FINAL DOCUMENT OF WORKING GROUP NO.

6
CLIMATE CHANGE AND MIGRATIONS

Context: Causes and consequences of climate migration

Climate migrations occur in the context of the development model that emerged from
the capitalist system. On one hand, this model enables states and transnational
corporations to overexploit natural resources, degrading the natural environment and
forcing the migration of people and families. Examples of this are the megaprojects that
use up the basic elements of the soil, local flora and fauna (such as mining and
hydroelectric dams), and that are realized with the complicity of the governments. The
product of climate change, then, is that particular points of the planet are being
converted into expulsing places, causing the displacement of populations for reasons of
increasingly worse scarcities of water and air, that we see in the increases in frequency
and intensity of floods and storms, or, in contrast, desertification and drought.

On the other hand, the capitalist model of development is seen to benefit from the
overexploitation of the labor of migrants. If it is also true that this situation of
overexploitation is shared by economic migrants, then those whom we consider “climate
migrants” are a product of the degradation of the planet that obligates their search for
other places to live. Among the primary environmental causes that determine migration,
we have: climate change (desertification, deforestation, degradation of the earth and
soil, pollution of water and floods, hurricanes), natural phenomena not attributable to
climate change (volcanic eruptions, earthquakes) and for disasters generated by
humankind (industrial accidents, radioactivity, among others).

Both situations implicate violations of the human rights of migrants and the deepening of
inequality and poverty, especially in the countries of the global South, whose inhabitants
are seen to be forced to displace themselves with dramatic impacts on the environment
also in the receiving countries, thus completing a perverse circle of vulnerability of
rights.

First, the right of individuals and peoples to not migrate and to stay on their lands is
being violated, and the degradation of their territories is generating a depopulation
particularly in rural communities, in which occasionally some elders are left. Second, in
the cities, those who emigrated occupy low wage jobs and in conditions of exploitation
violating their rights to dignified work, aggravating levels of poverty and thus impeding
access to other basic rights such as housing, health and education. On occasion this is
seen to support drug trafficking and trading networks of people that are turned into
commodities. Third, the militarization of the borders and the criminalization of migrants
institutionalizes abuse and generates high levels of discrimination, which finally
constitutes another obstacle to the access to all of their rights. Fourth and last, the
capitalist development model that forces people to emigrate from their places due to
climate causes violates the basic right to free movement.

At the global level, climate change-induced forced migration increases the pressures on
basic services, hinders economic growth and augments the risks of conflict. Thus,
climate migration contributes to the overflowing of the cities where tens of thousands
live and will live in marginalized neighborhoods, in deficient housing and with scarce
serves of potable water and limited access to economic, social and cultural rights. Other
resulting consequences of forced migration by climate change are the disorganization of
systems of production (affecting small farmers, indigenous people, artisanal fishers,
among others) and the debilitation of internal markets. In addition the loss of “human
capital” in the form of labor strength and investment in education, contributes to a
greater limitation of economic opportunities, which in turn generates future migration.
Also, for many, displacement signifies the loss of links to ancestral and being forced to
adopt a completely different way of life. The displacement of populations at this large
scale could redesign the ethnic map of many countries, shortening the distance
between groups who used to live separately, obligating them to compete for the same
resources.

We should mention that this situation is even worse for specific groups within migrant
populations, such as the case of women, especially indigenous women, and children
and adolescents.

In synthesis, environmental degradation and climate change have reached critical

levels, being one of the principal consequences of internal and international migration.
Although the data are approximate, some projections in 1995 estimated that about 25
million climate migrants, and now the estimates are about 50 million, and the projections
for 2050 are between 200 and 1000 million people who will be displaced by situations
driven by climate change. This will provoke an ever greater scarcity of regular levels of
food and water, as well as the increase in frequency and gravity of floods and storms,
all of which feeds the perverse cycle that climate migrants are found unprotected until
we begin to act.

