Police told to plan for ‘backlash’ over future climate refugees
MASS migration caused by climate change may lead to an increase in racial tensions and community clashes in the UK, police have been warned.
Millions of people are expected to be displaced from developing countries by escalating environmental crises, with experts predicting many will attempt to seek shelter in Europe.
An influx of climate refugees is a problem that UK police forces should prepare for, experts said this week.
Dr Peter Langmead-jones, head of external relations for Greater Manchester Police, warned at the Police Superintendents’ Association conference that “it would be sensible to predict there may well be a backlash. It upsets the local community that can lead to tensions sometimes on racial grounds, sometimes around resources. It would be as well to plan for that”.
One study has estimated that climate change could push a billion and a half people to escape unlivable heat in the next 50 years. Temperature increases could leave millions struggling to survive heat as extreme as the hottest parts of the Sahara by 2070, forcing them to flee to more tolerable climes, says the study by scientists from China, the US and Europe.
“The number of people who will fall outside of the climate niche that we have lived in for thousands of years is gob-smackingly high,” said Prof Tim Lenton, climate specialist at the University of Exeter, and a study co-authors.
The countries most at risk include India, Nigeria and Pakistan, said the study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said: “It won’t mean that people suddenly overnight are going to become displaced, but you’ll gradually see populations migrating away from these areas, causing pressure on surrounding areas, and that’s usually a formula for conflict.”
1.5bn
The number estimated to become environmental migrants as a result of rising temperatures in the next 50 years