigorous.According to Torpey, “many of the migrants forced to leavetheir homes by the often violent processes of nation-statebuilding faced substantial constraints on their movementsas a result of the general antipathies toward foreigners andthe documentary requirements that had been imposed ontravellers throughout Europe during and after the war.”

The First World War allowed many governments tointroduce restrictive measures for passport controls. In the

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A brief history of control

UK the National Registration Act of 1915 obliged thecarrying of a national identity card. In the postwar period,the League of Nations called an international conference onpassports and customs formalities, which led to theproduction and development of international standards onpassport production.

Many of those displaced from their farms and livelihoods inBelgium, France and the Balkans, not to mention thoserendered effectively stateless by the break-up of theOttoman Empire, were only spared by the League ofNations’ Nansen Passport – papers issued to refugees sothat they could seek settlement and work in any Leaguemember state that would accept them.

Increased controls came to a head during and after theSecond World War. This was an unprecedented period ofpopulation movement, as people across Europe fled theNazis. Indeed the Geneva Convention of 1951 was designedsimply to cope with Europe’s refugee crisis during and afterthe war period. It was not until some time later that theConvention was expanded to incorporate refugees fromoutside Europe.

But confining people by national identity has always beencontroversial. Some saw the Second World War as theultimate failure of nation states. In what became a causecelèbre in May 1948, the campaigner Garry Davisrenounced his US citizenship. He declared himself to be“World Citizen Number One” and later that year

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interrupted the proceedings of a still young United Nationswith a declaration denouncing “warring sovereign states”and calling for a World Constituent Assembly. Mr Davistook his world citizenship very seriously and started issuinghis own passports, inventing “The World ServiceAuthority.” He generated a huge following and wassupported by European intellectual stars including Albert Camus.

But the rigorously enforced linkage between passport andnation-state, established only recently in historical term s ,may have already passed its high-water mark. In theE u ropean Union old national passports have been re p l a c e dby a standard member state format. Passports designed fortravel within trading blocks may become the model forb o rder control. In a world of globalising economies, blurr i n gboundaries and collective planetary threats, passports areevolving, towards an increasingly uncertain future.

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A brief history of control

3 Hostile Planet – The Forc e sDriving Displacement

The Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu is a string of ninecoral atolls, no more than a few metres above sea level attheir highest point. People who have become adept atliving in a fragile and changeable environment haveinhabited the islands for about 2,000 years. But re c e n tchanges to the global climate have seriously underm i n e dtheir way of life.

In 2000 the floods that Tuvalu has every year lasted,unusually, for five consecutive months. This tiny nationfaces huge threats from a range of impacts caused by globalwarming, from storms and drought to rising sea levels. As aresult, its population is faced with the prospect of a phasedrelocation to neighbouring countries. In March 2002Tuvalu’s Prime Minister, Koloa Talake, announced that he wasconsidering legal action against the world’s worst polluters– the nations most responsible for carbon dioxide emissions– at the International Court of Justice

Climate change affects both the frequency and thepredictability of storms and cyclones. Since the 1970swarmer conditions have resulted in greater incidence ofcyclones, especially over the western tropical Pacific. Aslevels of carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere it is also

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anticipated that the intensity of cyclones will increase –with wind speeds potentially 10–20 per cent higher thanpreviously.

Weather-related disasters are making life impossible formany communities. But they are not the only culprit.“Natural” disasters, together with the effects of resourcestripping, have displaced millions. The Oxford Universityanalyst Norman Myers estimates that 25 million peopleworldwide have been uprooted for environmental reasons –more than the 22 million refugees who have fled from warand other persecutions.

Globally, the problems exemplified by Tuvalu areexpected to get worse. According to the WorldMeteorological Organization, 2001 was the second warmest year on record. Since 1976, the global averagetemperature has risen at a rate approximately three timesfaster than the century’s average. In 2001, theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), thegroup of scientists that advises international climatenegotiations, produced their Third Assessment Report(TAR). It projects that over the period 1990-2100 globalaverage surface temperature will climb at a rate withoutprecedent in the last 10,000 years. The result would be arise in sea levels of between 9 and 88 cms – a huge threat toisland and coastal living across the globe.

