Almost two and a half years ago, “the most anticipated disaster” in U.S. history tore through Louisiana and Mississippi. Despite the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) warning that New Orleans was one of the U.S. cities most susceptible to natural disasters, Hurricane Katrina resulted in the displacement of over half a million people. Still today, thousands of those who fled Hurricane Katrina remain unable to return to their homes in the Gulf Coast Region. While the displacement caused by Hurricane Katrina is devastating, the level of displacement that occurs in developing countries is even more serious given that these countries are even less equipped to prepare for and respond to natural disasters and the resulting displacement. Yet natural disasters resulting from climate change are more apt to strike developing countries than the better positioned developed countries.
Natural disasters are the leading cause of displacement and resulted in the migration of over 25 million persons from their homes by 1995. For example, in the African Sahel, five of the ten million persons displaced due to severe drought were unable to return home. In Burma, the responses to climate change create 105 million displaced persons at any given time. In addition, desertification in Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya results in the loss of more than one thousand square kilometers of valuable land each year. As the environment continues to deteriorate due to climate change, the number of natural disasters such as drought, flooding, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation, and violent weather disturbances will continue to increase in quantity as well as severity, which will result in even more environment-induced migration.
The vast number of persons displaced by the environment has led to the creation of a new term: environmentally displaced persons (EDPs). Some academics refer to EDPs as environmental refugees, but this is a misnomer since EDPs do not fit neatly under the international definition of refugee. For example, because EDPs often remain within their home countries, they do not qualify as refugees. Even those who are forced out of their home country by environmental degradation struggle to be classified as persecuted, again excluding them from refugee classification.
The large number of EDPs poses a major concern: where will they go? Currently, no country recognizes climate change as an acceptable immigration status. Several articles suggest that New Zealand has such an agreement with Tuvalu—an island nation that statistics predict will be completely submerged within the next 40 years. New Zealand, however, has given an official statement declaring that such suggestions are mere rumors. While the United States does provide Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to natural disaster victims, it is limited in application and scope. TPS only applies to applicants from a foreign state that has officially requested recognition as temporarily inadequate to provide its nationals with a safe return and that state temporarily cannot provide the applicant with a safe return. Even the 2.6 million EDPs affected by the 2004 tsunami and the 2005 earthquake in India and Pakistan did not receive protection under TPS. Overall, the United States and other developed countries continue to take similar steps to further limit the flow of immigrants coming from developing countries, regardless of their reason for immigrating.
Still, when the storm hits or farmland no longer bears fruit, those affected must seek life anew. Since the developed countries have such strict restrictions on immigration, the majority of EDPs are forced to leave their homes for refuge in countries without the resources to prevent their entrance. Many EDPs, therefore, attempt to rebuild their lives in communities with a cash income of $1 per day or less.
An additional concern that results from the colossal number of EDPs is the further destruction to the environment caused by mass migration. An increase in population necessitates an increase in housing facilities and means an increase in human waste and pollution as well as deforestation and wetland destruction. Host countries often are not prepared or are unable to provide for EDPs, leaving them to fend for themselves and exploit the already scarce natural resources. The host country’s meager natural resources must then stretch even further, often to the point of unsustainability.
When natural resources become scarce and survival is difficult, social and political conflict often follows. Academics now, at least partially, attribute the conflict in Darfur to the decline in soil quality. It resulted from the atypical weather patterns caused by climate change and corresponding changes in the migration patterns of pastoralists. Conflict, then, also leads to further destruction to the environment because fighting results in further deforestation, pollution, and degradation of water sources and further displacement. Climate change therefore generates a vicious cycle.
Even though developed countries are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore climate change, currently developing countries take the hardest hit from climate change’s effects and those of accommodating EDPs. Still, every nation is affected by climate change and with each hit these effects come closer and closer to home—whether that home is in a developing or developed nation. For example, the addition of 1.4 million displaced persons in Bamako, Mali, which eventually led to a subsequent migration to England, brought threats to national security and the spread of HIV and other diseases.
It is important to the safety of both developing and developed nations, therefore, that those now able to take action toward resolving these issues do so. Making changes could reduce the degree of unsustainable land, alleviate the burden of EDPs on developing nations, eliminate the unnecessary destruction of land, and reduce the environmentally induced migration of persons and the diseases they may carry. Taking action now could stop this vicious cycle, saving homes in both developed and developing nations today and in the future. Achieving this intragenerational justice is a pivotal step in ensuring intergenerational justice so that future generations have an opportunity to have a home—one where the heart is but the heart of a storm is not.
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