A resolution being drafted by the European Parliament’s Development Committee must raise the bar on EU action to mitigate the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations.

Although the popular image of climate migrants involves poor people in poor countries, Europeans are increasingly being pushed out of their homes and forced to move by the consequences of global warming.

Although the popular image of climate migrants involves poor people in poor countries, Europeans are increasingly being pushed out of their homes and forced to move by the consequences of global warming.

This was one of the messages of a recent webinar on the climate emergency and migration.

The EEB, in collaboration with Youth and Environment Europe (YEE), recently held, in the context of the EU-backed #ClimateOfChange project, a webinar on climate change and migration.

The online panel debate, which was moderated by YEE’s Elisha Winckel, brought together experts in the field to paint a clear picture of the reality of this complex and multifaceted issue, as well as to dispel some common and damaging fallacies.

Caroline Zickgraf, the co-founder of the Hugo Observatory at the University of Liège, spoke about the politics of migration-related terminology and the scaremongering and mythmaking that has led to restrictive immigration policies that are hurting people affected by global warming.

Mariam Traore Chazalnoel, a senior expert at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), found it encouraging that climate migration was receiving more attention from the international community but this has not yet translated into action. She believes, however, that young people’s involvement could “transform the narrative into one that is more hopeful and aspirational”.

Vanishing worlds

One area of confusion relates to where climate migration occurs. It is true that societies that did the least to create the climate emergency are often on the frontline of global warming and are most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change.

This was highlighted by Lucie Pélissier, the co-president of CliMates International, an organisation that strives to raise awareness about climate-induced migration. She developed a documentary on climate-driven migration that focused on the factors behind this phenomenon and how it affects youth.

“When we started this project, we realised that there were not a lot of stories on environmental migration,” Pélissier claimed. “Most of the time, when we were talking about the phenomenon it remained a bit abstract.” She and her colleagues decided that they needed to show and understand the human story by letting migrants on the climate change frontline in Bangladesh and Senegal speak for themselves.

In Bangladesh, a low-lying and populous country threatened by rising sea levels, Kutubdia island, which has one of the fastest recorded sea level rises has lost half its territory to the ocean over the past half century, is a harbinger of what is to come. Although the villagers, proud fisherfolk, have a negligible carbon footprint, they have been forced to abandon their way of life and to migrate inland.

Spreading like wildfire

However, that does not mean that wealthy societies are somehow immune. Although they have more resources to deal with the fallout, many rich, industrialised nations are also being ravaged by global warming.

This can be seen in the devastation that was wrought by wildfires in America this year, including the rare sight of autumn blazes so intense that they blocked visibility.

That is not to mention the ‘Black Summer’ of 2019/20 in Australia. The Australian bushfires alone not only caused the death of hundreds of millions of creatures, including the (near) extinction of many species, it also destroyed thousands of homes and displaced many people.

Europe, too, is growing increasingly prone to climate change. This was highlighted by Marta Rodríguez and Lillo Montalto, two journalists who produced a series of reports for Euronews on the impact of the climate crisis on people’s lives in Europe.

“There is a lot of talk about climate migrants, or climate refugees, coming to Europe, say, from Africa or Asia,” explained Rodríguez. “We wanted to know if there were already European climate migrants and, if that was the case, where could we find them.”

And find them the Euronews team did. “Almost 700,000 [Europeans] have been displaced in the last 10 years. That means 700,000 stories of loss in our continent,” described Lillo Montalto. “We didn’t want to make climate a far away story and Europe just the recipient of migrants. We wanted to change the perspective on that story.”

This number is a significant underestimation. It counts only people displaced by wildfires, storms and floods. Moreover, not only are statistics sparse on direct climate migration inside Europe, hardly any exist on people displaced by long-term environmental change, such as recurring droughts, or those who indirectly displaced by climate change, by losing their livelihoods or being plunged into poverty due to environmental changes.

Perfect storm

In the course of their investigation, Rodriguez and Montalto found that though climate change-induced extreme weather tended to hurt the poorest hardest, it could also devastate affluent communities too.

This occurred, for example, in La Faute-sur-Mer on France’s Atlantic coast. In 2010, the well-to-do coastal resort was hit by Xynthia, a powerful storm accompanied by surging seas. A century ago, a storm of this magnitude would not have caused devastation but rising sea levels meant that it resulted in widespread flooding, claiming the lives of 29 of the town’s residents.

Unlike victims of global warming in poor countries, the 1,000 people who lost their homes were offered compensation by the French state to rehouse. Around 400 decided to leave the town for good.

Nevertheless, the emotional trauma and scars of losing homes or loved ones are the same everywhere. Some survivors lost more than one member of their family. Elizabeth, who had retired in La Faute-Sur-Mer, watched her husband drown in the deluge before her eyes and her baby grandson died of hypothermia in her arms. Ahmed, an intensive care doctor who had recently bought a plot of land in the town, lost his mother, wife and sons, Ismaël and Camil. Only his daughter survived.