Coastal flooding not only erodes landmass. It soaksfarmland with salty water, making it impossible to grow

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Hostile planet

crops. It can also affect fresh drinking water supplies. Citiessuch as Manila, Bangkok, Shanghai, Dhaka and Jakarta arealready vulnerable to subsidence. On the Carteret atolls offthe coast of Papua New Guinea, rising seas have cut oneisland in half and increased salt levels in the soil to such anextent that fruit and vegetable crops have been killed off.The atoll has about 1,500 residents – who have beensurviving on basic rations of sweet potatoes and rice for thelast two years. The Papuan government cannot afford torelocate these communities – and, in any case, where wouldthey relocate them to?

The rise in sea levels is only one of the environmental effects of climate change. The change in sea temperaturealso damages fragile marine environments such as coralreefs. This has a knock-on effect on marine life, crucial tolocal ecosystems and livelihoods based on fishing. Duringthe last El Niño of 1997–98, some 90 per cent of live reefswere affected. Drought is another consequence of globalwarming, potentially affecting millions more. During1997–98 drought destroyed Fiji’s sugar cane crop, costingthe government US$18 million.

Overall, according to the International Red Cross and RedCrescent’s World Disasters Report 2002, in the Oceaniaregion the numbers of those killed by weather-relateddisasters rose 21 per cent from the 1970s to the 1990s. Thenumbers of those whose lives were affected rose from275,000 in the 1970s to 1.2 million in the 1980s to 18million in the 1990s – a 65-fold increase. These statistics

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incorporate those affected by events such as cyclones,floods, landslides, droughts and extremes of temperature.

Climate refugees

Despite the predictions, no global assessment of thenumbers likely to be displaced by a one-metre rise in sealevels, or even a half-metre rise, has been made. Yet theya re likely to prove enormous. Of the world’s 19 megacities,16 are situated on coastlines. All but four are in thedeveloping world. The World Disasters Report points outboth the human and economic costs involved: “The mostvulnerable areas are found in the tropics, especially thewest coast of Africa, south Asia and south-east Asia, andlow-lying coral atolls in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Thenations hardest hit will be those least able to aff o rd coastalp rotection measures and where inhabitants have nowhereelse to go.”

A 1998 report by the IPCC summed up some of theregional impacts of climate change. A one-metre rise in sealevel would inundate 3 million hectares in Bangladesh,displacing 15–20 million people, it found. Vietnam couldlose 500,000 hectares of land in the Red River Delta andanother 2 million hectares in the Mekong Delta, displacingroughly 10 million people. About 85 per cent of theMaldives’ main island, which contains the capital Male,would be swamped. Most of the Maldives would be turnedinto sandbars, forcing 300,000 people to flee to India or Sri

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Hostile planet

Lanka. The Maldives, in the words of its president, “wouldcease to exist as a nation.”

In West Africa, up to 70 per cent of the Nigerian coastwould be inundated by a one-metre rise, affecting morethan 2.7 million hectares and pushing some beaches threekilometres inland. Gambia’s capital, Banjul, would beentirely submerged. In the Mediterranean, Egypt would loseat least 2 million hectares of land in the fertile Nile Delta,displacing 8–10 million people, including nearly the entirepopulation of Alexandria. The demise of this historic citywould cost the country over $32 billion, close to a third ofits annual gross national product (GNP) in 1999.

South American cities would suffer some of the worsteconomic effects. In Guyana 600,000 people would bedisplaced – 80 per cent of the population. The cost wouldbe $4 billion, or 1,000 per cent of Guyana’s tiny GNP.

While the seas rise, much coastal land is sinking, oftenbecause of water extraction. Subsidence affects Manila,Bangkok, Shanghai, Dhaka and Jakarta. In Bangkok, risingsea levels would cost an additional $20 million per year inpumping costs alone. Costs for relocating displaced squattercommunities would be astronomical. In Shanghai, up to athird of the city’s 17 million inhabitants would be flooded,displacing up to 6 million people. Most cities have scarcelybegun to think about the implications – even Singapore, acity with a comprehensive planning culture, has nothing inits latest 50-year master plan to deal with a one-metre sea-

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level rise. One of Manila’s water managers quoted in theWorld Disasters Report says the city is alreadyoverwhelmed, adding: “I can’t even imagine what wouldhappen if the sea rises by a metre. Hundreds would drownduring the rainy season and we would be faced withmassive capital investments in new, bigger pumping stationsand storm-drain systems.”

