Climate change could force millions to move

Report looks at possible three-decade scenarios

BARCELONA, Spain – Climate change could push more than 200 million people to leave their homes in the next three decades and create migration hot spots unless urgent action is taken to reduce global emissions and bridge the development gap, a World Bank report has found.

The second part of the Groundswell report published Monday examined how the impacts of slow-onset climate change such as water scarcity, decreasing crop productivity and rising sea levels could lead to millions of what it describes as “climate migrants” by 2050 under three different scenarios with varying degrees of climate action and development.

Under the most pessimistic scenario, with high emissions and unequal development, the report forecasts up to 216 million people moving within their own countries across the six regions analyzed. Those regions are Latin America; North Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Europe and Central Asia; South Asia; and East Asia and the Pacific.

In the most climate-friendly scenario, with a low level of emissions and inclusive, sustainable development, the world could still see 44 million people being forced to leave their homes.

The findings “reaffirm the potency of climate to induce migration within countries,” said Viviane Wei Chen Clement, a senior climate change specialist at the World Bank and one of the report’s authors.

cult to say for certain, Brané said.

“It is a huge challenge that we are absolutely committed to following through to meet and to do whatever we can to reunify these families,” she said as she outlined the new program in an interview with The Associated Press.

The Trump administration separated thousands of migrant parents from their children in 2017 and 2018 as it moved to criminally prosecute people for illegally crossing the southwest border. Minors, who could not be held in criminal custody with their parents, were transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. They were then typically sent to live with a sponsor, often a relative or someone else with a connection to the family.

Amid widespread outrage, Trump issued an executive order halting the practice of family separations in June 2018, days before a federal judge did the same and demanded that separated families be reunited in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

More than 5,500 children were separated from their families, according to the ACLU. The task force came up with an initial estimate closer to 4,000 but has been examining hundreds of other cases.

The new program includes a web portal that will allow parents to contact the U.S. government to begin the process of reunification. The site and an outreach campaign to promote it will be in English, Spanish, Portuguese and several indigenous languages of Central America.

Once parents who were separated from their children are located, the U.S.

will work with the International Organization for Migration to help people get passports and other documents and return to the United States, where they will get work permits, residency for three years and some support services.

Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’S immigrant rights project, welcomed the Biden administration’s expanded efforts as “an important first step,” though he believes migrants should get more than three years of residency.

“Ultimately, we need the families to be given permanent legal status in light of what the United States government deliberately did to these families,” Gelernt said.

The ACLU is in talks with the government to provide some compensation to the families as part of settlement talks.

Brané said the administration recognizes that “we need to find a better, longer-term solution to provide families with stability,” but that it will take more time, and perhaps action from Congress, to achieve that goal.

The contract with the IOM, an intergovernmental organization, and the expanded effort to find migrant parents and help them reach the U.S. are initially planned to run for a year but could be extended if necessary.

“We’ll continue looking for people until we feel that we’ve exhausted the options,” she said.

ANUPAM NATH/AP FILE A family in northeastern Assam state, India, travels by boat amid floodwaters in 2016. A World Bank report looks at how climate change could create “climate migrants.”

RAJANISH KAKADE/AP FILE People prepare to draw water from a dried-up well in Maharashtra state, India, in 2016 after a tanker emptied water into the well.

ANDRES LEIGHTON/AP FILE The Biden administration says it is stepping up its effort to find and unite migrant families forcibly separated at the U.s.-mexico border under President Donald Trump.

MATT YORK/AP FILE A protester holds a sign demanding the reuniting of migrant families outside a closed gate at the Port of Entry facility in Fabens, Texas, in 2018.