Watershed moments

One of those stories is that of Ion Sandu from Moldova. A decade ago, devastating flooding caused by global warming hit his village Cotul Morii, forcing the army to evacuate the residents. Deciding that the village had become too risky for human habitation, the government constructed a new settlement by the same name where it encouraged the residents to move.

However, Sandu, who is in his late 80s, and some other residents did not like the new purpose-built village and felt nostalgic for their homes, so they moved back, even though Cotul Morii had officially been wiped off the map and cut off from public services and infrastructure.

“How do you leave such a beautiful house?” Sandu asked, referring to the family home built of solid acacia wood in which he was born, raised, married and lived with his late wife. “This is my dad’s house. I was a child here. I was born here,” he told Euronews.

Moldova is not only one of the poorest places in Europe, its population is also among the most vulnerable to climate change. And it is not just extreme flooding the predominantly rural population must endure.

Droughts are also becoming more common and devastating. Between 1990 and 2015, Moldova suffered 11 droughts, according to the UN. In 2012 alone, drought caused the country’s tiny economy €1 billion in losses.

This is helping cause a major population drain. Moldova’s population was 4.5 million inhabitants in the early 1990s, it fell to 2.7 million in 2019. While a low fertility is one factor in this drop, the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Moldavians has also played a significant role.

No statistics exist on what role climate change plays in the decision of Moldavians to depart their homeland, with most citing poverty and low incomes as their motivator.

However, digging deeper, we can infer that the country’s increasingly inhospitable climate has an influence on migration decisions. This is reflected, for example, in the fact that nearly 70% of Moldavians who moved abroad migrated from rural areas, i.e. the regions devastated by flooding and drought.

 

Source: Eeb.org – Image: Euronews

On the 12th November, YEE co-hosted second webinar of the  #ClimateofChange series, together with the European Environmental Bureau and Youth4Nature, this time on climate change and public health. What is the concept of planetary health and how is the climate change affecting our health? 

The Climate of Change project is a pan-European campaign to build a better future for climate-induced migrants, the human face of climate change. The event provided fascinating insight into the important intersections between the health of the planet and our own physical and mental health – in case you weren’t able to make it, you can watch it here or read the following summary, and if you did manage to join us and want to learn more about the topic, then we have assembled some additional resources for you below!

Chloé ten Brink, our Youth Advocacy Coordinator, moderated the webinar and guided participants through the discussion as our wonderful range of speakers called upon their experiences and knowledge to provide incredibly thought-provoking insight into the relations between climate change and gender, economic inequality, and mental health, among many others.

Our first speaker was Vijoleta Gordeljevic, the current Health and Climate Change Coordinator at the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL). She managed to give an incredibly clear but densely informative overview of the health impacts of climate change, pointing out that although it may not be the most obvious danger to health, its indirect effects include the increased risk of many diseases, cardiovascular failure, and malnutrition, both from subtle changes like higher temperatures and severe weather events like floods. Even in Europe, we have 790 000 excess deaths due to ambient air pollution annually! However, she also stressed that there is so much to win for public health by tackling climate change. Phasing out fossil fuels or reducing the amount of meat we consume will both reduce our GHG emissions as well as greatly improve human health.

Our second speaker was Dr Kathleen Mar, the leader of ClimAct at IASS Potsdam and a Senior Associate at Women Leaders for Planetary Health. She explained that the effects of climate change are gendered, with women and girls being disproportionately impacted. Events such as floods or droughts exacerbate women’s poverty and increase the burden of unpaid domestic and care work, which tends to mostly fall upon women. However, similarly to Vijoleta, Kathleen strove to emphasise the positive flip-side to this – although women are currently excluded from economic activity and decision-making, if we correct this then we only have incredible resources to gain in the fight against climate change. Hence, climate change solutions must also be gender-just, seeking to provide equal access and benefits to women and to alleviate or compensate their work burden.

Next up, we heard from Pearl Anne Ante-Testard, co-founder of PlaHNet and PhD Candidate at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. She began by summing up the fundamental concept of planetary health by explaining beautifully that “we won’t have healthy humans if we don’t have a healthy planet – so in this way we are treating the planet like a patient”. This holistic approach is all about realising that human health is completely dependent on the health of the natural systems around us. Planetary health involves a convergence of numerous academic fields and encourages the medical profession in particular to pro-actively look to areas like ecology in order to prepare in advance for climate-change induced health problems – as they say, prevention is better than cure!

Finally, we listened to Ruby and Christabel Reed, co-founders and co-directors of Advaya, a global platform for transformative experiences and alternative education.

