Climate displaced people could number billions in 2050

Internally displaced people caused by climate change in vulnerable countries, currently numbering between 20 million and 30 million people, could reach numbers in the billions by the year 2050.

Experts have stated that in this situation, caused by storms, droughts or food insecurity, the current economic and development model has a high impact, to which must be added the crisis of the pandemic.

The associate director of Just Transition and Global Alliances of the Spanish NGO Ecodes, Mario Rodríguez, has assured that the impact of climate change currently causes more than 20 million internally displaced people, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). ).

For his part, the advocacy director for Ayuda en Acción, Alberto Casado, explains that in 2020 a report from the internal displacement office of this international organization spoke of 30’700,000 people having to be internally displaced by disasters related to the weather, which are intensifying with the weather.

The impact of climate change, according to Mario Rodríguez, is greater for the most vulnerable for several reasons; First of all, because they are populations that do not have sufficient resources to choose the energy they consume, so they cannot help mitigate the climate crisis.

In addition, it affects their diet, as has been collected by the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which indicates that the areas most affected by droughts, hurricanes or floods are also those that suffer the most from food insecurity, as in the Sahel and all of Africa, Southeast Asia or the Middle East.

The head of Ecodes also recalled that the entire conflict of the war in Syria was caused by a drought that led to a social outbreak.

But climate change also affects the housing factor: “they are usually populations with substandard housingThey have little resistance to floods or heat waves and their resources are scarce to live but also to adapt to climate change, as in the Sahel, some areas of Latin America or in the Himalayas with the melting of their glaciers.

They are populations “heavily affected by climate change“And they do not have the resources to mitigate or adapt to its effects,”a devastating combination”Asserted Rodríguez, who explained that the concept of climate refugee is not legally recognized by the United Nations.

“In Africa alone, there are more than 20 million climate displaced persons a year. Lack of resources can lead to conflict and the migration of thousands of people fleeing Syria, the Sahel, Sudan or Somalia”.

He adds that if there is no change or the impact of climate change is reduced, according to projections, that number of climate migrants “could multiply by hundreds to billions by 2050″ And highlights that millions of people from the Middle East without housing or food or from the Sahel will seek refuge in Europe.

This phenomenon is being seen in other areas such as Central or South America that are migrating north to the United States, such as those affected by droughts in the Dry Corridor of Central America or areas of South America affected by other climatic phenomena.

The problem “it is not valued in all its dimension”Rodríguez has assured, and has affirmed that according to forecasts by the NGO Ayuda en Acción, it is estimated that 1,000 million displaced people will be climatic by 2050 in extreme climatic scenarios.

“It can be an important geopolitical crisis and in spaces like Europe, with a series of values ​​and principles where conflicts can be generated ”, especially in the countries of entry of the southern border. This is going to increase progressively and we will see it at the end of this decade, without waiting for 2050 ″.

There are a series of measures that have been adopted to counteract this situation, ranging from global ones to those carried out by NGOs, says the Ecodes member, among the first is the creation of the Green Fund in 2009 in Copenhagen, to that developed countries pledged to contribute US $ 100 billion annually for climate mitigation and adaptation of the least developed.

But “In the last 15 years, only US $ 20,000 million have been accumulated, when the commitment was US $ 100,000 million annually as of 2020. These funds were additional, that is, they were not drawn from aid for cooperation, the famous 0.7%”.

“The lack of transparency has not made it possible to know if this money comes from the cooperation aid funds”, According to Rodríguez, despite the fact that in 2018 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) spoke of US $ 70,000 million without specifying the origin of those funds.

The “The only reliable fund is the United Nations, which speaks of 20,000 million euros”, He assured. He adds that Spain for the period 2020-2023 plans to contribute 150 million euros to that fund, when the contribution should be about 400 million euros per year.

In this sense, the NGOs make a “Undeniable and very important role in countries affected by climate crisis, now it will be necessary to see if the northern countries affected by climate change do not subtract money from the Green Fund to apply it in their own countries”.

The advocacy director of Ayuda en Acción, Alberto Casado, points out that according to data from the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs, it is estimated that 17.2% of the population of Latin America, that is 5.2 million people, need humanitarian aid, while from Central America, thousands of people are moving north.

He added that for a few years they have been talking about “slow developing crisis”, Which are those that occur from year to year between droughts, hurricanes, droughts in areas where the communities are eminently agricultural and are being forced to migrate due to these climatic effects.

He recalled that in 2020 there was a plague of locusts in Ethiopia aggravated by the effects of climate change and has agreed with Rodríguez in pointing out that the situation is just as serious in the Sahel or in areas affected by rising sea levels: “We are eating biodiversity, causing these types of situations that will be increasingly frequent due to the destruction of wild areas.”

Casado explains that from Ayuda en Acción they work to achieve resilience in the face of climate change, for which they promote the empowerment of communities, the organization in agricultural cooperatives, in improving the seeds so that they are more resistant as in Central America, or the “water crops”In the Andes with the construction of reservoirs for camelid cattle, the main source of resources.

They also work to train the population to grow food that contributes to the family diet, to create grain and seed deposits for times of scarcity and to support women, who lead the maintenance of families, strengthen them, empower them. allows communities to get ahead, he said.

The two experts are not too optimistic about the results of the next Climate Summit (COP26) in Glasgow (United Kingdom), however, they hope the acceleration of funds and commitments for mitigation and adaptation to climate change of the most vulnerable populations Even more so when the planet’s temperature continues to rise, according to the United Nations.