Tag: Somalia

Mother Jones Blames Climate Change For Mass Migration, Data and Migrants Prove Them Wrong

A recent post at far-left news outlet Mother Jones, “There’s a Powerful, Hidden Force Behind Migration: Climate Change,” claims that climate change is a powerful driver of mass migration from the third world. This is false. The migrants themselves who were interviewed only bring up weather at all when pressed to do so, economic factors are the usually cited reasons for both illegal and legal attempts at migration to western countries. Extreme weather is not at all new to the regions discussed.

Text on a news article header discussing climate change and mass migration, with a desert landscape and a border fence in the background.
AI generated by Meta

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

A vast desert landscape featuring undulating sand dunes in warm tones, with greenery and a small settlement visible in the foreground, set against a backdrop of distant mountains and a partly cloudy sky.

A recent post at far-left news outlet Mother Jones, “There’s a Powerful, Hidden Force Behind Migration: Climate Change,” claims that climate change is a powerful driver of mass migration from the third world. This is false. The migrants themselves who were interviewed only bring up weather at all when pressed to do so, economic factors are the usually cited reasons for both illegal and legal attempts at migration to western countries. Extreme weather is not at all new to the regions discussed.

The author claims that recent mass migration to Spain and other countries from places like Morocco is secretly being spurred on by climate change, and suggests that media does not often discuss that factor. This is immediately absurd, of course, because the mainstream media often cites climate change as a driver of both legal and illegal immigration. Climate Realism has recently debunked such claims regarding migrants from Somalia, here, for instance.

Undermining the initial claim of the headline and introduction, the author admits “[t]hat is not to say that the effects of climate change caused tens of thousands of people to risk their lives by attempting to swim to Ceuta. Economic forces were much more urgent motivators for Mohamed to leave his home.”

The migrant interviewed by Mother Jones says that the reason he is trying to leave Morocco is because of limited job opportunities. He does not mention climate change at all. But the author goes on to insist “after another summer of extreme temperatures and wildfires in the northern and southeastern provinces in Morocco, severe flash flooding and landslides in rural communities throughout the High Atlas Mountains, and the culmination of a seven-year drought after a winter of heavy rainfall across the country, climate change also may be an underlying factor in creating the economic crisis forcing so many to leave their homes.”

This is completely backwards. The reason these severe weather events have such a large impact on Morocco and other poorer countries is because they are weak economically in the first place, making it difficult or impossible for communities to invest in weather hardened infrastructure. The cited extreme weather events are not new to the region, and happen all around the world regardless of climate change.

Flash flooding is a feature of desert environments, once dry seasons are over. Likewise, drought for that matter is an obvious feature of the desert, especially lengthy droughts, which the author admits recently came to an end. Alternating periods of extended drought and deluge are the norm for Morocco in particular. The southeastern Morocco desert has recently seen dry lakebeds refill with water, when they have been mostly empty for a long time due to the recent drought period. Those lakebeds would not be there in the first place if they did not sometimes fill. Trying to claim that these natural patterns are evidence of climate change is nonsense.

As for the wildfires, again wildfire is not new to the region, and data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency joint project Copernicus show that there is no trend towards worsening wildfires in Morocco, neither in area burned nor number of fires. (See figure below)

A line and bar graph showing the yearly burned area in hectares (ha) and the yearly number of fires from 2002 to 2024. The bars represent the burned area, and the line indicates the number of fires per year.
Figure 1: Morocco Yearly burned area and number of fires, 2002-2024. Chart from Copernicus, https://gwis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/apps/country.profile/charts/ba

Despite 2022 seeing a record bad fire year, 2024 was a record low for wildfires in Morocco since records begin in 2002 according to Copernicus data. Mother Jones is not interested in that, only the high years.  Good scientists would not claim that 2024 represented a trend towards the elimination of wildfire, and likewise 2022 is not indicative of a trend towards climate catastrophe.

The Mother Jones post goes on to make the dubious claim that “North Africa and the Middle East are warming faster than the rest of the world, and Morocco’s agricultural sector—the cornerstone of the country’s economy—is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts like soil degradation and depleted groundwater.”

As discussed in “No, Atlantic Council, Climate Change is Not Making the Middle East and North Africa “Unlivable”,” even if the dubious claim that those regions are “warming faster than the rest of the world,” which has been claimed about every region of the whole world, the Middle East and North Africa have actually been seeing improving economic and agricultural conditions amid modern warming, disturbed only when violence and political unrest occur.

