Climate and Laws Trap Islanders

Migration from low-lying islands in the Pacific that are being overtopped with sea level rise and storms has already begun, but many others who want to escape have no money or passports to enable them to do and face being trapped.

This is the conclusion of a study into Kiribati, Nauru, and Tuvalu, three of the countries that are expected to become virtually uninhabitable later this century as sea levels rise.

One problem is that, under the Geneva Convention, only people fleeing wars and persecution by other humans can be granted refugee status.  That leaves people trying to escape droughts, floods and natural disasters with no claim on other states.  In Europe, for example, they are classed as economic migrants.

The study, conducted under the UN’s Pacific Climate Change and Migration project, was released at the COP21 climate summit in Paris, where the Alliance of Small Island States is among those campaigning for the UN to change international law and grant refugee status to people displaced by the effects of climate change.

Terrible gap
The report’s lead author, Koko Warner, a senior academic officer at the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security, said this was a terrible gap in international law on refugees.

“These people need to be protected by the Geneva Convention,” she said. “They have no human rights – yet human mobility is their only option for survival.  We are denying them the right to gain a living, get a homeland, and live with dignity.”

Her report into three of the most vulnerable countries in the world highlights a problem that will bring hundreds of thousands of new refugees to the borders of Europe and other wealthy states in the next few years.

She said: “The rich nations of the world are dangerously unprepared for the tide of environmental refugees that will be arriving.
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According to the report, 70% of the remaining households in Tuvalu and Kiribati and 40% in Nauru feel that migration will be their response as flooding, saltwater intrusion or droughts become more severe.

The report shows that the majority of people who left had gone to Fiji, which was sympathetic to their plight.  The next largest destination was New Zealand, followed by Australia.

To get round the problem that these people had no status as refugees, there was an international effort to educate the islanders to become nurses, teachers and other valuable professions so that they could get work permits for overseas countries.  These professionals could then send money home to support their families.

For many families with no bank accounts, no passports and few skills, this was not an available option, and they were being “trapped by ever worsening environment conditions with nowhere to go”, according to Warner.

Read more at Climate and Laws Trap Islanders