Walia writes: "Climate change is a product of our political, social and
economic system - one that places all that is sacred onto the market for
pillage and profit, a hierarchal order that values some people as all of
humanity while others are cast outside of humanity and made to disappear in
the seas, on the streets and behind cages. This is precisely why displaced
peoples must be central to climate movements."
Refugees making the journey to Europe. (photo: EPA)
Why Migration Should Be Central to Paris COP21 Climate Talks
By Harsha Walia, teleSUR
25 November 15
Climate refugees and displaced peoples bear the brunt of environmental
violence.
W e live in constant fear of the adverse impacts of climate change. For a
coral atoll nation, sea level rise and more severe weather events loom as a
growing threat to our entire population. The threat is real and serious, and
is of no difference to a slow and insidious form of terrorism against us." -
Prime Minister of Tuvalu Saufatu Sapo'aga at the United Nations.
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, world leaders are closing their
borders to refugees and cracking down on civil society participation in the
upcoming climate negotiations. Over the past 15 years, the War on Terror has
allowed for increased state powers while curbing fundamental rights,
especially of racialized bodies marked as threats. Meanwhile, violence
against the majority of humanity - including the devastation caused by
climate change in places like Tuvalu - continues on with international
impunity.
Tuvalu is one of dozens of low-lying Pacific Islands threatened with total
submersion as catastrophic warming causes ocean levels to rise drastically.
Over one-fifth of Tuvaluans have already been forced to flee and the
government of Tuvalu has been urging the U.N. to heed the impending disaster
in Tuvalu. Despite having the world's highest emission per capita, Tuvalu's
neighbor, Australia, has so far refused to accept Tuvaluans as climate
refugees.
It is evident that Australia and other Western governments' non-response to
climate change is reproduced in their denial of the humanity of those who
are a product of our unequal world; millions of people are treated as
expendable as the land, air and water that elites and their corporate
friends are digging up and polluting.
Climate Refugees at COP21 Climate Talks
Two years ago, the strongest storm ever recorded at landfall hit the
Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan left 6,000 people dead and 4 million people were
forced from their homes. This month a coalition of survivors released an
anniversary statement to the world:
"On the second anniversary of Yolanda, lighted candles may no longer be
enough. We must organize an escalated action strengthening our broad
networks to pressure our own inept governments and the world's top 200
corporate giants amassing wealth from carbon pollution and social
exploitation . Now is the time to end the climate crisis. Let the world know
- our survival is non-negotiable."
According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, an average of 26.4
million people per year have been displaced from their homes due to
environmental disasters. This is the equivalent of one person displaced
every second, and the likelihood of being displaced by a climate disaster is
60 percent higher today than it was four decades ago.
Even though international agencies and politicians routinely declare that
climate and migration are two of the greatest crises on the planet today, a
proposal to support climate refugees has been dropped from the U.N. COP21
climate talks in Paris. One of the key recommendations from the Advisory
Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility is to fund adaptation strategies
that support communities to remain, as well as strategies to safely migrate
through a climate change displacement coordination facility. Proposed by
low-lying countries in the Global South, the recommendation is opposed by
Western countries, especially Australia, and has now been entirely scrapped
from the latest draft agreement.
It lays bare that to those in power the survival of brown and black bodies
is, in fact, negotiable. Furthermore, carbon markets continue to be one of
the primary solutions proposed by government and corporate elites, even
though they open up impoverished communities to land grabs and further
displacement by polluters.
Displacement as Environmental Violence
Climate refugees are not alone in bearing the impacts of environmental
degradation. Refugees and migrants fleeing war, political violence and
economic instability often tell the stories of livelihoods devastated by
changing weather patterns or industrial development projects that
permanently alter local landscapes. The staggering scale of the Syrian
refugee crisis, for example, is compounded by an eight-year drought
resulting in 75 percent of farmers suffering total crop failure and over 1.5
million people being forced into urban areas.
In fact, much of the political and imperialist violence that has caused the
world's largest mass displacements in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq can be
traced back to the world's largest climate crime of the tar sands.
Disproportionately impacting downstream Indigenous communities such as the
Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Beaver Lake Cree Nation and Lubicon Cree
Nation at the source, over half of Alberta's tar sands go to the U.S. whose
Department of Defense is the world's leading single buyer and consumer of
oil. Indeed, the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 explicitly designates tar
sands production to serve the fuel needs of the US military. As author Naomi
Klein explains it, "As Baghdad burns, destabilizing the entire region and
sending oil prices soaring, Calgary booms." This is precisely why a local
and global anti-colonial orientation needs to be central to climate justice
movements.
