ABC Ockham's Razor - Robyn Williams
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| Residents from the small coastal village of Vunidogoloa in Fiji have relocated to higher land because of the impacts of climate change. (Supplied: Dr Celia McMichael) |
Globally, the impacts of climate change are going to contribute to
human migration. While estimated numbers of climate migrants are widely
debated, it has been projected that hundreds of millions of people could
migrate by the middle of this century due to climate-related hazards
such as flooding, sea-level rise, erosion and drought.
While a 'last resort option', migration can be an adaptive response to climate change impacts, says Dr Celia McMichael.
And where it occurs, it should be supported so as to protect people's communities, livelihoods, rights, and health.
The
lecturer in geography says that as people begin to move from sites of
climatic vulnerability, it's critical that the international community
takes decisive action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create a
low-carbon world and support climate adaptation.
Transcript
Dr Celia McMichael is Lecturer in Health Geography, School of Geography, University of Melbourne
Robyn Williams: Could it be that climate change is already causing the migration of people and even conflict? An article headed 'Climate Change Helped Spark the Syrian War' appeared in March 2015 in
National Geographic
magazine, and told how droughts drove Syrian farmers to "abandon their
crops and flock to the cities", triggering unrest and then civil war. Well
now closer to our region, Dr Celia McMichael finds that other movements
of people have also been happening. She's at the Department of
Geography, University of Melbourne, and here she reflects on the work of
her famous father, Tony McMichael, who wrote on climate and the health
of nations.
Celia McMichael: In 2014, residents
from the small coastal village of Vunidogoloa in Fiji relocated to
higher land. Their village of 26 houses was previously located a few
meters from the foreshore, but over recent years they experienced
increasing coastal erosion and flooding. When I was there last year on a
research visit, villagers told me that the community had relocated,
ultimately, because of the impacts of climate change. Higher tides and
flooding were damaging their homes and crops, and coastal erosion was
washing away the land upon which their village was built. As one man
said to me:
"Well it all started about ten years ago when we
noticed the sea water coming into the village. At first we used to have
spring tide that used to come up, but then it was almost a daily
occurrence. The bread fruit trees weren't fruiting well because of the
salt water. Some parts of the houses were washed away.
"
With
the support of government, international agencies and, of course,
community involvement, they designed and built a new village located
about two kilometres inland. So while people still walk down to the
remains of their old village — to fish and to swim — their new village
has fish ponds, pineapple plantations, a coconut copra drier and better
access to roads. Some infrastructure work still needs to be completed,
but residents agree that moving the village uphill has provided a way
for them to adapt to climate change and to protect their livelihoods,
community, health and wellbeing, and indeed their future.
My own
interest in conducting research in this area stems from concern with the
urgent and inequitable realities of climate change impacts; but on a
more personal note, it has been developed through talking and
co-authoring with my late father, Professor Tony McMichael, who was an
eminent epidemiologist. We wrote together about potential health
outcomes for climate migrants, such as infectious disease risks among
people who are displaced by environmental disaster, or the opportunities
for improved health via well-supported migration and relocation
planning.
When my dad died unexpectedly in 2014, he was putting the finishing touches to his forthcoming book,
Climate Change and the Health of Nations.
The book examines historical records and finds that human health is
very sensitive to changes in climate. And drawing on history, he warns
that the impacts of climatic change — such as environmental disaster,
increasing temperatures, and food insecurity — will amplify infectious
diseases, under-nutrition, and heat-related deaths, especially among
vulnerable populations, such as children and forcibly displaced people.
Globally,
the impacts of climate change are going to contribute to human
migration. While estimated numbers of climate migrants are widely
debated, it has been projected that hundreds of millions of people could
migrate by the middle of this century due to climate-related hazards
such as flooding, sea-level rise, erosion and drought.
