What causes Climate refugees?

Climate refugee is a very frequently used term in today's world of global warming and revolutionary change of environment. A climate refugee is a person who is forced to relocate either to a new country or a new location by the perils of global warming. We cannot say they have immigrated. Such disasters may be evidence of human-influenced ecological change and disruption of Earth's climate system, primarily through the emissions of greenhouse gases, although other natural factors may also play a role. The Pentagon currently mulls over climate change as a national security risk and the term 'climate wars' is being talked about in war-room like environments in Washington. Michael Nash's documentary film 'Climate Refugees', commissioned by the United Nations, will present the human face of climate change ahead of the important Copenhagen 2009 Climate Change Convention.
Climate refugees are also regarded as environmental refugees as they are created by environmental change. Some consider climate refugees to be a subcategory of environmental refugees. Recently, the United Nations agreed to use the term "Environmentally Induced Migrants". Renuad Bogardi generated a conceptual framework to identify different categories of people on the move in response to environmental disruptions including climate change. But controversy arises regarding the use of the word 'refugee'. Refugee mainly refers to the mass who are displaced by political and geographical context, in relation with the 1951 Geneva convention. According to the World Disaster Report of 2001, published by the international federation of red cross and red crescent societies, a huge number of people are now forced to leave their ancestral land and homeland because of radical changes in the environment rather than war and other geopolitical factors. Approximately 25 million people were classified as environmental refugees back then.
The Guardian published a report on 04.11.2009 by John Vidal indicating that Global warming will force up to 150 million "climate refugees" to move to other countries in the next 40 years with the notice of the Environmental Justice Foundation. It mentions some disastrous conditions such as in 2008 alone, more than 20 million people were displaced by climate-related natural disasters, including 800,000 people by cyclone Nargis in Asia, and almost 80,000 by heavy floods and rains in Brazil. It claims 500 million to 600 million people - nearly 10% of the world's population - are at risk from displacement by climate change. The Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris expresses global warming may create "ghost states" with citizens living in "virtual states" due to land lost to rising seas.
It is now extensively acknowledged in the scientific community that climate change will lead to both incremental and rapid ecological change and disruption. The impacts of climate change, which include increased droughts, desertification, and sea level rise, along with the more frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, will lead to an increased number of climate refugees around the world. In determining which nations are most likely to encounter the displacement of citizens, a complex assessment of the nation's geographic vulnerability to climate change, as well its social, economic and political structures must be made. John M. Broder comments in his article Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security that "recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response. If the United States does not lead the world in reducing fossil-fuel consumption and thus emissions of global warming gases, proponents of this view say, a series of global environmental, social, political and possibly military crises loom that the nation will urgently have to address."
"Climate change affects the environment, which can trigger conflict and displacement. In order to prevent displacement, it is important to reduce the negative consequences and implement climate change adaptation for societies that are affected by climate change," says Secretary General of Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Elisabeth Rasmusson. With emergency aid projects in more than 20 countries across the world, the NRC is one of the biggest humanitarian aid organizations in Norway and a leading actor within the international work for refugees and IDPs. NRC is now strengthening its work on climate and environmental issues. Report of NRC recommends that climate change adaptation in developing countries be given priority together with mitigation and emission-reducing measures. Financial resources must be made available to countries that bear the consequences of forced migration related to climate change. There are close to 40 million people displaced by war and conflict in the world today. 26 million of these are displaced within their own country. In the future, most of the forced migration will continue to take place internally and regionally. Developing countries, especially in Africa and Asia, will continue to have to receive the majority of displaced populations.
There are a number of normal factors in charge for climate change. Some of the more prominent ones are continental drift, volcanoes, ocean currents, the earth's tilt, and comets and meteorites. Continents were formed when the landmass began gradually drifting apart, millions of years back. This drift also had an impact on the climate because it changed the physical features of the landmass, their position and the position of water bodies. This drift of the continents continues even today; the Himalayan range is increasing in height by about 1 mm (millimeter) every year because the Indian land mass is moving towards the Asian land mass. The oceans are a major component of the climate system. They cover about 71% of the Earth and absorb about twice as much of the sun's radiation as the atmosphere or the land surface. Ocean currents move vast amounts of heat across the planet - roughly the same amount as the atmosphere does. But the oceans are surrounded by land masses, so heat transport through the water is through channels. The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century saw the large-scale use of fossil fuels for industrial activities. These industries created jobs and over the years, people moved from rural areas to the cities. This trend is continuing even today. More and more land that was covered with vegetation has been cleared to make way for houses. Natural resources are being used extensively for construction, industries, transport, and consumption. Consumerism (our increasing want for material things) has increased by leaps and bounds, creating mountains of waste. Population has increased to an incredible extent.
