Race and Gender at the Borderlands: An Analysis of the Factors Influencing the Experience of Black Climate Change Refugees

Race and Gender at the Borderlands: An Analysis of the Factors Influencing the Experience of Black Climate Change Refugees

Desiree Raymond, Ngozi Elobuike, Clemence Koame

Introduction

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, human activity has contributed to the large amounts of greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere and changed the earth’s climate. Burning fossil fuels resulting from increased human activity has been linked to changes in ocean acidity, increasing land and sea surface temperatures, and extreme weather events. Climate change disproportionately affected many developing countries in Africa and the Caribbean, despite their low contribution to the increasing global greenhouse gas emission112 .

The changing rain patterns, increasing intensity of natural disasters, and rising sea levels have greatly affected the livelihoods of countries whose economies are dependent on agriculture, tourism, and fishing. Coastal communities have been destroyed and damaged by extreme weather events such as category 4 hurricanes. Rising sea levels have aided erosion and increased sea surface temperatures, as well as chemical pollution, all of which have devastated coral reefs while shifting marine life. As the danger of vector-borne diseases rises, food security falls, and access to freshwater decreases, public health takes a turn for the worse.

Some governments have sought collaboration with international groups and countries, whilst others have adopted an independent stance and taken policy efforts into their own hands. Policies to strengthen homes, protect marine life, reduce deforestation, and reduce emissions have been developed, but they differ by country, leaving many people whose government has not adapted a climate change policy vulnerable to its effects.

Between 20 and 40 million people are displaced every year as a result of natural disasters, the number has doubled since the seventies. At the 14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change in Poznan in December 2008, L. Craig Johnstone, Deputy High Commissioner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced that nearly 250 million people will be displaced in the middle of this century due to the degradation of the environment. Natural disasters, environmental degradation, and other climatic events or processes (desertification, drought, sea-level rise) engender dramatic human situations. Due to the consequences of climate change, displacement will likely increase in the coming decades.

112 Lukas Chancel (2021), “Climate Change and the Global Inequality of Carbon Emissions 1990-2020”, World Inequality Lab, https://wid.world/document/climate-change-the-global-inequality-of-carbon-emissions-1990-2020-world-inequality-la b-working-paper-2021-21/.

The World Bank projects that by 2050, sub-Saharan Africa could have up to 86 million climate migrants; East Asia and the Pacific, 49 million; South Asia, 40 million; North Africa, 19 million; Latin America, 17 million; and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 5 million. The most vulnerable populations of this phenomenon are located in the Global South. In Asia for example, the monsoon floods have forced more than a million people to flee. Cyclone Fani has caused millions of evacuations in India and Bangladesh. On the African continent, Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Madagascar in 2018. Other floods hit Ethiopia, the Philippines, Bolivia and Iran, where the worst floods in 100 years affected two-thirds of the country.

Countries affected by political instability are often at the forefront of the phenomenon as well. It is not uncommon for conflicts to exacerbate the effects of climate crises and vice versa. This is the case in Somalia, where more than a million people have fled to Kenya and Ethiopia since the early 1990s to escape the combined civil war and famine caused by the drought. According to a report by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the case of Somalia is characterized by "a situation in which conflict and responses to it have exacerbated the impact of natural disasters and the effects of climate change. "113

The geopolitical climate surrounding major climate change has the largest effect on marginalized populations. Black refugees are defined as those in the Caribbean, and Africa. Within this report, the question exploration is: What racial and gender dimensions uniquely impact Black climate change refugees? Together, we will explore three dimensions; political, economic and social.

Political

The “ climate refugees” category is a challenge to international refugee law. Therefore, creating protections for “ climate refugees” raises important challenges especially as there is no proper definition for this specific category. The refugee status was established in 1951 by the Geneva Convention. A refugee is an individual who fears persecution if he returns to his country "because of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a certain social group or his political views"114 . There is no mention of climate among the causes of persecution so the definition of refugee excludes climate refugees. Partly because the focus is on the internal migration but also because persecution is a contentious term within the climate discourse. Today in Europe, only Sweden recognizes climate refugee status (since 2005).

