Climate Change-Induced Displacement
Changing environmental conditions lead to justification for permanent displaced populations. Powerful entity takes control of land, displaces previous users, enforces new ownership and management with violent oppression.
A (Optimist)
Climate refugees protected by international protection policy and environmental policy reduces impacts
- Refugee and asylum legislation expanded to include climate change-induced displacement, allowing people to get a recognised status, no qualification limbo for applicants
- Technologically protecting people from the effects of natural disasters (e.g. predictions of flood levels, droughts etc.), mitigation policy and pre-emptive operations reduce impacts
- International land ownership rights are strengthened / expanded (e.g. include indigenous groups etc.) giving peo-ple the tools to dispute expropriation
- Community sponsorships, work and visa programmes related to certain skills and regions are created
B (Pessimist)
Intensification of climate impacts increases displacement, insecurity and migrants seeking international protection
- Climate change intensifies permanent desertification of areas and armed conflicts
- The number of extreme weather events increases globally, impacting developing countries disproportionally, and leading to an increased number of vulnerable, internally and internationally displaced people, in precarious situations
- Climate change-induced migration policy is not addressed, migrants receive no formal legal status, and are not able to return to country of origin
- Policy changes, conflict and economic interest lead to forced changes in land use, increase in “unsuccessful” asylum seekers, as internal displacement is not acknowledged criteria
- People suffer persecution and human rights violations during migration journey after land disputes
C1 (Mediator)
Financial support and land ownership policy allows localised rebuilding and resettling
- More money is invested in preventing climate change-induced displacement such as disaster risk reduction etc. allowing affected population to deal with the events more successfully → and thus being less likely to have to move
- Land ownership rights are somewhat clarified in some regions and fewer people are forced to leave their homeland
C2 (Mediator)
Unchanged rate of climate change-induced migration, weak enforcement and protections of land rights
- Gradual increase in climate disasters leads to slowly increased migration flows
- In some areas the actors that enforce the changes in land use resort to military forces
- Land ownership rights are formally strengthened but cannot be successfully enforced due to widespread corruption, other issues, leading to very little change in terms of displacement
D (Innovator)
Technological solutions to climate extremes, supplemented by experience-based migrant matching
- Technological developments allow people to live and survive in extreme conditions
- Alternative assessment instruments/criteria for asylum could be more inclusive, e.g. economically
- Creation programmes where refugees, who were previously farmers/had land, have an opportunity to work in rural areas in farming, agriculture, and so on in EU+ countries, where we have been witnessing a rural exodus for decades