States themselves may not only make a bad situation worse;sometimes they actually cause it. The Kobe earthquake inJapan in 1997 killed nearly 6,000 people and left 300,000homeless. Four years later, because of Japanese bureaucracyand lack of state aid – and despite its wealth – 5,000 werestill living in temporary shelters.

Uprooting communities

Dam-building projects are a special case of state culpability. InIndia, dams have displaced between 20 and 50 million people.Most of these have been from tribal groups – the Karjan andSukhi re s e rvoirs in the state of Gujarat solely displaced tribalcommunities. In Orissa, tribal people made up 98 per cent ofthose moved from their homes for the Balimela Hydrop roject; for the Upper Kolar dam they constituted 96 per cent.Such forced moves have proved deeply traumatic for thecommunities involved. Many have lived in a place forgenerations. Resettlement in new areas, among peoplessometimes hostile to their presence, has torn the heart out ofmany formerly self-reliant and independent culture s .

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Hostile planet

Dam-building programmes are commonplace across thedeveloping world, but particularly in South East Asia andLatin America. In most cases they involve state-enforcedremoval of communities. Like India, many governmentshave a poor record in their treatment of tribal or indigenouspeoples and displaced communities have received little orno compensation for the loss of their lands and way of life.There are many examples of communities being deliberatelydefrauded and exploited by governments and legal systems.

All the events and incidents quoted in this chapter havecreated, and will continue to create, refugees, and on anunprecedented and alarming scale. Two questions then arise– who is to blame and what is being done to help them? Asthe next chapter shows, answering these questions takes usinto some new and controversial territory.

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4 On the Move

In contemporary political language, describing someone asan “economic” migrant or refugee is at best a dismissiveterm, at worst an abusive one. Yet much of the wealth oftoday’s richest nations was built by a wave of economicmigrants, flowing out of 18th and 19th century Europe towhat we now think of as the developing world.

Second sons of aristocratic families with few prospects athome were sent out into the emerging empire to make theirfortunes. Employees of the British East India Companyfound that they could enjoy a quality of life far greaterabroad than at home. Even today the employees ofmultinational companies stationed in offices in Asia, LatinAmerica and Africa can afford lifestyles they could notdream of in the West. A spurious distinction has emerged, avariant of “us and them”. “Our” economic migrants aresent round the world, justifiably, even commendably, insearch of wealth and luxury. “Their” economic migrants,coming to do the work we don’t want to do, in order toraise their standard of living above subsistence, are scornedas freeloading chancers.

This is one ingredient of contemporary asylum mythology.Another is the notion that Britain is a “soft touch” forasylum-seekers. The Refugee Council points out that evenwithin the EU, in 2001 the UK ranked 10th in terms of

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asylum applications in relation to the overall population.The world’s poorest countries not only generate the bulk ofrefugees; they look after them too. During 1992–2001,according to the UN, 86 per cent of the world’s estimated12 million refugees originated from developing countries,whilst such countries provided asylum to 72 per cent of theglobal population. When host countries’ size, populationand wealth are taken into account, the UK ranks 32nd inthe league table of countries accepting asylum-seekers. Thetable is topped by Iran, Burundi and Guinea.

According to the Refugee Council, tougher controls beingintroduced by many EU members mean that it is now“extremely difficult” to gain entry to Europe – and that theUK, in particular, is “far from being a ‘soft touch’”. In2001, for example, Canada granted protection to 97 percent of Afghan asylum applicants; the UK figure was 19 percent. Somali applicants had a 92 per cent success rate inCanada; in the UK it was 34 per cent. Of Colombianapplicants in Canada 85 per cent were granted protection,against 3 per cent in the UK.