The international community has to be criticized for its belated raising of awareness and its collective lack of action for climate refugees. Below is a list of landmark actions that have been taken thus far:

113 UNHCR and Environmental Change and displacement - https://www.unhcr.org/5df9f01b4.pdf 114 The Geneva Convention on refugees

● 1985: First appearance of the term “ climate refugees” in a report of the United Nations Environment Programme. ● 2009: COP15 makes the climate crisis a political issue for the first time. ● Since 2009: Many African countries have ratified the Kampala Convention on Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in Africa. ● 2015: The Paris Agreement creates a working group on the issue whose conclusions have been transposed into the Katowice Agreement. ● 2018: The Marrakech Migration Pact mentions (for the first time) climate change among the causes of forced departures.

These agreements, pacts, and treaties are often criticized for the lack of concrete action that follows their signature. They do not impose any constraints on the states to provide any protection for forced displacements of people due to climate change.

Economic

Experiencing climate change’s weather events firsthand has disproportionately harmed low-income and developing countries in the Caribbean and Africa economically. The cost of recovery has deprived and delayed these communities of the resources needed for social and development projects. From 1990 to 2014, the Caribbean spent six times more of its GDP budget on damage recovery than the rest of the world (“The Caribbean’s Extreme Vulnerability”). A total of $245.4 billion was spent in the Caribbean region recovering from damages dealt by Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria, and Hurricane Harvey. Many of these countries owe large sums of international debt, making it impossible for them to pay for adaptation and mitigation measures. Between 2004 and 2013, 11% of all Caribbean countries' financial portfolios consisted of loans and grants pertaining to climate change (“The Caribbean’s Extreme Vulnerability”).

Although over the years many African and Caribbean countries have diversified their economies, agriculture is still a major source of income. The frequency and severity of climate-related extreme weather events have crippled nutmeg imports from Grenada, banana plantations in Jamaica, St Lucia, and Dominica, as well as sugarcane production in Cuba. Fluctuation in rainfall and increasing temperatures have caused African countries whose economies depend on agriculture, like Ethiopia (one-third of GDP) and sub-Sahara (one-fifth of GDP), to worry.

The cost of inaction on climate change can financially harm these regions further and add to their current recovery costs. The Caribbean region is projected to lose $10.7 billion annually by 2025 (10 percent), and $46 billion (22 percent) annually by 2100 due to Hurricane damage, loss of tourism venues, and infrastructure damage associated with climate change (“The Caribbean’s Extreme Vulnerability”). Inaction could cause Southern Africa to lose up to 10%, and East and West Africa up to 15% of their GDP by 2050 (Saghir et al. 2022).

Social

There have been many relevant works that discuss migration, climate change, and global Blackness in isolation. However, overlaying them reveals a new axis of exploration. At the critical juncture, power and privilege are present. Power asymmetries are deeply embedded into the structure of climate change. Within these borderlands, Black refugees are ruled by power structures that attack their personhood and strip them of their humanity. Racial discrimation accentuates these asymmetries. However, the inflow of migrants into a country or region is not happenstance. As sharply written by Rüegger in 2018, negative externalities create insecurities both within the home and host country. This results in a shift in the ethnic composition of the country of asylum, increasing instability, creating hostile territories and prompting the unjust persecution of refugees (Rüegger, 2018).

Macro-theorists Wallerstein and Samir Amin provide a paradigm through which the refugees' experience can be examined. The World Systems Theory demonstrates how global decision making is structured. World Systems Theory arises from conflict theory which sees society as perpetually in a state of conflict because of competition for limited resources between different social groups. The unequal distribution of power and resources thus leads to crippling social dynamics that spell disaster for those positions at the lowest ranks of the class hierarchy. There are three divisions of the world’s countries, the core, the semiperiphery and the periphery. The core, often synonymous with the West, is at the center of exploitation that multinational corporations use to extract cheap labor and raw materials. They then transform them into secondary or tertiary consumer goods at a higher cost. The next layer from the core is the semi-periphery. It is often occupied by emerging or middle income countries attempting to industrialize. They are often complicit in the extractionary work of the core (Conflict Theory, 2005). The periphery is where most populations of the global Black refugees reside which also happen to be poorer countries whose resources are extracted on unfavorable terms.

The world system theory also corroborates with the colonial project. The machinery of colonialism operated viciously in the periphery. Much of the global Black community has been completely restructured by the colonial project and the positioning of humans within social structures follows the pattern of colonialism. This also overlays seamlessly with theories articulated by Frank Wilderson in his book Afro Pessimism. In his work, Color Theory, Wilderson utilizes personal narrative to examine ethnic attitudes, and race relations. According to Wilderson in the center the color theory of is whiteness, the semi-periphery is occupied by the non-Black subaltern and Blackness is relegated to the periphery. Black refugees occupy a precarious positionality that makes them one of the most vulnerable groups. Kreston Perry in 2021 investigated the impact of climate change on Caribbean populations and uncovered that they faced increased displacement, dispossession and debt burdens. To add, policies against climate change only serve to greenwash the periphery. The ‘ green capitalist periphery’ is still fixed in the world system, unable to exert any real control over the supply chain.

