Villagers carry water in plastic containers on their heads as they walk through dry land in Maros regency, in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province. REUTERS/Ahmed Tawil
Are environmental refugees a new phenomenon?Environmental factors have caused large-scale population movements for centuries, well before we had human-induced climate change.
The low sea levels of the Ice Age may have made it easier for people to cross the Bering Straits from Asia to America as long as 13,000 years ago, according to a January 2008 research paper written for the U.N. refugee agency by Etienne Piguet, geography professor at Switzerland's Neuchatel University.
There are some well-known examples of the links between climate and migration in the 20th century, too. For example, drought in the plains of the American Dust Bowl pushed hundreds of thousands of people to head for California in the 1930s. And in the early 1970s, drought displaced millions of farmers and nomads from the countryside in Africa's Sahel region to cities.
Most academics agree that the term "environmental refugees" first came into public usage in 1985 when Essam El-Hinnawi used it as the title of a report for the U.N. Environment Programme. In 1990, the first report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made a specific link between migration and climate change, sayings its effects could displace millions.
Are environmental refugees recognised by international law?Despite growing pressure to create an international legal framework for recognising, protecting and resettling environmental refugees, no such instrument exists. What's more, experts say little progress has been made towards resolving their unclear status.
According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the term "refugee" applies to any person who "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country".
Elizabeth Ferris, co-director of the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, argued in a December 2007 lecture that the use of the term "environmental refugee" was confusing and inaccurate because people forced to flee their countries due to natural disasters weren't entitled to international protection and assistance under refugee law.
The terms environmental migrants or eco-migrants have come up as alternatives. Piguet prefers the acronyms EIPM - Environmentally Induced Population Movements - and EDPs - Environmentally Displaced Persons - to describe migration in which people move mainly but not always just because of environmental factors.
The often complex mix of environmental, social, political and economic factors that cause people to migrate is one reason why an international definition has been slow in coming.
Politics also plays a part, with the U.N. refugee agency and governments reluctant to expand the category of people they are legally obliged to assist.
What's the difference between environmental refugees and climate refugees?The two terms are often used synonymously, but experts say the category of "environmental refugees" covers a wider range of environmental factors that could push people to leave their homes.
According to Piguet, this includes natural disasters, gradual environmental change, development projects like dams that cause environmental change, industrial accidents, and environmental damage from conflicts. He says the first two are most likely to be linked to climate change.
Given the lack of an internationally agreed definition, it's perhaps most accurate to see climate refugees as a group within the broader category of environmental refugees.
A group of academic experts has proposed that climate refugees should be defined as "people who have to leave their habitats, immediately or in the near future, because of sudden or gradual alterations in their natural environment related to at least one of three impacts of climate change: sea-level rise, extreme weather events, and drought and water scarcity". Frank Biermann and Ingrid Boas of Vrije University's Institute for Environmental Studies in Amsterdam came up with this definition in a 2007 paper calling for a global system to protect climate refugees.
How exactly will climate change displace people?Climate change does not directly uproot people from their homes. It's actually the environmental effects of climate change that make it hard for them to carry on living where they are. That could be sudden weather-related disasters like floods and hurricanes, as well as longer-term events like droughts, desertification and rising sea-levels.
According to Piguet, the greatest direct threat comes from sea-level increases, and populations will have to migrate if nothing is done to protect them. He says displacement caused by an increase in floods, droughts and storms is likely to be regional and short-term, and is still very difficult to estimate.
In addition, some experts fear dwindling natural resources could fuel tensions that spill over into violent conflict, displacing people. Big energy projects, like dams, could also force people off their land. But establishing a link between these types of displacement and climate change is more complex, as it has been in the case of the war in Sudan's western region of Darfur.
How many people will be displaced by climate change?There are no authoritative global estimates, but in 2005, the Tokyo-based U.N. University warned that as many as 50 million people could be fleeing the effects of environmental deterioration by 2010.
British-based aid agency Christian Aid says we could be talking about 250 million people permanently uprooted by climate change-related phenomena by 2050. That's based on an interview with environmental scientist Norman Myers, who suggested in 1995 that between 150 and 200 million people would have to leave their homes because of climate change. Myers told Christian Aid in 2007 he believed the correct figure would be closer to 250 million.
Will we see a wave of migration from poor to rich countries?The media and politicians often paint an apocalyptic picture of hordes of desperate climate refugees flocking from poor to rich nations. But most experts say this is misleading, because much of the migration caused by climate change is likely to be within countries or at least within regions.
Robert McLeman of Ottawa University told a February 2008 event organised by the Royal United Services Institute in London that environmental stresses like droughts usually lead to short-term and short-distance migration as people move from rural to urban areas in search of work.
Long-distance migration in these situations is much less common, especially in lean times when people cannot afford to travel or lose household labour.
McLeman argued that the best way for rich-country governments to prevent an increase in environmental refugees would be to focus on boosting development and adaptation to climate change in the poor countries that are likely to be the worst affected.
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