Another myth involves numbers. The public vastlyoverestimates the numbers of asylum seekers and refugeesin Britain. According to a recent MORI poll, people thinkthat 23 per cent of the world’s refugees and asylum seekersare in the UK; the reality is less than 2 per cent.

Such misconceptions have nevertheless contributed to aperceptible harshening of the terms in which the asylum

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debate is being conducted. The Nationality, Immigrationand Asylum Act of 2002 was the fourth piece of majorasylum legislation in the UK in a decade and focused largelyon the control and removal of unsuccessful asylumapplicants, and the exclusion of all asylum applicationsfrom countries considered “safe”. The countries currentlyon this list are the ten EU accession countries. And this inturn has important repercussions for the position ofenvironmental refugees.

Defining an environmental refugee

As previous chapters noted, history is full of examples ofpeople driven from their homes by a hostile environment –and it’s increasingly hard to distinguish these factors fromeconomic ones. Throughout much of the world, particularlythe less developed rural countries, there’s probably nomeaningful difference – the environment is the direct sourceof people’s livelihoods. But as the last chapter showed, thescale and speed at which humans are altering the globalenvironment has over the last two decades alteredperceptions in two ways. First. there is a new awareness ofenvironmental factors as the triggers for major populationmovements. Second, it’s recognised that humans are pullingthe trigger – that what were once considered “natural”disasters are increasingly man-made.

The United Nations summed up this change in perceptionsin 1985. A report by Essam El Hinnawi for the UN’s

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On the move

Environment Programme suggested there was a category ofpersons “who have been forced to leave their traditionalhabitat” because of a marked environmental disruption“that jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affectedthe quality of their life.” The definitions he produced, withits categories of “temporarily displaced” – by an earthquakeor volcano, for example – and “permanently displaced”,either by changes to habitat such as dam building orthrough permanent environmental degradation, havebecome central to the debate. According to more recentestimates by Dr Norman Myers of Oxford University, by2050 up to 150 million people may be displaced by theimpacts of global warming, such as sea level rise –equivalent to over 1.5 per cent of 2050’s predicted globalpopulation of around 9 billion.

Global warming is, of course, a man-made phenomenon.Indeed, one of the ironies of the debate is the link betweentravel, climate change and migration. The improved accessto trains, planes and other travel options – bothcommercially and for leisure purposes – is one of the mainfactors driving Western economies’ insatiable consumptionof fossil fuels. That, in turn, fuels climate change, whichends up displacing people and causing more populationmovement. But it’s also important to remember that whileinternational travel may be cheaper and more accessiblethan at any time in history, the cost of a plane or trainticket is still well beyond the reach of the majority of theworld’s population.

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I t ’s the central contention of this pocketbook that thei n t e rnational community has a duty to help enviro n m e n t a lrefugees. We s t e rn Europe and the US cannot continue toconsume with impunity, without re g a rd to their impact onthe global environment. This means an historic act offacing up to the real cost of our lifestyle. It also meansrevising how we define, and what we mean by, the t e rm “re f u g e e ” .

Geneva Convention

Refugees are currently defined and protected under theGeneva Convention. This was first adopted to deal with thevast numbers of people displaced after the Second WorldWar and was approved by a special UN conference in July 1951.

The convention had its roots in earlier attempts by theLeague of Nations to secure international legal protectionfor people displaced by war. It clearly spells out what arefugee is, and the sorts of protection they should receive –legal or social welfare, for example. It also defines thosewho cannot gain refugee status, such as war criminals.

According to the convention, a refugee is someone whoholds a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasonsof race, religion, nationality, membership of a particularsocial group or political opinion, is outside the country ofhis nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is

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On the move

unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country;or who, not having a nationality and being outside thecountry of his former habitual residence as a result of suchevents, is unable, or, owing to such fear, is unwilling toreturn to it.’

The first draft was mainly aimed at protecting Europeans; itwas extended in 1967 to include peoples from around theworld. Regional variations were also adopted, such as the1969 Africa Refugee Convention and the 1984 LatinAmerican Cartagena Declaration. In December 1952Denmark was the first country to ratify it. Since then 143states have signed up. However, as patterns of globalmovement have changed, the convention has come underincreasing threat, even from those governments signed up toit. Many Western European governments have argued that“economic” and other migrants take advantage of theconvention to make better lives for themselves outside theircountry of birth.