Politics

Above all else, borderlands are political playgrounds. The policies and laws crafted by international lawmakers, foreign aid institutions and transnational entities that trickle down into the interstices of refugee camps, detention centers and asylum accommodations are seldomly well-adapted to the needs of migrants. For most policies, paternalism governs the most aid interactions. Rarely are individuals experiencing forced migration able to exercise autonomy. The current political and economic systems only enhance the environmental racism plaguing Black communities (Palmer and Evasco, 2021).

Discussion: Intersection of Race and Gender

Climate change is an increasingly gendered and racialized phenomenon. As early as 2007, the IPCC noted that the consequences of climate change varied by gender and indicated that the poorest were the most directly affected by this phenomenon. However, around the world, 70% of people living on less than a dollar a day are women and women own less than 1% of the world’s resources. In its 2014 report, the IPCC established that existing gender inequalities are increased by climate risks. Women’s social position weakens them in the face of climate change and they are among the first to be affected as their ability to adapt and their resilience are limited by social norms. In Asia and Africa, women account for 70% of people living below the poverty line, leaving them more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Poverty is a factor that makes it difficult to adapt to climate change, all the more so since women often bear the burden of the household.

All these factors make women more vulnerable to extreme weather events. Globally, women are fourteen times more likely to die in a natural disaster than men. To take concrete examples, 80% of the Indonesian victims of the tsunami of 26 December 2004 were women. The 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster also highlighted the intersection of many inequalities, including gender, in addition to social and racial inequalities. It is estimated that 80% of adults left behind after the hurricane were women. These factors further demonstrate that in addition to race, gender is directly implicated in climate change consequences.

Conclusion

The future implications for the Black climate change refugee are immense. There are lasting impacts on life expectations, maternity rates, education, income, and more outcomes. To begin, the life expectancy of migrants is dismal. Premature death poses the biggest threat to the lives of Black refugees (Perry, 2021). Other health indicators demonstrate a drastic decline in the quality of life for those in the borderlands. As demanded by Jariel Arvin in 2021, the Black climate agenda is urgent. The political, social and economic dimensions further emphasize the impact of climate change. Ultimately, race and gender continue to exist at an important intersection in this phenomenon.

References

Arvin, Jariel.

“The Urgency of the Black Climate Agenda. ” Vox, Vox, 7 Apr. 2021, https://www.vox.com/22358730/climate-change-biden-environmental-racial-justice.

“The Caribbean’s Extreme Vulnerability to Climate Change: A Comprehensive Strategy to Build a Resilient, Secure and Prosperous Western Hemisphere. ” Global Americans, 3 Nov. 2019, https://theglobalamericans.org/reports/the-caribbean-extreme-vulnerability-climate-cha nge/

“Conflict Theory. ” Encyclopedia of Social Theory, 2005, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412952552.n57.

The Geneva Convention on refugees (1951) UNHCR and Environmental Change and displacement https://www.unhcr.org/5df9f01b4.pdf

Lukas Chancel (2021),

“Climate Change and the Global Inequality of Carbon Emissions 1990-2020” , World Inequality Lab, https://wid.world/document/climate-change-the-global-inequality-of-carbon-emissions-1 990-2020-world-inequality-lab-working-paper-2021-21/.

Perry, Keston K.

“(Un)Just Transitions and Black Dispossession: The Disposability of Caribbean ‘Refugees’ and the Political Economy of Climate Justice. ” Politics, 2021, p.026339572110414., https://doi.org/10.1177/02633957211041441.

Rüegger, Seraina.

“Refugees, Ethnic Power Relations, and Civil Conflict in the Country of Asylum. ” Journal of Peace Research, vol. 56, no. 1, 2018, pp. 42–57., https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343318812935.

Saghir, Jamal, Chakin Jenane, Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez, and Holger Kray.

“The Urgency and Benefits of Climate Adaptation for Africa’s Agriculture and Food Security. ” Brookings (blog), March 24, 2022. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2022/03/24/the-urgency-and-benefits-o f-climate-adaptation-for-africas-agriculture-and-food-security/.