Given these considerations, definitions that attempt to reflect these realities are the
following:

• Climate refugees. Those people who are obligated to flee due to climate
change. Although this does not exist in international law and particularly in the
Geneva Convention, it is necessary to insert this category so that states that
have caused the problem assume their responsibilities. This consideration goes
along the same lines as what the Special Rapporteur on the Right of Food Jean
Ziegler, in her 2007 report, signaled that there is little difference between a
person facing death caused by starvation and the other for an arbitrary execution
for their political convictions. He proposes the creation of a new juridical
 instrument to protect these people, recognizing them as “hunger refugees” and
offer them the rights of not returning with temporary protection, so that they don’t
have to return to a country where hunger and the hungry threaten their lives.

• Forced migrants. Those people that are obligated to migrate not only for
reasons of climate change but also for economic reasons. The term climate
migrant reduces the problem of workers that have forcibly left their countries for
labor motivations and could distract from the structural reasons of migration as a
global phenomenon. The term “forced migrants” is opposed to that of free
movement.

• The climate-displaced. Those people who are forced to displace themselves for
reasons of climate change, inside and outside of the country. The necessity
exists to create a judicial status to protect those people that are found in this
situation given that international law to date only recognizes the figures of
migration and refuge without incorporating those people subject to displacement.

Proposals

1. Ask that international conventions, including those endorsed in the UN

framework – through the mechanism of complementary protocols or alternative
reforms – such as those who subscribe to other spaces, such as the ALBA,
UNASUR or the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,
contemplate the definition of climate migrants as people and communities, so
that all the States of the world take into account the rights of these people in their
definitions and considerations.

2. Design global and local politics on climate change that incorporate and respect
the full democratic participation of al the countries and the full participation of
people and territories involved in the defense of their communities and the rights
of Mother Earth.

3. Demand political, economic, social ad cultural models, that respect our rights to
free movement, to not migrate and to not be displaced forcibly, recuperate the
cosmovision and ancestral technology in order to construct models of
development from the peoples indicated in the vision of BUEN VIVIR [Living
Well], that implies respect and harmony with Mother Earth. Models that in their
practices must oppose the practices of proponents of “development” and
extraction, in other aspects, of the world capitalist system, that determines
poverty, inequality, misery, the deterioration of Mother Earth and migration.

4. Promote a treaty on the human rights of climate migrants, applicable and

recognized at the global level, that has a binding character and is thus able to be
 demanded. That climate migrants have the same rights and obligations of the
citizens of the country of destiny [receiving country].

5. Create an international space or organization of the people that foments the

permanent investigation on the political, social, cultural and economic situation of
climate migrants.

6. Demand the creation of an economic fund primarily financed but the central
capitalist countries and the large transnational corporations that are the principal
causers of climate change, destined to the care of internal and external climate
migrants. That this Fund is administered b the Climate Justice Tribunal, or other
space constituted by affected peoples and communities. That the principle of
differentiated responsibility is respected equally by all countries, depending on
the dimension or gravity of harm.

7. As international policy, it is necessary to formulate the transfer of technology

from the central capitalist countries as the payment of historical climate debt and
that it is compatible with the rights of Mother Earth and that supports the
sovereignty of food, energy and other economic alternatives that have as an
basis the right of communities and their harmonious relationship with Mother
Earth.

8. Create a People’s Commission for the monitoring of the agreements on climate

migrants that are adopted by this World People’s Conference on Climate Change
and the Rights of Mother Earth.

9. Support the formation of an International Tribunal of Conscience in order to

denounce, make visible, document, judge and castigate the violations of the
rights of Migrants, refugees and displaced in their countries of origin, transit and
destiny.

10. Respect the right of prior, free and informed consent of communities, that as a
consequence of natural disasters are seeing the necessity to displace
themselves or to migrate. The right of communities and peoples to not migrate or
not be forcibly displaced from their lands for practices of eviction exercised by
States, transnational corporations and other armed actors.

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translated by Diana Pei Wu (PhD, 2006, University of California, Berkeley, Society &
Environment), April 29, 2010.