This pocketbook argues that the Geneva Convention shouldbe expanded to incorporate a category of “environmentalpersecution”, discussed more fully in the next chapter. Thisis a controversial issue within the migration and refugeedebate. Environmental reasons for granting refugee statusare not currently listed in the convention, and there isresistance to categorising refugees on these grounds. TheUnited Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)has consistently rejected the case for categorising theenvironment as a basis for refugee status, arguing that it

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must concentrate its limited resources on those fleeingpolitical, religious or ideological persecution.

It’s also claimed that populations displaced internallyshould be able to appeal to their own government. Only ifgovernment fails in its duty of care to citizens should aninternational agency intervene. The UNHCR argues thatpeople displaced through environmental degradation will beable to move within their home country.

Limits to state protection

There are a number of problems with these arguments. Noone seriously doubts that unlike “pure “ economic migrants– but like genuine asylum seekers – the movements ofenvironmental refugees are enforced. Given a reasonablyfree choice, they would stay where they were. But to claimthat they can be accommodated within their own countriesignores two facts. First, the governments of those countries,as in the case of dam projects, may be the direct cause ofdisplacement – and a poor source of protection.

Second, and more important, the countries, or large parts ofthem, may disappear or become uninhabitable. Or theirgovernments may lack the resources to cope. As we saw inthe last chapter, there is a strong possibility that thegovernment of small island states like Tuvalu may end upunder water. The Maldives could be devastated, with all300,000 inhabitants forced to leave. According to one

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On the move

authoritative study, at least five small island states are atrisk of ceasing to exist, raising complex political and legalquestions to do with citizenship and economic rights. Andwhile relatively few people live on island states, manymillions more, in Bangladesh, the Philippines, Cambodia,Thailand, Egypt, China, Latin America, face a dangerousand potentially unsurvivable future.

Even more seriously, the arguments against properrecognition of environmental refugees ignore theinternational causes – and solutions – of the crises they face.To burden national governments, often of the world’spoorest states, with the costs of their displacement fails toacknowledge the responsibility of polluters.

This is both a moral and an economic case. Fossil fuels –coal, gas, oil – drive the global economy: they account foraround 80 per cent of the world’s economic activity. Theyalso allow the wealthier countries to enjoy lifestyles that byany reasonable international definitions – and certainly bycomparison with the developing world – are lavish. Theyare also, of course, responsible for global warming. Rich countries spend a minimum of $80 billion per yearsubsidizing their fossil fuel industries – yet at climatenegotiations in Bonn in 2001 they pledged just $0.4 billionper year, from 2005, to help poor countries manage theiremissions and adapt to climate change.

Is it unreasonable to expect the wealthier members of theinternational community to pay for their profligate

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enjoyment of the earth’s finite fossil fuel supply? We believenot. Only by creating new legal responsibilities towardsenvironmental refugees will the international community –and especially industrialised countries – accept theirobligations. Fundamentally, it is a very simple idea – anextension of the “polluter pays” principle. People whoseenvironment is being damaged and destroyed, and who arelosing their lives and livelihoods, should be recompensedand protected by those responsible.

Among the polluting states this is not likely to be a popularproposition. There is widespread denial of the link betweencurrent consumption patterns and global environmentalcrisis. We lack the structures of governance to relate thosewho consume to those who pay the cost of suchconsumption. The people most likely to be displaced byenvironmental crisis and degradation are amongst theworld’s poorest, with the least political muscle. Theirvoices, in effect, are being drowned out in a fog of carfumes, power stations, air miles and fast food. They need tobe heard, and listened to. The next chapter shows how wemight begin to do this.

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On the move

5 E n v i ronmental Persecution

The case for expanding the Geneva Convention to includethose displaced by environmental degradation is based onthe notion that the environment can be used as aninstrument of harm. This idea would cover dam-buildingprojects that inflict serious social damage on disempoweredcommunities, as mentioned in Chapter 3. It would also takein a global system that allows parts of the world thefreedom to pollute and consume without having to pick upthe tab.