Ruby talked us through the fact that in order to combat climate change, we have to completely transform the systems of domination over the environment that are causing it in the first place. In doing so, we must return to a partnership paradigm, which centres on the fact that the more we nourish our communities and environments the more they can nourish us in return. Christabel then presented the positive points for engaging in this type of activism, from building community and eco-system well-being, to that of individuals. Among her many suggestions were participatory democracy and supporting local initiatives, as well as nine tips for improving mental health in the face of eco-anxiety, which can affect young people in particular, such as being present in nature and meditative practice.

The rest of the webinar saw our panellists responding to each other, and then questions from our many attendees, and delving further into each of these topics. One of the most fascinating aspects of this was how many of our speakers independently came back to the same themes again and again. They all argued that the impacts of climate change, including on health, affect the most vulnerable the most, and Pearl emphasised how this occurs both nationally and globally. Another point stressed continually was the intersectional nature of climate change and public health – but also gender, youth etc. – and so how we need to recognise that the solutions must also reflect this by being fully inclusive at all stages. Ultimately, all of our speakers always returned in this way to the consequences that the hard information they were presenting had on concrete action, creating an event that was at once enlightening and empowering.

Did this summary or the webinar leave you hungry for more? Why not start with these amazing resources on climate change and health!

Want more hard-boiled facts about what climate change really means for health? There’s no greater authority than the WHO itself!

Kathleen reminded us that when it comes to climate change, women are not just victims but leaders too! Listen to their experiences first-hand in this podcast

Pearl’s group PlaHNet have been running webinars lately all about these issues – watch them back for a more in-depth look at planetary health.

In her tips on individual well-being, Christabel also mentioned learning to sit with and enjoy nature and gave a shout-out to Jon Young’s TED talk!

Young people are becoming increasingly overwhelmed with ‘eco-anxiety’ – read expert Caroline Hickman’s article on what you can do about it.

Are you a policy nerd like us? Multiple UN bodies created this influential document on the “one world, one health” approach – similar to planetary health.

 

Source: Yeenet

On November 1, the Office for Equal Opportunities at the City of Heidelberg together with the European Coalition of Cities against Racism hosted the UNESCO Master Class: Colonial Continuities and Climate Activism in Heidelberg.

The Master Class “Reflecting the Privilege of white Climate Activism” on November 1, hosted more than 100 participants from all over Germany and abroad. Climate activists, scientists and artists, highlighted the role of intersectionality as a key component of climate justice activism and showed the relationships between colonial exploitation, its modern continuation and climate change and activism, which structure the climate movement.

Throughout the day, the participants were invited to take different perspectives on climate activism, reflect their own racial perceptions and engage with colonial thought patterns.

After opening the conference with musical and poetic contributions by Celina Bostic and Shofie Bahlawan, activists and scientists, addressed racism within their movement and demanded a reflection of the structures and aims of climate organizations. Kenyan activist, Anita Soina, asked: “If we are discriminating ourselves, yet we have a common goal– will we achieve the common goal? Will we win the war against climate change?” This was picked up by degrowth scientist and activist Tonny Nowshin, who demanded that “ this movement has to change, if we say that this is the fight of our time”. Shayli Kartal, explained ways in which BIPoC perspectives are erased and demanded support and safer spaces for BIPoC within their organizations. In the end of the first session Leonie Baumgarten-Egemole und Line Niedeggen gave examples how intersectional could be realized in practice and stressed that “BIPoC in the climate justice movement have to network and connect, to empower themselves”.

The following workshop sessions “Reflecting own privileges and narratives” and “Inclusive organizational strategies”, facillitated by the Antirassismus vor Acht lecturers Se McCarthy, Aaron Müller, with the suport of Evein Obulor,  addressed racial discrimination on different societal dimensions and subsequent barriers to participation in German climate movements. The participants engaged with their own thought patterns and reflected their positioning within global power relations. In small groups the participants of the workshop discussed strategies to actively confront racism and reduce barriers to participation and representation in their movements.

To finish the Master Class, a panel of climate activists of different organizations in Germany discussed strategies for an inclusive climate movement. Moderated by Ali Can, Imeh Ituen (Black Earth), Dante Davis (Locals United), Asuka Kähler (Fridays for Future Frankfurt) and Jane (Extinction Rebellion Heidelberg) shared their experiences in climate organizations with each other and the participants. The debate addressed white and european centered understandings of climate activism and the erasure of BIPoC perspectives within the movement. Imeh Ituen stressed that “we can’t get stuck in a debate of BIPoC representation, because the demands and contents of climate organizations also need to be decolonized”. Jane highlighted the importance of a thorough and shared understanding of colonialism and authentic use of the concept climate justice. She appealed to the participants to “get educated about decolonization”.

In the light of rising Covid19 cases across Europe and in Heidelberg, the City Walk “Colonial Traces and Continuities in the City”, on October 31, had to be postponed.

Download the Program UNESCO Master Class, November 1

Image © ECCAR