These reasons have contributed to increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas supply most of the energy needed to run vehicles, generate electricity for industries, households, etc. The energy sector is responsible for about ¾ of the carbon dioxide emissions, 1/5 of the methane emissions and a large quantity of nitrous oxide. It also produces nitrogen oxides (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO) which are not greenhouse gases but do have an influence on the chemical cycles in the atmosphere that produce or destroy greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide is undoubtedly, the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Changes in land use patterns, deforestation, land clearing, agriculture, and other activities have all led to a rise in the emission of carbon dioxide. Methane is another important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. About ¼ of all methane emissions are said to come from domesticated animals such as dairy cows, goats, pigs, buffaloes, camels, horses, and sheep.
Richard Black, an environment correspondent for the BBC reports on The Global Carbon Project (GCP) which uses just about every source of data available, from atmospheric observations to business inventories, to build up a detailed picture of carbon dioxide emissions, carbon sinks, and trends. Before about 2002, global emissions grew by about 1% per year. Then the rate increased to about 3% per year, the change coming mainly from a ramping up in China's economic output, before falling slightly in 2008 as the global economy dipped towards recession. Endorsing similar projections from the International Energy Agency, the GCP suggests emissions will fall by about 3% during 2009 before resuming their rise as the world economy recovers from the recession. Team members of The Global Carbon Project (GCP) believe that the carbon sinks - the oceans and plants - are probably absorbing a slightly lower proportion of the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel emissions than they were 50 years ago, although researchers admit that uncertainty about the behavior of sinks remains high. Industrial emissions have climbed, but those from land use change have remained constant. As a consequence, the proportion of global emissions coming from deforestation has fallen - about 12% now compared with 20% in the 1990s.
Electricity is the main source of power in urban areas. All our gadgets run on electricity generated mainly from thermal power plants. These thermal power plants are run on fossil fuels (mostly coal) and are responsible for the emission of huge amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Cars, buses, and trucks are the principal ways by which goods and people are transported in most of our cities. These are run mainly on petrol or diesel, both fossil fuels. We generate large quantities of waste in the form of plastics that remain in the environment for many years and cause damage. We use a huge quantity of paper in our work at schools and in offices. Have we ever thought about the number of trees that we use in a day? Timber is used in large quantities for construction of houses, which means that large areas of forest have to be cut down. A growing population has meant more and more mouths to feed. Because the land area available for agriculture is limited, high-yielding varieties of crop are being grown to increase the agricultural output from a given area of land. However, such high-yielding varieties of crops require large quantities of fertilizers; and more fertilizer means more emissions of nitrous oxide, both from the field into which it is put and the fertilizer industry that makes it. Pollution also results from the run-off of fertilizer into water bodies.
However, according to Norman Myers of Oxford University, at a conservative estimate, climate change will increase the number of environmental refugees six-fold over the next fifty years to 150 million. This equates to 1.5 percent of the predicted global population in 2050 of 10 billion. Importantly, Norman Myers studied more than 2,000 sources of information to come to this estimate, and has since increased his figure to 200 million. In concluding on his projected scenarios, Myers worked from the assumption that nothing would be done to slow global warming. He suggests that displacement will occur through a variety of factors, and will occur in the above regions by 2050.
In Greek mythology, the God of Nature punished the people for destroying ecological balance of nature and environment system. Similarly, we are in front of this and the whole world is facing the greatest catastrophe on earth which has never been seen before, and this too can be seen as a punishment from the God of Nature. Perhaps noone put it quite like former U.S President Bill Clinton did, when he said, "If you're worried about 400 people, you just let the world keep warming up like this for the next 50 years and your grandchildren will be worried about 400,000 people."

COUNTRY/REGION PEOPLE (millions)
China 30
India 30
Bangladesh 15
Egypt 14
Other delta areas and coastal zones 10
Island states 1
Agriculturally dislocated areas 50
TOTAL 150

Source: Friends of the earth, Australia

Sources:
l BBC world news environmental report by Richard Black 17 November, 2009
l Environment magazine, November - December, 2008.
l F. Biermann and I. Boas, "Protecting Climate Refugees: The Case for a Global Protocol," Environment 50, no. 6 (November/December 2008
l R. Black, "Environmental Refugees: Myth or Reality?" UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Working Paper No. 34 (Falmer, UK, 2001).
l NY TIMES ARTICLE,August 9, 2009 Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security By JOHN M. BRODER.www.climaterefugees.com