Harm is intentional when a set of policies is pursued in fullknowledge of its damaging consequences. The causes andconsequences of climate change – who is responsible, whogets hurt – are now sufficiently understood. To disregardthat knowledge, or to fail to respond adequately, must beclassed as intentional behaviour.

C u rrent US energy plans, for example, will incre a s eAmerican emissions of greenhouse gases – the gasesresponsible for global warming and climate change – by25 per cent by 2010. Such intentional behaviour willresult in environmental refugees. It’s thus perfectly fair tocategorise it as environmental persecution. As alre a d ynoted, the Geneva Convention defines a refugee assomeone forced to flee because of a well-founded fear ofpersecution, be it religious, political or “other”. A well-

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founded fear of starvation or drowning is a compellingreason to escape.

But environmental persecution is also a major globalsecurity issue – with far-reaching implications for civil strifeand terrorism. What happens if entire nations becomeuninhabitable? Will displaced nations of the future havenew lands carved out from existing sovereign states? Whatwill happen to these people if they have no special protectedstatus? In other words, what will happen if we don’t dosomething about environmental refugees?

Burden on poorest

C u rrent immigration policies are not remotely capable ofdealing with the potential numbers involved. The burd e nof environmental refugees now falls most heavily on poore rcountries. In many of these, governments are alre a d yfailing to meet the basic needs of their people. And whilenation states should always maintain the ultimateresponsibility for their citizens, the world order haschanged signficantly since the Geneva Convention was firsta g reed. Globalisation has undermined many of the powersof the nation state, even its ability to support citizens atmoments of crisis. To expect impoverished states torespond to environmental calamities that are not of theirown making is to fail to acknowledge the extent to whichnational sovereignty is constrained.

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Environmental persecution

Dealing with the environmental refugee crisis thus needs tobe part of a wider global settlement that shifts major newre s o u rces from North to South. This would recognise thatsome states bear a dispro p o rtionate responsibility forp roblems such as climate change, which should be re f l e c t e din their obligations to displaced people. Economicconsiderations – World Bank and International MonetaryFund structural adjustment plans, World Trade Oganisationrules – have already enormously extended de factoi n t e rnationalisation, constraining states’ freedom to makepolicy and re s o u rce decisions and giving new rights to capitaland goods to move across borders. If the free flow of goods,s e rvices and money is protected by international agre e m e n t s ,it seems perverse to deny the same rights to people.

UN Commission

The first step in establishing such a settlement, we suggest,would be a global UN Commission. This would report tothe UN Security Council and the General Assembly on thelegal, economic, political and social implications of thegrowing number of environmental refugees. It should alsoexamine the threat posed to nationhood by environmentalproblems such as global warming. Several tasks wouldprobably follow from this:

Updating the Geneva Convention. When the GenevaConvention was created to deal with the aftermath of theSecond World War, only Europeans qualified for refugee

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status. In a globalised world, the language that framed theconvention now looks outmoded and absurd. The UNHCRis in danger of looking equally out of date, and also at oddswith much expert opinion, in its refusal to acceptenvironmental threats as a legitimate ground for refugeestatus. Granting environmental refugees such status wouldprovide them with internationally assured protection,independent of, and separate from, the actions of their owngovernments. Often these governments do not have theresources or the will to help; sometimes, as we have seen inrelation to dam-building projects in India, they arethemselves directly culpable.

Writing a new convention. If the UNHCR feels unable to manage the transition from re p resenting those with“traditional” – political, religious and conflict-based – fears of persecution, a new and separate intern a t i o n a lconvention may be needed, specifically focusing on peoplewhose way of life is being destroyed by a lost, ruined ordegraded enviro n m e n t .

Compensating for ecological debts. The world needs torecognise the case for ecological debt – defined as the debtaccrued to the global community when citizens of onecountry take more than their fair share of a globalenvironmental “common” such as the atmosphere. Thepeople of poor “under-consuming” countries are creditorsto the international community yet still suffer the burden ofrich countries’ carbon debts. An international measure ofecological debt could be agreed – for example, a sustainable

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per capita level of fossil fuel consumption. This would helpto clarify the financial and environmental obligations of“over-consuming” countries, particularly their contributionto climate-related problems and thus to the environmentalrefugee burden.

