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Anticipate climate migration

A recent World Bank study, titled “Groundswell — Preparing for Internal Climate Migration”, highlights the impact of climate change on migration which, if not anticipated, can cause a significant humanitarian emergency

Arif Budi Rahman (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, April 17, 2018

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Anticipate climate migration

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recent World Bank study, titled “Groundswell — Preparing for Internal Climate Migration”, highlights the impact of climate change on migration which, if not anticipated, can cause a significant humanitarian emergency.

There could be a migration of more than 143 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America by 2050, the study said. These three areas represent 55 percent of the countries considered to be of developing status, which will experience “internal climate migration” (moving to other places within national borders), which in turn affects the quality of life and the country’s development path.

The impacts of climate change such as crop failures, water scarcity, storm surges and the rise in sea levels are among factors causing such migration. The largest proportion of migrants will end up in urban areas, increasing cities’ vulnerability to poverty, unemployment, crime and land conversion. Rapid population growth is likely to worsen this internal migration.

The World Bank warns us of the urgent need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and to have good development planning. If the impact of climate change can be reduced drastically the number of “climate migrants” can be reduced by more than 80 percent to around 40 million by 2050.

The link between climate change and migration has attracted the attention of researchers since the 1990s. They have mainly discussed how climate change affects people’s mobility and activity, under which conditions their decision to migrate is taken, as well as the estimated number of affected people.

Basically, migration is a common phenomenon as part of survival strategies and income diversification. The most obvious example of climate migration is the migration from hunger and crop failures in Africa in the mid-1980s.

However, climate-related migration has, until recently, not received much attention. Migration has mainly been discussed in terms of economic competition, especially related to the scarcity of resources, social conflicts, crime rates or the outbreak of diseases.

There are two types of adaptation to climate change: proactive measures to anticipate the impacts of climate change and reactive adaptations in response to the impacts. Migration is seen as a mechanism to adapt to the slow-onset impacts of climate changes such as water scarcity and the rise in sea levels. Some argue that migration reflects a failure to adapt to the changing climate. Others point out that migration is part of long-term adaptation.

The link between climate change and migration patterns involves a combination of various factors such as social, economic, political, demographic and environmental dimensions.

Coastal areas are predicted to be most severely affected as well as being hotspots of climate migration. Globally, it is estimated that the number of people living in coastal areas is three times higher than the average population density. According to one estimate, more than 60 percent of the Indonesian population lives in coastal areas.

These areas face multiple risks including a rise in sea levels, erosion, soil salinity and land subsidence. Unfortunately, coastal cities such as Jakarta, Semarang and Surabaya, are typically densely populated areas due to the availability of essential infrastructure such as roads, airports, ports, industrial estates and even tourist destinations.

As Indonesia is among the countries projected to experience severe impacts from climate change, there is an urgent need to better understand the climate impacts of migration patterns. The government needs to incorporate these migration problems in their long-term development policy planning.

The first step should be conducting a vulnerability assessment to map where slow-onset climate change will take place. Understanding both the scale and the pattern of internal migration can improve effectiveness in development planning and decision making.

The government has initiated a budget for climate change mitigation. The issue of climate migration can be included as an indicator for adaptation activities. Mainstreaming adaptation into existing development policies would minimize the overlapping of activities and build synergy. Some other advantages include minimizing the potential for a greater loss through anticipatory programs, improving efficiency of financial and human resources, and ensuring program sustainability.

As budget marking is part of performance-based budgeting, every line ministry should be required to do so. With tagging, line ministries can use these data for monitoring and evaluating current, as well as long-term climate change-related policies.

To do that, the government needs to work with other stakeholders such as the private sector, academia, non-governmental organizations and international agencies. Cooperation with donors and international development partners is important to ensure that the mainstreaming process is in line with the global migration policy framework.
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The writer is a researcher at the Center for Climate Change Financing and Multilateral Policy, Fiscal Policy Agency. The views expressed are his own.

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