![A man looks out over makeshift tents at a refugee camp in Port-au-Prince, Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) A man looks out over makeshift tents at a refugee camp in Port-au-Prince, Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)](https://www.mintpress.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/haiti-refugee-690x389.jpg)
(MintPress) — When the earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, it left more than 3 million people displaced, without a hope for escape. They were, for all intents and purposes, refugees.
Yet, under international law and guidelines, those very people who had lost their homes, with no hope of return, didn’t meet the necessary criteria. The label “refugee” is given only to those fleeing from religious or political persecution — their situation must be caused by the direct destruction at the hand of man.
The 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees clearly defined those who fit under the category of refugee, a necessary label in order to apply for asylum in a signatory country. In this definition, a refugee is a person who is outside of his or her country and has a “well-founded” fear that, if they were to return, would face prosecution due to their religion, nationality or race.
The U.S. accepts more refugees every year than any other nation. In 2009, 60,190 refugees were resettled in America. Second to that is Canada, where that same year 10,800 refugees settled. The number of ‘environmental refugees’ accepted that year? Zero.
Despite millions around the world who have been forced out of their homes because of environmental and climate disasters, they’re not recognized as the refugees they have ultimately become. The issue surrounding the environmental refugee is not likely to go away anytime soon. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world will see 50 million environmental refugees by 2020.
Addressing this growing phenomenon, Professor Norman Myers of Oxford University in 2005 spoke on the issue at an economic forum in Prague, highlighting the main causes of the upward trend: drought, soil erosion, desertification and deforestation.
“In their desperation, these people feel they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary elsewhere, however hazardous the attempt,” Myers writes. “Not all of them have fled their countries, many being internally displaced. But all have abandoned their homelands on a semi-permanent if not permanent basis, with little hope of a foreseeable return.”
The question now is, with an increasingly dangerous threat of weather-related disasters in the world, should governments come together, as they did in the past, and draft legislation that would apply to those who are considered to be environmental refugees?
An environmental refugee?
When you hear the word “refugee,” an image instantly comes to mind — a malnourished, lost soul seeking political asylum living in cramped quarters in a refugee camp. The word typically doesn’t elicit images of people living in Western countries, displaced from their homes due to environmental disasters, as was the case with Hurricane Katrina.
When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, there was controversy over what to call those who were displaced. While they were clearly driven from their homes, with no chance of immediate return, the use of the word “refugee” was not accepted by those who pointed out the people of New Orleans, La. did not fit the U.N. description. Some even claimed using the term, as the Associated Press did, was racist, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The issue of environmental refugees isn’t exactly new. In 1995, there were a recorded 25 million people who fit the definition. That’s compared to 27 refugees who were displaced because of religious, political and ethnic persecution, according to Myers’ research. And the numbers are growing each year.
Myers points out the many of the recorded refugees were originally located in the Sub-Saharian portions of Africa. China, however, could also have been considered responsible for 6 million environmental refugees, many of whom fell victim to population rises that threatened their farmlands and agricultural plots.
Perhaps not a natural disaster, research accounts for roughly 1 million displaced people from public works projects, including large dams, taking place much of the time in China and India. And with growing accounts of extreme weather arguably related to climate change, the numbers are expected to grow.
Recognizing the plight
Shortly after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, U.S. President Barack Obama issued a temporary protected status for Haitians living illegally in the United States. It wasn’t necessarily refugee status, as it applied to those already living illegally in the U.S., but it did recognize that sending them home — at least within 18 months — wasn’t a viable option.
While Obama signed the order, the decision didn’t start with him. The Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops petitioned the administration, along with 80 Republican and Democratic congressmen, according to the New York Times.
The horrific nature of the hurricane touched the hearts of most Americans, as images poured out from the region, prompting action. The people who fell victim to that natural disaster were in the hearts and minds of people throughout the world just as much as any political refugee, perhaps more so. And while there were efforts from relief agencies, like UNHCR, to assist, those who were displaced from their homes with nowhere to turn were not provided an opportunity for asylum elsewhere. Had their grief been caused by humans, however, they’d have a way out.
As early as 2001, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) released a paper, written by Richard Black of the University of Sussex, in which it addressed the issue of environmental refugees and the solutions needed to address what, even at the time, was expected to be a growing problem.
In his paper, Black addresses refugees from rising seas, relating to those migrants who are displaced due to “more dramatic and permanent changes to the environment associated with catastrophic events such as floods, volcanoes and earthquakes.”
Black then goes on to address the issue of “human-induced environmental degradation,” which he describes as situations caused by a failure to undertake good environmental management and sustainable development. Concluding his argument, Black states that in order for the world to make a decision regarding recognition of environmental refugees, a clear definition must be met — something he considers to be a contested process in and of itself.
Though written in 2001, Black’s findings are significant now. Recently, the discussion regarding climate change hasn’t so much been whether or not it exists, but what causes it — man-made or natural cycles. The world, for the most part, knows that it’s coming. Now, many more scientists are linking catastrophic natural disasters with rising global temperatures.
If anything else, the world knows from this that the issue of ‘environmental refugees’ isn’t going away anytime soon. And if serious about the issue, it’s one that must be addressed within the United Nations.
Black referred in 2001 to the issue as one of great importance for policy-makers at the international level. It’s yet to be seen if any of the U.N.’s superpowers will step forward with some sort of proposal. However, with a global budget crisis and issue of illegal immigration front and center in Europe and the U.S., it’s not the most promising of climate for those who are now suffering from climate change disasters, searching for hope outside of everything they’ve ever known.