Arguments for change

Defining refugee status – the circumstances under whichpeople should be granted the protection of another nation –has always been controversial. People leave their homes andhomelands for a variety of complex reasons. We inventcategories for these reasons – economics, political andreligious persecution, conflict – but real life is rarely soclear-cut. Definitions grow blurred at the edges; categoriesspill over into each other.

E n v i ronmental displacement has placed old definitions and categories under huge new strain. Its scope is g rowing every year: more people are now on the movethan at any time in history. National governments arerightly re g a rded as the main agency for protecting citizens’rights, but the point at which governments persecutepeople is the point they become refugees – and the point atwhich they need the protection of an international agency.For those displaced by the loss or destruction of theirhomeland for environmental reasons, this protection doesnot currently exist.

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The countries and cultures most responsible for globalenvironmental degradation must acknowledge their role,and begin to think about policies to tackle populationmovement at its source. Placing new internationalobligations on them towards environmental refugees wouldplay an important role in kick-starting this process. Butunless we make these changes, and urgently, it will be toolate, not only for communities clinging on to ways of lifeundermined fatally by global environmental change, but forthose in the rich world facing up to the poor man at theirgates. Globalisation does not just mean rapid capitaltransfers and unlimited cheap travel. Nor does it just meantreating the world as a playground, a museum or asupermarket. It means that ignoring our neighbours is nolonger an option.

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6 Summary: A New Statusfor EnvironmentalRefugees

Human impact on the environment is creating a new kindof global casualty – the environmental refugee. Forced fromtheir homes and lands by flood, storm, drought and other“man-made” or weather-related disasters, they are now oneof the fastest- growing classes of refugee. It’s estimated that25 million people worldwide have been uprooted forenvironmental reasons – more than the 22 million refugeeswho have fled from war and other persecutions. By 2050up to 150 million people may be displaced by the impactsof global warming, such as sea level rise – equivalent toover 1.5 per cent of 2050’s predicted global population ofaround 9 billion.

People have been on the move since history began. But theidea of mass-migration or “refugees” did not really comeinto play until the development of the nation state.

Although passports were used by the Egyptians, and theword was first mentioned in England in 1548, restrictivemeasures of passport control have been in operation for lessthan a century. The global nature of environmental change– the fact that its causes and effects straddle the nation state

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– suggests that we now need global migration policies thattranscend national boundaries.

Although most of the symptoms of environmental crisisappear in poorer countries, most of the causes lie in thericher ones. This is particularly true of global warming andclimate change, where the energy-intensive lifestyles enjoyedin the West generate high levels of carbon dioxideemissions, dramatically affecting weather patterns and sealevels. In particularly vulnerable areas like Oceania and theSouth Pacific the numbers of those whose lives wereaffected rose from 275,000 to 18 million over the sameperiod – a 65-fold increase. Many were repeatedly affected.A sea-level rise of up to a metre, which experts predictcould occur by the end of the century, will causewidespread flooding throughout the developing world,drowning several small island states and making huge areas uninhabitable.

The current system for dealing with refugees is based on theGeneva Convention of 1951. It came into being in Europeas a result of the Second World War and was designed todeal with issues of war, ideology and religion. It is in needof urgent overhaul to cope with the new refugee problemsgenerated by environmental crisis.

The case for granting refugee status to people fleeing thedestruction of their environment is both a moral andpolitical one. The richer countries responsible should paythe costs of their own pollution: they should not expect

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Summary

poor nations and people to bear the brunt of somebodyelse’s lifestyle. Forcing rich states to face up to theirresponsibilities on environmental refugees could alsogenerate greater political will for international action on theenvironment – particularly on issues such as climate change.But there are important economic and security issues. Ifentire nations become uninhabitable, or have to berelocated, current immigration policies may well collapseunder the strain. As in the case of Israel and Palestine,displaced and alienated populations may become a breedingground for terrorism.