Soil degradation and depleted groundwater are resource management impacts, not climate impacts. For example, the same claim was made about depleted water resources in Nigeria, but population growth stressing the water supply around Lake Chad and other countries upriver building dams were the real cause. Natural drought under those conditions is bound to make things worse.

The most notable part of this article is the straightforward dismissal of the actual complaints of the migrants themselves, in order to push the climate claim. The so-called experts that the author interviews insist basically that the migrants don’t know what they are talking about, that climate change is the real background issue, instead of things like political corruption and violence making economies unstable in the region and hindering development.

The data do not show anything unprecedented happening with the weather, but it is clear that Mother Jones is not interested in facts.

Wrong, The Hill, Climate Change Is Not Causing Emigration

An Associated Press (AP) article picked up by the political website, The Hill, claims that Greece is unwillingly becoming the recipient of refugees from the Middle East and Africa that are migrating due to climate change, among other things. This is false. There is no evidence that long-term climate change is forcing anyone to migrate internally within borders or emigrate to foreign nations. This climate change “refugee” story is an ongoing narrative that has been going on in the media for more than 30 years, despite the fact there is no data to support it.

From ClimateRealism

By Anthony Watts

An Associated Press (AP) article picked up by the political website, The Hill, claims that Greece is unwillingly becoming the recipient of refugees from the Middle East and Africa that are migrating due to climate change, among other things. This is false. There is no evidence that long-term climate change is forcing anyone to migrate internally within borders or emigrate to foreign nations. This climate change “refugee” story is an ongoing narrative that has been going on in the media for more than 30 years, despite the fact there is no data to support it.

The article, “Greek official accuses EU of policy failure on migration as war and climate change fuel displacement,” says this:

Voultepsi expressed alarm at the growing number of refugees in Lebanon because of ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeting the militant group Hezbollah, and added: “Countries like Somalia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan … are affected by both war and climate change, creating an ever-growing flow of migrants towards Europe.”

Greece is a major entry point for migrants into the European Union, with most crossing from Turkey and Libya in unsafe boats.

First, let’s tackle the obvious. In the article while climate change is mentioned as a driver of refugees from Africa, there is not one mention of how this comes to be. AP simply mentions it as if it were fact without any reference to support it.

As Climate Realism has repeatedly discussed, no evidence shows climate refugees exist. For example, this article from November 2022, “No, CBS News, Drought in Somalia is Not Being Driven by Climate Change,” clearly demonstrated that Somalia, due to its location, is normally mostly arid, as monsoon winds lose most of their moisture by the time they reach the country. This makes it more sensitive to changes in ocean currents than other countries. Plus, history demonstrates that droughts in Somalia have been common all the way back to the 1700’s. Data from the last 120 years in Figure 1 shows rainfall in the Sahel part of Africa, including Somalia, to be highly variable.

The Sahel is a transitional zone between the Sahara Desert to the north and the savannas of North-Central Africa to the south. It includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, plus Cameroon, Gambia, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, and South Sudan.

Figure 1. More than a century of rainfall data in the Sahel show an unusually wet period from 1950 until 1970 (positive index values), followed by extremely dry years from 1970 to 1991. (negative index values). From 1990 until present rainfall returned to levels slightly below the 1898–1993 average, but year-to-year variability was high. Source: Benedikt Seidl – based on JISAO data

In short, drought in the Sahel band in North Africa is a normal and regular occurrence that happened long before man-made climate change was ever an issue. The conclusion then is that other factors, such as war, poverty, political strife, and lack of a stable food supply are the drivers of African refugees rather than the imagined impact of climate change.

In fact, one report says that climate change hasn’t even entered into the migration equation yet, saying that it isn’t expected to be of any significance until mid-century, and then if it happens, is projected to be just 10 percent compared to other factors.

Population growth also figures into emigration, Africa’s population has been steadily increasing and is expected to double from 1.2 billion to 2.5 billion by 2050. This puts extreme pressure on the food and water supplies, resulting in more visible impacts on those countries when normal periods of drought occur.

The AP article also says the Middle East is a source of migrants for Greece, while lumping it in with “climate change” as the cause. This too is unsupported by the data.

The biggest reason for migration from the Middle East is armed conflict and political instability in the region, which often leads to people fleeing war, civil conflict, persecution, political corruption, and human rights violations, resulting in large numbers of refugees and displaced persons. A report by the Pew Research Center Middle East’s Migrant Population More Than Doubles Since 2005, says,

Some of this growth was due to individuals and families seeking economic opportunities. But the majority of the migration surge, especially after 2011, was a consequence of armed conflict and the forced displacement of millions of people from their homes, many of whom have left their countries of birth.

