Climate justice means rich nations helping migrants

Source: The post is based on the article “Climate justice means rich nations helping migrants” published in The Times of India on 26^th November 2022.

Syllabus: GS 3 – Environment

Relevance: impact of climate change.

News: The article discusses the impact of climate change.

What is the impact of climate change?

Climate change causes climate refugees, i.e., people tend to move from one place to another due to the increasing climate disasters. South Asia and the US are examples of such refugees.

Small island states will also see refugees as their entire country is expected to be submerged in the sea due to the rising sea levels.

The problem becomes severe when people move across borders due to climate change. This is referred to as the protection gap. This will act as a humanitarian challenge as there are no legal frameworks to protect climate refugees.

What are the current laws?

The Geneva Convention on Refugees applies only to political applicants and climate refugees are not included in it.

The Nansen Initiative is a voluntary non-binding framework. It has been adopted by some states but applies only to cross-border movements associated with disasters. It does not include displacement caused by global warming.

What will be the concerns for climate refugees?

Climate refugees moving to another country will face hurdles of crossing borders, security, healthcare and other basic amenities.

Further, the countries they are moving to have their own problems and it would be difficult for those countries to look after those refugees.

Some people will not be able to move due to extreme poverty, disability, gender, cultural norms, etc. They will be a trapped population and the most affected people due to climate change.

Therefore, there is a need for the world to look into the issue and those responsible must pay for it.

Who can pay for climate change?

Industrialised countries and fossil fuel companies are the greatest emitters and they have a larger responsibility to help climate refugees. The loss and damage mechanism adopted at CoP 27 is one of the efforts to address the issue.

Therefore, those who generated the problem should contribute to a fund and compensate to help climate refugees and an international framework is needed to protect them.