So
sea-level rise, for example, is expected to displace people living in
low-lying communities in many small islands and coastal areas. Somewhere
between 70 to 190 million people could be affected by coastal flooding
and land loss by the end of this century, assuming an average sea-level
rise of somewhere between half a meter and two meters. In some places,
adaptation to sea-level rise will entail relocation of people and
communities to areas of lower environmental risk. Now this is a really
complex phenomenon; particularly as climate change will rarely act
alone, but will intersect with other social, economic and environmental
factors that shape migration patterns.
Many governments, policy
makers and researchers now regard climate-related migration not as a
crisis, but in fact, a potential adaptive response to climate change.
More than a dozen low-income countries have submitted national
adaptation plans to the United Nations that include relocation of
affected communities. And in 2010, the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change officially recognized the need for
community relocation.
So coming back to the Pacific region, where I
started, low-lying atolls and island nations — such as Tuvalu,
Kiribati, and the Carteret Islands — have drawn attention to the
potentially devastating impacts of sea-level rise. Among policy makers,
researchers, governments and affected communities, there's been a lot of
discussion about the need for people to migrate. Kiribati, for example,
is initiating a state-led attempt to develop migration opportunities in
a warming world, which the government refers to as 'Migration with
Dignity'. But low-lying coastal villages in Fiji are among the first in
the region, and indeed the world, to actively begin relocation of
communities in response to environmental changes.
Over the last
few years, I've been visiting villages in Fiji, along with local
colleagues from the Fijian Government Climate Change Division, a
development donor agency, and Provincial Councils, and we conducted
research that aims to understand and document experiences of relocation.
It is clear that people are very concerned about their environmental
futures. They describe local flooding and coastal erosion, and they're
worried about the impacts of sea-level rise for their villages in coming
years and decades.
So as one older man explained: "
We understand climate change because we live climate change, we experience it, it's our daily lives, we walk through this."
As
I first mentioned, Vunidogoloa relocated to higher land about three
years ago. Another low-lying village, Narikoso, has 27 households and a
population of around 90 to 100 people. Over the past few decades, the
shoreline has receded by about 15 metres; homes closest to the
waterfront are now inundated during high tide and storm surges. The
government and international agencies have supported planning and
earthworks for the new village site; and community members have funded
and constructed a water source for the new village. During a recent
visit, people spoke of their concerns about how and when the relocation
will occur, and who will move. They're quite unhappy that the village
might be moved in phases, rather than as a whole. In other low-lying
villages, relocation and retreat is considered an impending likelihood,
particularly as they hear about relocation initiatives elsewhere in the
country.
But importantly, relocation is possible in Fiji as people
are able to move to higher land, and many villages can move quite small
distances within their customary land. Nonetheless, relocation is
expensive, disruptive, and represents a last-resort option.
During
my time in Fiji, I heard from a lot of people about the global
inequities of climate change, and how their immediate environments,
lives and futures are compromised by greenhouse gas emissions produced
by higher-income countries. It's clear that most people regard global
climate change as the primary or even sole driver of local environmental
changes and coastal erosion.
As one man explained:
"Other big countries caused the problem. And the small countries suffer".
My
dad's last book challenges us to learn from the past, understand the
present, imagine a better and more sustainable future — and act on it.
This is a call to action that resonates with the realities of people
living in low-lying coastal areas and other sites of climate
vulnerability, such as people I've spoken about in Vunidogoloa and
Narikoso in Fiji.
While a 'last resort option', migration can be
an adaptive response to climate change impacts. Where it occurs, it
should be supported so as to protect people's communities, livelihoods,
rights, and health. As people begin to move from sites of climatic
vulnerability, it's critical that the international community take
decisive action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create a low-carbon
world and support climate adaptation.
Robyn Williams: There's a challenge.
Dr Celia McMichael from the Department of Geography, University of Melbourne.
She mentioned her late father's book:
Climate Change and the Health of Nations. It's by Tony McMichael and published by Oxford University Press. He was at the Australian National University.
Links
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The market is fragmented with a variety of
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and flywheels. They have different capabilities and developers offer
different types of services. They can smooth the flow of power on the
grid, absorbing power when there's too much and delivering needed jolts
when demand spikes.