In the East African country of Tanzania, mining for gold accounts for
approximately 40 percent of the country's exports. Just one mine, the North
Mara gold mine owned by Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold, has displaced
10,000 families since 1997. Within one year, the Legal and Human Rights
Center documented 19 murders of villagers opposing the mine by police and
security forces. In another northern part of Tanzania, the Geita Gold Mine
displaced 250 people from one village - almost all farming families who can
no longer subsist on the land and have been living in a makeshift refugee
camp for the past eight years. Industrial development such as mining, dams
and power plants have severe consequences for the environment, as well as
the human rights of those displaced due to loss of their lands and
livelihoods. Researchers estimate that around the world 15 million people
each year are forced to leave their homes due to industrial development
projects, and that mining accounts for 10.3 percent of all
development-induced displacements.
Furthermore, in a world of fortified borders, seeking refuge is underwritten
by violence on the land. The militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border wall,
for example, has created a 650-mile scar on the land as well as at least
5,000 migrant deaths in the past two decades. In 2005, a provision in the
Real ID Act gave the Secretary of Homeland Security unprecedented power to
waive 36 laws that protected endangered species, farmland, rivers and
sensitive ecosystems. Meanwhile, prisons and immigration detention centers
are massive environmental and health hazards for those disproportionately
poor black and brown bodies warehoused behind bars and drinking water
tainted with arsenic, sleeping in sewage, and breathing air from dangerously
close power plants and landfills.
Freedom to move, stay and return
Climate change is a product of our political, social and economic system -
one that places all that is sacred onto the market for pillage and profit, a
hierarchal order that values some people as all of humanity while others are
cast outside of humanity and made to disappear in the seas, on the streets
and behind cages. This is precisely why displaced peoples must be central to
climate movements.
As author McKenzie Wark reminds us, "Those who seek refuge, who are rarely
accorded a voice, are nevertheless the bodies that confront the injustice of
the world."
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Refugees making the journey to Europe. (photo: EPA)
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Why-Migration-Should-Be-Central-to-
Paris-COP21-Climate-Talks-20151125-0011.htmlhttp://www.telesurtv.net/english
/opinion/Why-Migration-Should-Be-Central-to-Paris-COP21-Climate-Talks-201511
25-0011.html
Why Migration Should Be Central to Paris COP21 Climate Talks
By Harsha Walia, teleSUR
25 November 15
Climate refugees and displaced peoples bear the brunt of environmental
violence.
e live in constant fear of the adverse impacts of climate change. For a
coral atoll nation, sea level rise and more severe weather events loom as a
growing threat to our entire population. The threat is real and serious, and
is of no difference to a slow and insidious form of terrorism against us." -
Prime Minister of Tuvalu Saufatu Sapo'aga at the United Nations.
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, world leaders are closing their
borders to refugees and cracking down on civil society participation in the
upcoming climate negotiations. Over the past 15 years, the War on Terror has
allowed for increased state powers while curbing fundamental rights,
especially of racialized bodies marked as threats. Meanwhile, violence
against the majority of humanity - including the devastation caused by
climate change in places like Tuvalu - continues on with international
impunity.
Tuvalu is one of dozens of low-lying Pacific Islands threatened with total
submersion as catastrophic warming causes ocean levels to rise drastically.
Over one-fifth of Tuvaluans have already been forced to flee and the
government of Tuvalu has been urging the U.N. to heed the impending disaster
in Tuvalu. Despite having the world's highest emission per capita, Tuvalu's
neighbor, Australia, has so far refused to accept Tuvaluans as climate
refugees.
It is evident that Australia and other Western governments' non-response to
climate change is reproduced in their denial of the humanity of those who
are a product of our unequal world; millions of people are treated as
expendable as the land, air and water that elites and their corporate
friends are digging up and polluting.
