Why climate migration doesn’t have to be crisis
In-migration states must take an anticipatory approach to include migrants in growth and development strategies
In the first two months of the New Year and a new decade, India, a climate hotspot, hosted two global leaders who believe global warming is a hoax: United States President Donald Trump and Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro. Despite their steadfast denial about the phenomenon, there is more-than-ample scientific evidence and anecdotal confirmation that proves the unfolding climate crisis is becoming an urgent economic, social, and existential threat for people across the world.
The manifestations of the crisis such as extreme weather events and sea level rise, among others, are forcing people to leave their homes and hearth, and move to less-vulnerable places. According to the 2020 World Migration Report, at the end of 2018, there were a total of 28 million new internal displacements across 148 countries and territories. “Sixty-one percent [17.2 million] of these new displacements were triggered by disasters, and 39% [10.8 million] were caused by conflict and violence,” the report says. “Many more people are newly displaced by disasters in any given year, compared with those newly displaced by conflict and violence, and more countries are affected by disaster displacement,” it added.
A 2018 World Bank report (Groundswell), which focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, representing 55% of the developing world’s population, found that the climate crisis will push tens of millions of people to migrate within their countries by 2050. Migration is a common strategy for survival; coping, income diversification, risk management, and adaptation for people facing economic stress and adverse climate conditions. To be sure, there are only a few cases where the climate crisis can be said to be the sole factor prompting migration, says a 2019 Brookings Report (The Climate Crisis, Migration, and Refugees). But the phenomenon is now increasingly being recognised as a contributing and exacerbating factor in migration.
In India, in-migration of any kind is not always looked at favourably by many state governments, and political parties find it a handy tool to foment tension between locals and “outsiders”. But, such movement of people, who are either forced out of their homes due to a climate catastrophe or by other factors, doesn’t always have to end up as a crisis, if in-migration states take a long-term, anticipatory approach to planning and factor migrants into their development strategies.
Take, for instance, what Kerala has been doing for migrant workers in general. It is the only state in India that treats migrant welfare as the “duty of the State” and has rolled out specific schemes for them. The Kerala Migrant Workers’ Welfare Scheme offers financial support for the medical treatment of migrants, and grants for their children’s education in the state. The scheme also has provisions for compensation to workers in the event of injury or disability, compensation to survivors upon death of a worker, and allowances for repatriation of the body.
Then there is a health insurance programme of cashless and paperless medical treatment benefit of ~15,000 per person per year, using biometric cards in any of the empanelled hospitals. The state’s Apna Ghar project aims to provide good quality hostel accommodation with basic facilities on an affordable rental basis to migrants. The state government has also initiated a legal awareness camp, the first of its kind in India. It is a comprehensive programme that empowers the migrant workers legally by creating awareness among them about the various government schemes available to them.
One of the key issues migrants of any kind face is the problem of identity because many misplace government documents during their cross-state travel or natural disasters. In Rajasthan, this problem has been tackled with the government recognising an identity card issued by Aajeevika Bureau, an agency working to ensure secure lives for communities dependent on migration and labour, since 2008. The bureau forms capture important demographic, occupational and migration-related information. The information is verified and the card is signed by the elected heads of panchayats. This registration and photo ID create a valid database of migrants.
With the number of extreme weather events increasing rapidly and the climate crisis ravaging the farm sector and depleting water tables, India is bound to see an increase in people moving from one state to another. “Climate crisis is not subject to man-made borders whereas migration is; apparently no less when the borders are internal rather than international…”, says Binod Khadria, a migration scholar and a former professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. “…the two are nevertheless intertwined, and call for concerted efforts among the states,” he adds.
While there are no official numbers about climate migrants, who are mostly poor and impoverished, and ones who did not create the climate problem in the first place, it’s time that the Indian State chalks out a framework to provide them with ample opportunities to restart their lives.