Climate-Migration: A Security Analysis within the Context of Green Theory/Iklim Gocu: Yesil Teori Baglaminda Bir Guvenlik Analizi.

• Author: Ari, Tayyar

Introduction

As it was in the past, migration continues to be an essential phenomenon of humanity, and it is likely that its importance will increase in the future. In modern times, especially in the 21st century, human mobility is more simplified than any other era due to technological advancements in travel and transportation. As larger and larger numbers of people move away from their hometowns, migration has become a defining social reality. After the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, also known as the Refugee Convention or the Geneva Convention, signed in 1951, forced migration has become an issue of international relations, as it is now an issue of international law. Migration has a multi-dimensional nature that affects both sending and receiving countries in various ways; hence every state must develop policies for its migratory movements. However, these measures differ from what states have been doing that see the flow of migration as a threat to their borders. Today, of the nearly 80 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, 26 million have refugee status, 45.7 million are internally displaced, and 4.2 million are seeking asylum. (1) It is expected that these numbers, which are already high, will increase in the near future. There is also cause of a new wave of migration that has the potential to overshadow the current numbers and lead to one of the most devastating humanitarian crises ever seen; that is climate migration.

Climate migration is a subfield of migration that is used to refer migrants or refugees who have fled from their homeland due to the damaging effects of climate change, climate-change-related sea-level rise, drought, water scarcity, extreme weather events, deforestation, air pollution, and other climate-related disasters. (2) This type of migration will increase exponentially on a global scale in the near future unless the effects of human-induced climate change (or anthropocentric climate change) are prevented. There are some severe estimations about the potential total numbers of climate migrants. According to a variety of studies and statistics, anticipated numbers vary from 100 million to 1 billion according to different studies (3) and statistics. (4) However, even the lowest estimations for potential climate migrants are much higher than the total number of forcibly displaced people that currently exist in the world. If we consider the current management problems for the migration and refugee crises we are seeing today, it will be easier to fully comprehend the impending threat of climate migration.

Throughout the history of migration, especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the flow of immigrants has been perceived as a security threat by many states (5) (especially by developed states), and climate-related migration will likely be perceived within this same framework. Moreover, the possibility of an additional one billion people being displaced due to climate change's harmful effects will pose a potential challenge for states whose primary concern is to ensure their border security. In summary, it is not difficult to see that climate migration will be one of the greatest global security threats of the coming decades. (6) However, as Ken Booth points out, security is a derivative concept upon which different inferences can be made. (7) Security is not an objective concept nor does it have a shared understanding for every actor in global politics as 'security perception', 'insecurity', and 'feeling secure', all mean different things to different agents. Hence, 'security for whom?' or 'security for what?' questions always follow. For instance, human security approach broadens concepts of national and international security and offers different perspectives on problems, such as climate migrants, where reactions of traditional security approaches seem insufficient. Starting from this point of view, the aim of this study is to show that as long as traditional understandings of security dominate international relations, they are bound to fail when confronted by new security problems such as climate migration. So, an alternative security approach should be adopted to maintain global security. Since the primary cause of climate migration is traditional practices of international politics, the same approach is and will continue to be an insufficient solution to our environmental woes.

With this in mind, climate migration generally will be examined in the first section through a focus on the dilemmas that has been generated from several lenses namely definitional, political, legal, and security spheres. The primary purpose of this detailed analysis is to reveal the main causes of the problems and indicate that a state-based understanding of global politics is the root cause. In the following section, it is aimed to show the challenges of interpreting this issue within the traditional view of international politics, and finally green security perspective, which is derived from Green Political Thought, will be introduced as an alternative for the holistic security of global environmental politics and ecology.

Climate Migration

Although climate-induced migration is a less known concept in the field of international relations, it is one of the defining phenomena of the 21st century and has increasing importance. During the last couple of decades, many scholars have mentioned anthropocentric climate change as one of the biggest threats for the future of humanity and have repeatedly cited a number of subversive effects of climate change (water shortages, sea level rises, desertification, deforestation, famine) as human security threats. (8) However, climate migration, the expected result of these disastrous events, has not been discussed as much as it deserves in the academic field and the political sphere. The biggest consequence of the aforementioned disasters is the potential migration flows that can affect not only those who are migrating, but also those living in areas which are receiving migrants.

Before contextualizing this subject, it is important to first define "climate migration" and "climate migrants/refugees" comprehensively. Starting with a clear definition is crucial for two essential reasons: First, a proper definition would direct governments and international organizations to take the right actions. Second, depending on the definition, reliable datasets can be provided. (9)

One of the earliest definitions of climate migrants is from El-Hinnawi's, who refers to them as "environmental refugees" in a report prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). In this report, El-Hinnawi describes environmental refugees as "people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people) that jeopardizes their existence and/or seriously affects the quality of their life". (10) This is clearly a broad description that incorporates almost every kind of climate-migration and form of environmental-based mobility. On the one hand, it is important to ask the question of whether it is better to have a definition that is so wide and inclusive, or if it is difficult to frame an issue with that kind of broad definition. Although the term environmental refugee became popular after El-Hinnawi's use of it in the 1985 report, Lester Brown was the first one who first coined this term in 1970s. (11) After Hinnawi and Brown, another famous study involving the term environmental refugee was conducted by Norman Myers in 1993. (12)

Although the concept of climate refugees has been used plenty of times by a number of scholars throughout the years, describing climate-induced migrants as 'refugees' remains controversial among scholars, because the concept of a 'refugee' has a legally binding status which describes certain types of migrants. For example, Stephen Castle argues that using 'climate displacement' instead of 'refugee' is a more correct definition for environmental migrants. Because most migrants flee not across borders but within borders. (13) Dina Ionesco introduces another dimension, claiming that using the term refugee is legally incorrect and that it may weaken current refugees' legal status and acquired rights. (14) Although all of these arguments have fair criticisms, Myers and Hinnawi use of the term was rhetorical, and their primary intent was to draw attention to the potential security threat.

One of the best definitions for climate migrants is from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The IOM describes climate migrants saying, "environmental migrants are persons or groups of persons who, for compelling reasons of sudden or progressive change in the environment that adversely affects their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad." (15) Although this definition is made from a broad perspective, the use of "migrants" instead of refugees is more helpful in insuring state-centric political organizations recognize the problem. The use of the word 'refugee' allows states to ignore the problem because they have reached their threshold of endurance against further refugee crises: they no longer want to accept new refugees.

Along with the definition problem, one of the most crucial problems for climate migrants is their legal status. As stated in the previous paragraph, recognizing climate migrants as refugees causes many problems. However, when climate migrants are not granted legal status, states see themselves as not being obliged to make an effort to solve the problem. This legal gap is a major obstacle...