Over 70 million people in the world now live as refugees who fled war, persecution and conflict – the highest level that the UNHCR has seen in its almost 70 years, according to their Global Trends report. It is the world’s developing regions who are hosting 84% of all refugees.
While they grapple with the refugee crisis, the unfolding climate emergency is making it worse for them as well as for the entire global community. In 2017 alone, there were over 18 million new displacements associated with disasters (such as floods and storms accounting for more than 80% of the incidents) across 135 countries and territories, according to Geneva based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
The deadly drought in Afghanistan that affected 2.2 million people, displaced more people human beings in 2018 than the war between the country’s government and the Taliban. In the last few weeks, India has faced extremely high temperatures wherein the capital city of Delhi had its highest ever June temperature of 48°C, while the city of Churu in Rajasthan state experienced 50.8°C. More than 70%of districts in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka are hit by drought and crop failure, forcing thousands of people out of their homes and making it hard for about 8 million farmers to survive.
While the issue of climate induced displacement has made significant progress at UNFCCC, the actions unfortunately do not match the emergency that the world faces. The wide-ranging recommendations by the Task Force for Displacement were approved at COP24 and also extended its mandate. However, without sufficient financial resources to back the recommendations up, the actions may simply remain a wish list. We must remember that the most vulnerable communities who did not even contribute towards the current climate crisis are suffering the most. Developing countries need support both in terms of capacity-building as well as sufficient financial resources. Support must be provided now!