Human Migration From Global Warming May Create ‘Climate Exiles’

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Human migration due to global warming may create “climate exiles” who are not protected under world refugee laws, according to the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development.

“International refugee law focuses on those who are persecuted for political, racial or religious reasons,” Joy Hyvarinen, a director of London-based Field, as its known, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. “It was not designed for those who are left homeless by environmental pressures.”

Field, a unit of International Institute for Environment and Development, is a group of lawyers which represent countries vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according to its Web site. It counts the Alliance of Small Island States among those it has advised on climate talks.

A total of 200 million people could be on the move by 2050, the United Nation’s said on June 10, citing the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration.

“The international community needs to prepare for the likelihood that some small islands countries and low-lying territories will be lost,” Field’s Hyvarinen said. “Migration in itself is not bad, but migration forced by climate change is a tragedy and the international legal framework needs to be adjusted to help climate exiles and deal with statelessness and compensation.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Katerere in Maputo via the Johannesburg bureau at abolleurs@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.