No region in the world is immune to the negative impacts of climate change, felt either directly or indirectly. Latin American and Caribbean countries are among the most impacted. The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) predicts that 1.2 billion people could be displaced globally by 2050 due to climate change and natural disasters. In Latin American countries, these climate displacements may affect 17 million, putting pressure on migration, food supplies and housing. More than 1 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean were internally displaced in 2021 because of disasters that were worsened by climate change, according to an analysis of 2021 census data. In Brazil, more than half a million people needed to migrate internally due to climate-related disasters.
Since April 27th of 2024, we have witnessed massive floods that have devastated Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state. According to Civil Defense data, at least 169 people are dead and 56 are missing, with the numbers still growing. At the time of writing this blog, four rivers about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Porto Alegre, the state’s capital are still reporting rising levels following storms and landslides which have displaced, so far, over 2 million people and left almost 600,000 homeless in 469 of the state’s 497 cities.
What is climate refugee?
The concept of climate refugee is not new and has been discussed since 1985, when the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) expert Essam El-Hinnawi defined ‘‘climate refugees” as: ‘those people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people) that jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life’.
Climate migration is devastating people’s lives. Imagine losing your home or livelihood due to a flood. Going hungry because of a failed harvest or drought. Or being forced to flee your home due to desertification, rising sea levels or a lack of clean drinking water. The increasing trend is alarmingly clear. With climate change as the driving catalyst, the number of climate refugees will continue to rise.
What is an involuntary project-resettled family?
While “climate refugee” is a relatively new term, the concept of “involuntary project-resettled family” has been part of civilization from its origins. Excluding forced displacements due to geopolitical conflicts, project-related land acquisition or restrictions on land use may cause physical displacement, economic displacement, or both. Resettlement is considered involuntary, according to the IDB´s Environmental and Social Policy Framework (ESPF), when project-affected people do not have or are not able to exercise the right to refuse land acquisition or restrictions on land use that result in physical or economic displacement. It has most often been connected to public and private development-infrastructure projects such as housing, water and sanitation, energy, transportation, education, and health investments, among others.
Riveras and Costas, a tale of two families
To better understand the difference between a project-resettled family and a climate refugee family consider two families: the Riveras, a traditional fishing family who have lived along the same river for many generations and are forced to move due to a hydroelectric power plant which will transform the river into a reservoir, and the Costas, who live on the coast and must flee their homes due to a flood following a hurricane.
While the Riveras, a project-resettled family, will be consulted by the development project´s representatives about the involuntary resettlement plan, the Costas won’t have that opportunity to be consulted and will irreversibly lose their house and see their communities be destroyed and torn apart. Families like the Riveras will be the beneficiaries of compensation measures and livelihood restoration activities to replace and improve their life conditions as a part of the development project. On the contrary, families like the Costas will experience a sudden loss of lives, houses, and livelihoods, as well as the degradation of territories, cultural heritage, indigenous and other traditional pillars, sociocultural identity, biodiversity, and ecosystem services without receiving any warning or restoration support.
Climate refugees lack legal protection despite severe disruption and trauma
Like the Riveras, most project-related families are protected by national frameworks, and involuntary resettlement standards from multilateral organizations’ policies, because they must implement the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). On the contrary, although climate refugees like the Costas are now a recurring topic in international negotiations, no official status or legal protection has been granted to those families affected so far.
Whether they are Riveras or Costas, the most impacted groups who must leave their home in either situation are vulnerable families who may be more adversely affected because of their sociocultural and sociocultural and economic conditions.
On top of these comparisons, climate refugee families experience more intense disruption and trauma. Following the climate disaster, the reconstruction process, most of the time from scratch, also requires a lot of psychological resilience and endurance to navigate the post-trauma that can take up to decades or even generations.
The need to strengthen global cooperation to address climate refugees
The recurrence of extreme climate events is a call for world leaders to strengthen global cooperation in addressing climate-induced migration. While the sixth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), which took place in February 2024, promoted a dialogue and cooperation among countries all over the world, to engage a commitment and action to address climate refugees, the multilateral organizations have been developing transversal, holistic and socioenvironmental policies to mitigate the impacts of climate change on migration and displacement. This means acknowledging that climate change does not just pose a threat by causing immediate harm to people and infrastructure, it is also a long-term hazard that triggers social and economic disruption. Different from a project-resettled family like the Riveras, who will receive a new place to live, all the future climate refugee families like the Costas simply won’t have a home to go back to.
Nobody wants to be a member of the Costas family but it is wonderful that someone is thinking about how unprotected we are if we actually are a Costas.