Policies that cause harm to people but are pursued in fullknowledge of their damaging consequences should beclassed as environmental persecution. Current US energyplans will increase its emissions of greenhouse gases – thegases responsible for global warming and climate change –by 25 per cent by 2010. They will thus create millions moreenvironmental refugees. The Geneva Convention defines arefugee as someone forced to flee because of a well-foundedfear of persecution, be it religious, political or “other”. A well-founded fear of starvation or drowning is acompelling reason to escape. The Geneva Conventionshould be expanded to incorporate a new category of“environmental persecution”.

Steps to achieve this could begin with a global commission,sponsored by the UN, reporting to the UN Security Counciland the General Assembly on the implications of thegrowing number of environmental refugees. This should

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also examine the threat posed to nationhood byenvironmental problems such as global warming. Othersuggested changes include:

Updating the Geneva Convention. Granting enviro n m e n t a lrefugees proper status under the convention will pro v i d ethem with internationally assured protection, independent ofand separate from the actions of their own govern m e n t s .Often these governments do not have the re s o u rces or thewill to help; sometimes they are themselves directly culpable.

Writing a new convention. An alternative to an amendedGeneva Convention is a new convention specificallyfocusing on people whose way of life is being destroyed bya lost, ruined or degraded environment.

Compensating for ecological debts. The world needs toestablish an internationally agreed measure of ecologicaldebt, focused initially on the biggest issue, climate change,and the use of fossil fuels. This would clarify the financialand environmental obligations of “over-polluting”countries, particularly the contribution they should make toclimate-related problems such as the growth inenvironmental refugee numbers.

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Summary

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References

Much of the information for Chapter 3 is taken from theauthor’s own contribution to the International Red Crossand Red Crescent Societies’ World Disasters Report 2002.

Anderson, B: Imagined Communities, Verso, London &New York, 1991

Bentley, T: People Flow: Managing migration in a NewEuropean Commonwealth, Demos, 2003

Davis, G: My Country is the World, Juniper Ledge, 1984

Lloyd, M: The Passport, Sutton Publishing, 2003

Torpey, J: The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance,Citizenship and the State, CUP, Cambridge, 2000

Williams, R: The Country and the City, Hogarth Press,London, 1991

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The nef pocketbooks

nef’s pocketbook series was launched in May 2000 with the aim ofgenerating ideas, stimulating debate and pencilling in newpossibilities on the social and political agenda. They combine thevirtues of a book and a good newspaper article – an incisive read onan important contemporary issue in a handy pocket-sized format, longenough to provide genuine insight into a subject but short enough tobe read on a train or tube journey. Their scope, focus and formatmakes them a highly distinctive source of radical thinking – big ideasfor small pockets.

Already published in the pocketbook series:

Why London Needs Its Own Currency, by David Boyle (2000), nef Pocketbook 1, ISBN 1 899407 27 8

The Case for Community Banking, by Derek French (2000), nef Pocketbook 2, ISBN 1 899407 30 8

Stakes not Shares: Curbing the Powers of the Corporations, by RogerCowe (2001), nef Pocketbook 3, ISBN 1 899407 35 9

An Environmental War Economy: The Lessons of Ecological Debt andGlobal Warming, by Andrew Simms (2001), nef Pocketbook 4, ISBN1 899407 39 1

The Mutual State: How Local Communities Can Run Public Services,by Ed Mayo and Henrietta Moore (2001), nef Pocketbook 5, ISBN 1 899407 40 5

A New Way to Govern: Organisations and Society after Enro n, by Shann Tu rnbull (2002). nef Pocketbook 6, ISBN 1 899407 48 0

We, The People: Developing a New Democracy, by Perry Walker(2002), nef Pocketbook 7, ISBN 1 899407 53 7

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Profiting from Poverty – Why Debt is Big Business in Britain,by Henry Palmer with Pat Conaty (2002), nef Pocketbook 8, ISBN 1 899407 61 8

Green Cities – And Why We Need Them,by David Nicholson-Lord (2003), nef Pocketbook 9, ISBN 1 899407 59 8

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