All told, the Middle East’s migrant population increased by about 120% between 2005 and 2015. This far exceeds increases in the combined international migrant and forcibly displaced populations over the same period in continental Africa (91% growth), Latin America and the Caribbean (77%) and the Asia-Pacific region (26%).

The word “climate” isn’t mentioned even once in the report.

Clearly, climate isn’t a driver of refugees into Greece or other countries. People are fleeing the conditions that affect their everyday lives, not some imagined and non-existent threat from climate change. The AP and The Hill could take a lesson from the embarrassing and telling episode from the United Nations where they fabricated a climate migration crisis that never happened. In 2005, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) issued a warning that a whopping 50 million people could already become environmental refugees by 2010, fleeing the effects of climate change.

But, that never happened, and the UNEP quietly disappeared the claim from their website, but botched the disappearing attempt, adding even more embarrassment.

Now doubling down on failure, the UNEP and other organizations estimate the number of climate refugees by 2050 from 50 million to 1.2 billion people, but these claims have been widely debunked.

It is sad that The Hill chose to republish this false article without doing any due diligence to check the claims. It is doubly sad that the AP, with resources worldwide, didn’t even do a modicum of research before making the false unsourced connection between Greece’s migrant crisis, and climate change. A modicum of research easily proves such a connection false. Such is the pathetic state of our journalism today.

Climate change is turbo-charging Somalia’s problems – Justin Rowlatt

By contrast, Rowlatt’s drought in 2022 was not unusually severe at all. Thankfully Somalia’s climate is gradually becoming wetter, a boon for the country.

Any proper climate expert would know all of this. But Rowlatt knows nothing about climate. He is merely an activist, who spouts whatever nonsense his chums in Greenpeace tell him.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

More absurd propaganda from Justin Rowlatt:

Somalia may be one of the poorest countries in the world and beset by violence, but it is “fixable”, according to its top climate official.

The country has been torn apart by more than 30 years of overlapping conflicts – including an Islamist insurgency, a civil war, and a series of regional and clan confrontations. Yet Abdihakim Ainte, the Somali prime minister’s climate advisor, still regards his country as “as story of potential – of promise”.

What makes his optimism all the more surprising is the fact climate change is amplifying virtually all the challenges his country faces.

One commentator described climate change as a “chaos multiplier”, because it exacerbates existing tensions and entrenches conflict in fragile states like this.

But Somalia, the easternmost country in continental Africa, can’t be held responsible for our changing climate. The figures are staggering. Somalia has emitted roughly as much carbon dioxide from fossil fuels since the 1950s as the US economy does in an average three days, external.

The most obvious effects of climate change here have been in agriculture. Somalia is still overwhelmingly an agricultural economy, with about two thirds of the population depending on farming and animal herding for most of their income.

In 2022 the country experienced its worst drought for 40 years – an event scientists estimate was made 100 times more likely by human-caused climate change.

And drought isn’t the only problem here. Last year Somalia experienced terrible floods as a result of rains scientists say were made twice as intense by human-caused global warming. The floodwater washed away precious soils killing hundreds of people and displacing one million others.

The effects of Somalia’s climate change “double whammy” are all too evident in the hunger clinic the Red Cross runs in a hospital in the port city of Kismayo on the south coast.

Every day a steady stream of mothers bring their malnourished babies here. Many have had to cross from territory controlled by al-Qaeda’s lethal affiliate, Islamist militants al-Shabab, to get here.

The UN estimates more than 1.5m children under the age of five are acutely malnourished in Somalia.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62rr5qe602o

Somalia’s weather has always swung from drought to wet, but as the World Bank’s graph shows, droughts were considerably more severe during the 1970s, when the world was getting cooler. This was of course the time of the great Sahel drought, which lasted from the late 1960s to the early 80s and left millions dead across a vast swathe of sub-Saharan Africa from the west to Somalia in the east:

https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/somalia/climate-data-historical

By contrast, Rowlatt’s drought in 2022 was not unusually severe at all. Thankfully Somalia’s climate is gradually becoming wetter, a boon for the country.

Any proper climate expert would know all of this. But Rowlatt knows nothing about climate. He is merely an activist, who spouts whatever nonsense his chums in Greenpeace tell him.

