Environmental decay may prompt refugee surge-study
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent Tue Oct 11, 2005, 2:04 AM ET
OSLO (Reuters) - A deteriorating environment could drive
about 50 million people from their homes by 2010 and the
world needs to define a new category of "environmental"
refugee, a U.N. study said on Tuesday.
Desertification, rising sea levels, flooding and storms
linked to climate change might displace hundreds of
millions of people, according to the report by the U.N.
University's Institute for Environment and Human
Security.
"We're ringing a kind of scientific and political alarm
bell," Janos Bogardi, head of the Bonn-based Institute,
told Reuters. "We need to act."
He said the estimated figure of 50 million environmental
refugees -- roughly the population of Ukraine or Italy
-- was in some ways a worst case that would demand
billions of dollars in extra aid.
Still, he estimated that about 20 million people were
already displaced by problems linked to a damaged
environment, ranging from eroded farmland to polluted
water supplies.
Such upheavals already affected millions of people in
sub-Saharan Africa, India and Asia, he said.
The Institute urged acceptance of the idea that
"environmental refugees" -- people displaced by
environmental degradation -- would be eligible for food,
tools, shelter, medical care and grants in line with
political refugees fleeing war or oppression at home.
Bogardi said that victims of slow-moving environmental
catastrophes were too often dismissed as people moving
for purely economic reasons, who are usually denied
refugee status.
Among threats, the Gobi desert in China is expanding by
more than 3,900 sq mile a year. The low-lying Pacific
island state of Tuvalu has struck a deal for New Zealand
to accept its 11,600 population if seas rise.
"This is a highly complex issue, with global
organizations already overwhelmed by the demands of
conventionally recognized refugees," Hans van Ginkel,
U.N. Under-Secretary-General and rector of the U.N.
University, said in the report.
"We should prepare now, however, to define, accept and
accommodate this new breed of refugee," he said.
Americans who fled the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, for
instance, were driven by a mix of environmental
degradation and poverty caused by their failed crops.
Costs of coping with "environmental refugees" could be
huge.
The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR estimates that it has
helped 50 million conventional refugees to restart their
lives since it was set up in 1950. For 2005, it has
received about $980 million in funds, mainly from
governments led by the United States.
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