10 October 2020, NIICE Commentary 6125
Sanchita Hazra
Human migration is the movement by common people from one place to another with an intention of setting up habitation, permanently or temporarily in a new location. This movement is often undertaken over long distant place, may be from one country to another. The influence of the environment and climate change seems to be a major cause of migration, which is largely unrepresented in standard theories of migration. A steady survey of recent debates on climate change and migration focus almost entirely on displacement and perceive migration to be a problem.
Climate induced migrants or refugees are the hapless persons or groups of persons who, for compelling reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect 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. Disasters and slow onsets such as droughts in Somalia in 2011 and 2012, floods in Pakistan between 2010 and 2012, and the earthquake in Nepal in 2015, more recently the massive flood in Kerala in 2018 and the Sulawesi earthquake and Tsunami in September 2018 left huge numbers of people traumatized without shelter, clean water and basic supplies which holds true for any country. Interestingly, the movement of people across the border due to various gruesome climatic conditions, contributes not only to socio-economic and political problems, but might culminate in unremitting antagonism and conflicts between the host population and the migrants. Touching the milieu, the paper studies what we mean by the term climate induced migrations or more specifically environmental refugees and highlight the factors contributing to such movements.
The environment drives migration through mechanisms characterized as the availability and reliability of ecosystem service and exposure to hazard. Individual migration decision and flows are affected by these drives opening in combination, and the effect of the environment is, therefore, highly dependent on economic, political, social and demographic context. Environmental change has the potential to affect directly the hazardous displacement of common folk. Environmental change also effects migration indirectly, in particular through economic drivers, by changing livelihoods. The framework can be used to guide new research, consist with the evolution of policy option and provide a context for the development of scenarios representing a range of plausible migration future.
In many aspects, while evaluating migration, recent studies have focused on providing insight into problems common to most host countries. A crucial characteristic that has been found there that modestly educated migrants contribute negatively in terms of fiscal and social costs for the host localities, while well-educated ones bring in a net positive transfer, this has been a consistent theme in political writings. There are many complex factors operating both in the host as well as the source countries that have considerable influence on the expected costs and benefits of migration that reflects in the political behavior, including polarization and extreme voting.
It is evident that migration has had critical role in history, mainly because the incidence of culturally diverse migration is likely to have significant implications in the receiving countries and so, it requires a greater sense of responsibility in implementing the community development programs to provide efficient professional services to address the language specific and culturally sensitive requirements of the people.
Geographically Indian Sub-continent is of immense strategic importance as it plays a significant role in the maintenance of balance of power in Asia. It joins the continent of Asia with Pacific Ocean countries by the Indian Ocean region through a number of seaplanes. Climate change is one of the major causes of human migration in this sub-continent. South Asia is particularly vulnerable to this crisis. Nearly half of the region’s population lives in area that is projected to become moderate to serve climate hotspots by 2050. Unhealthy temperatures and variable precipitation patterns have contributed to declines in agricultural production, productivity and food security. Natural calamities, thereby, challenging such as floods, tsunami’s and earth quakes have affected the susceptibility of the people of the regions who are already vulnerable. The major migration corridors in South Asia are between Bangladesh-India, Afghanistan-Pakistan, India-Pakistan and Nepal-India. Empirical evidence suggests that environmental degradation is an important factor in pursing migration, particularly in less developed countries. For instance, many illegal Bangladeshi immigrants are seeking employment in India. There is rise in Bangladeshis in Assam and West Bengal. The presence of Nepali migrants in Bhutan and India, Sri Lankan Tamils in India and Chakmas in Bangladesh have increased security issues for these countries. South Asia is already considered the second most violent place on the earth after Iraq.
If we take a closer look, we find that migration, including international migration and displacement of refugees are direct results of the outflow of political migrants from an oppressive state to a peaceful country, which wields a considerable influence on the job market of the world economy that invariably ensures complex political crises. In the last few decades, it has become a major concern in public debates as it is rooted in the interplay of political decision procedure and the related structures to alleviate concerns of the job market. The foremost challenge is to positively cultivate appropriate dispositions to produce a beneficial outcome. From the institutional perspective, the challenge is social inclusion of the migrants, which implies for their active participation in the society, including availability of opportunities that the economy, politics and the government have to offer.