To produce this propaganda report, Rowlatt, along no doubt with his production team, flew to Somalia, burning goodness knows how many tonnes of oil to get there, not to mention costing licence payers thousands of pounds.

UN Secretary-General Wrong to Blame Climate Change for Somalian Suffering

Somalia is not suffering famine and crop failures primarily due to drought. Social and political instability is a much more likely culprit, especially since Somalia’s current drought is not unprecedented, and neighboring countries also under drought conditions are have not experienced similar crop declines.

From ClimateRealism

Screenshot of Somalia from Google Maps.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently gave a speech in Somalia in which he claimed Somalia is suffering from the impacts of climate change disproportionately, specifically with regard to crop production amid an ongoing regional drought. This is false. Somalia is not suffering famine and crop failures primarily due to drought. Social and political instability is a much more likely culprit, especially since Somalia’s current drought is not unprecedented, and neighboring countries also under drought conditions are have not experienced similar crop declines.

A transcript of the speech is available, here, where Guterres explains his commitment to raising aid money for Somalia to address their allegedly climate-driven crop failures.

“My last visit to Somalia in 2017 was during a large-scale humanitarian operation to prevent famine,” Guterres said. “Today, the situation is once again alarming. Climate change is causing chaos, Somalia has experienced five consecutive poor rainy seasons, and this is unprecedented.”

Climate change is not “causing chaos” in Somalia, nor is the recent drought unprecedented.

As pointed out by Climate Realism in “No, CBS News, Drought in Somalia is Not Being Driven by Climate Change,” the Horn of Africa is prone to flip-flopping weather patterns of aridity and monsoon rains. Paleo data from West Africa shows that the region has always suffered these conditions, most notably mega-droughts, like those that occurred between 1400 and 1750, long before humans began burning fossil fuels in abundance.

In fact, recent news about the drought is calling it the “worst in 40 years,” indicating similar droughts occurred as recently as 40 years ago, if not since.

Evidence suggests internal conflict and political corruption is undermining Somali crop production. Neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya have also suffered from the same drought cycles as Somalia, yet their crop production has increased over time, compared to the ragged decline of Somalian crops.

Bananas are one of Somalia’s top commercial crops. Using production data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization database, it is clear that something more than regional weather is causing Somalian agriculture to suffer.

Looking at banana production (See figure below) neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia have seen gradual increases in production (Ethiopia has only been reporting data to the FAO since 1993), with Ethiopia setting a new production record in 2020. Kenya set a new record for banana production in 2021. By comparison Somalia’s banana production has been in a protracted decline.

Concerning core cereal crops, since the U.N. has been maintaining records for each respective country:

  • Ethiopia experienced an impressive increase in production of approximately 468 percent, breaking records ten times since 2010;
  • Kenya’s growth has been slower, but still substantial, at 188 percent, breaking production records four times since 2010;
  • By contrast, Somalia has seen a 30 percent decline in cereal crop production. (See the figure below)

The crop trends for Somalia are indicative of a humanitarian crisis, which in Somalia’s case have resulted from a protracted civil war, government corruption, and terrorism. Somalia has limited infrastructure development, and the violence discussed above has destroyed much existing infrastructure. Exacerbating Somalia’s famine is the fact that the country’s population has doubled since 2000, with no increase in food production. These conditions are not, however, indicative of a climate crisis. Neither Somalia nor Guterres can honestly claim that other nations owe it climate reparations.

Clearly, Guterres has the crop production data that his own organization produces. Also, as we at Climate Realism have shown previously, it’s easy enough to gather information concerning Somalia’s drought history with a simple word search on the search engine of one’s choice. What the evidence indicates is that most of Somalia’s agriculture problems appear to be due to a rapidly rising population in the midst of social and political chaos, not climate chaos, hampering farm production. If Guterres is correct that Somalia is “emerging” from years of conflict, then even in the midst of a regional drought, it may soon benefit from rising crop production similar to that experienced by its neighbors, Ethiopia and Kenya. This result could be expedited if Somalia is allowed to access easily dispatchable fossil fuels and the financing needed to develop fossil fuel based energy infrastructure that the U.N. is seeking to banish from struggling and wealthy nations alike.

Linnea Lueken

Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy.

While she was an intern with The Heartland Institute in 2018, she co-authored a Heartland Institute Policy Brief “Debunking Four Persistent Myths About Hydraulic Fracturing.”

Linnea Lueken