Climate Refugees at COP21 Climate Talks
Two years ago, the strongest storm ever recorded at landfall hit the
Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan left 6,000 people dead and 4 million people were
forced from their homes. This month a coalition of survivors released an
anniversary statement to the world:
"On the second anniversary of Yolanda, lighted candles may no longer be
enough. We must organize an escalated action strengthening our broad
networks to pressure our own inept governments and the world's top 200
corporate giants amassing wealth from carbon pollution and social
exploitation . Now is the time to end the climate crisis. Let the world know
- our survival is non-negotiable."
According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, an average of 26.4
million people per year have been displaced from their homes due to
environmental disasters. This is the equivalent of one person displaced
every second, and the likelihood of being displaced by a climate disaster is
60 percent higher today than it was four decades ago.
Even though international agencies and politicians routinely declare that
climate and migration are two of the greatest crises on the planet today, a
proposal to support climate refugees has been dropped from the U.N. COP21
climate talks in Paris. One of the key recommendations from the Advisory
Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility is to fund adaptation strategies
that support communities to remain, as well as strategies to safely migrate
through a climate change displacement coordination facility. Proposed by
low-lying countries in the Global South, the recommendation is opposed by
Western countries, especially Australia, and has now been entirely scrapped
from the latest draft agreement.
It lays bare that to those in power the survival of brown and black bodies
is, in fact, negotiable. Furthermore, carbon markets continue to be one of
the primary solutions proposed by government and corporate elites, even
though they open up impoverished communities to land grabs and further
displacement by polluters.
Displacement as Environmental Violence
Climate refugees are not alone in bearing the impacts of environmental
degradation. Refugees and migrants fleeing war, political violence and
economic instability often tell the stories of livelihoods devastated by
changing weather patterns or industrial development projects that
permanently alter local landscapes. The staggering scale of the Syrian
refugee crisis, for example, is compounded by an eight-year drought
resulting in 75 percent of farmers suffering total crop failure and over 1.5
million people being forced into urban areas.
In fact, much of the political and imperialist violence that has caused the
world's largest mass displacements in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq can be
traced back to the world's largest climate crime of the tar sands.
Disproportionately impacting downstream Indigenous communities such as the
Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Beaver Lake Cree Nation and Lubicon Cree
Nation at the source, over half of Alberta's tar sands go to the U.S. whose
Department of Defense is the world's leading single buyer and consumer of
oil. Indeed, the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 explicitly designates tar
sands production to serve the fuel needs of the US military. As author Naomi
Klein explains it, "As Baghdad burns, destabilizing the entire region and
sending oil prices soaring, Calgary booms." This is precisely why a local
and global anti-colonial orientation needs to be central to climate justice
movements.
In the East African country of Tanzania, mining for gold accounts for
approximately 40 percent of the country's exports. Just one mine, the North
Mara gold mine owned by Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold, has displaced
10,000 families since 1997. Within one year, the Legal and Human Rights
Center documented 19 murders of villagers opposing the mine by police and
security forces. In another northern part of Tanzania, the Geita Gold Mine
displaced 250 people from one village - almost all farming families who can
no longer subsist on the land and have been living in a makeshift refugee
camp for the past eight years. Industrial development such as mining, dams
and power plants have severe consequences for the environment, as well as
the human rights of those displaced due to loss of their lands and
livelihoods. Researchers estimate that around the world 15 million people
each year are forced to leave their homes due to industrial development
projects, and that mining accounts for 10.3 percent of all
development-induced displacements.
Furthermore, in a world of fortified borders, seeking refuge is underwritten
by violence on the land. The militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border wall,
for example, has created a 650-mile scar on the land as well as at least
5,000 migrant deaths in the past two decades. In 2005, a provision in the
Real ID Act gave the Secretary of Homeland Security unprecedented power to
waive 36 laws that protected endangered species, farmland, rivers and
sensitive ecosystems. Meanwhile, prisons and immigration detention centers
are massive environmental and health hazards for those disproportionately
poor black and brown bodies warehoused behind bars and drinking water
tainted with arsenic, sleeping in sewage, and breathing air from dangerously
close power plants and landfills.
Freedom to move, stay and return
Climate change is a product of our political, social and economic system -
one that places all that is sacred onto the market for pillage and profit, a
hierarchal order that values some people as all of humanity while others are
cast outside of humanity and made to disappear in the seas, on the streets
and behind cages. This is precisely why displaced peoples must be central to
climate movements.
As author McKenzie Wark reminds us, "Those who seek refuge, who are rarely
accorded a voice, are nevertheless the bodies that confront the injustice of
the world."
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
