Environmental refugees are people who have lost their home and community due to climate change. The definition is quite vague because of the phrase ‘due to climate change’. All human activities are heavily influenced by the mother nature. If one region has an extreme climate with consistent natural disasters, the economy of the region is most likely to be unstable. This makes the people poor and makes the country less safe and insecure, sometimes leading to a war which creates refugees. One example of this case is the Taliban invasion of Afghanistan. The country was already suffering with unprecedented drought and the government wasn’t providing much help, making the people support or at least protest less when the Taliban took over the whole Afghanistan.

Environmental refugees are happening everywhere, every day. Today I would like to introduce other regions where residents had to, or will have to, move due to the drastic climate change.

1. Maldives

In November COP26 climate summit, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the president of the Maldives appeared in the conference and pleaded to the world leaders to take actions before it is too late. Maldives could be 80% inhabitable by 2050 due to the rising sea level. Already 90% of the islands of the Maldives suffer in severe erosion and 97% of the country doesn’t have a fresh groundwater. The number of natural disaster such as flooding increased dramatically, from once or twice a year to twice a month. The president mentioned that 50% of the country’s budget is being spent on climate change, yet the situation is getting worse every moment. As too much money is spent sole for climate change, the government can not provide enough budget for urgent issues now for the residents, such as lack of housing and overcrowding in the capital. Now Maldivian and their government are seeing migration as adaptation for both present and future as the situation is getting worse day by day.

2. Turkey

In 2021, countries all over the world suffered from unprecedented droughts. The drought took place regardless of the wealth, location or the local situation of the country. Among those many countries, Turkey experienced a disastrous drought that caused wildfire all over southern Turkey. Although the wildfire was brought under control, all residents had to flee to other parts of Turkey or to foreign nations in order to secure their lives. Many residents lost their families and belongings, which are responsible for the livelihood of a household.

Refugee issue is the germane political debate all around the world. Everybody knows the number of refugee will increase, especially as the climate change worsens, but many countries are hesitating due to social and economic reasons. I think one’s government has to work on two factors when considering the refugee issue. First factor is that the government has to accept the refugees based on the positive consent of the people of its nation. The second factor is to prevent disaster created by climate change in order to reduce the increasing climate refugee. That can be sending money and aid to the country suffering so that the country can successfully recover, but also stop using coal or reducing waste so that the disaster itself doesn’t happen. If all countries join together and fight against the deteriorating climate change, people will not be forced to leave the inhabitable homeland.

If you want to know more about environmental refugee, I recommend you visiting the website ‘Climate and Migration Coalition’.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/facing-dire-sea-level-rise-threat-maldives-turns/story?id=80929487

https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-fires-it-took-only-a-few-minutes/a-58811906