{"id":263018,"date":"2023-06-20T17:31:07","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T15:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=263018"},"modified":"2023-06-20T17:31:10","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T15:31:10","slug":"climate-refugees-imagined-statistics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=263018","title":{"rendered":"Climate Refugees Imagined\u00a0Statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Science Matters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Ron Clutz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Any talk about climate (change, crisis, emergency, whatever) will include large numbers, scary enough to raise concern and support for the carbon crusade,  Of course, the implements of mass delusion are math models running on computers.  This is true of the ever-increasing range of climate sensitivity (how much warming from doubling atmospheric CO2), as well as the arbitrary choice of 1.5C warming as the tipping point into damnation.  And as this post explains, there are plenty of bogus numbers regarding climate \u201crefugees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disha Shetty challenges one common claim in her Undark article: Do Women Really Make Up 80 Percent of All Climate Migrants?<\/strong><\/a> Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The figure is frequently cited by activists, policymakers, and the media,
but it is a dubious statistic of murky origin.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Although climate change affects all people, women often bear the brunt in places where the impacts of climate change are already being felt. Christiana Figueres CNN<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is an alarming and evocative statistic: An estimated 80 percent of climate migrants are women.<\/strong> The figure has been used by the United Nations<\/a><\/strong> in its official communication. It has been repeated in the media<\/a> and by human rights groups<\/a>.<\/strong> But it stands on shaky scientific ground \u2014 and most likely is wildly off the mark. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To begin with, the 80 percent figure fails the basic smell test.<\/strong> As someone who has reported on climate change and migration across India, it is clear to me that men are typically the first to move<\/a> in the face of environmental pressures<\/strong>, often in search of seasonal income or jobs in cities. Women and children tend to be the last to go, if they leave at all.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps more importantly, there are currently no comprehensive datasets<\/strong> that can tell us how climate migrant populations break down along gender lines. In fact, experts say there isn\u2019t<\/strong> even a consensus on the definition<\/strong> of who counts as a climate migrant.  When people migrate, it is often due to a combination of factors.<\/strong>  Environment, when it comes into play, is just one of them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where, then, does the 80 percent figure come from?<\/strong><\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Lawrence Huang, an analyst at Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute, has fielded questions from the media on this number, and he says the earliest reference<\/strong> he can find to it is in a 2010 report by<\/strong> a nonprofit called Women\u2019s Environmental Network.<\/strong> The report \u2014 which has been cited by the World Trade Organization, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and numerous other groups \u2014 states<\/strong> that \u201cit has been estimated that women constitute up to 80% of global refugee and displaced populations.\u201d<\/strong> It then infers<\/strong>, based in part on that figure, \u201cthat of the current 26 million climate refugees, up to 20 million are female.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the estimate seems to contain two big mistakes. First,<\/strong> it assumes<\/strong> that the gender breakdown of climate migrants mirrors that of populations displaced for other reasons,<\/strong> such as political unrest, economic collapse, and other disasters. In actuality, the demographics<\/strong> of a migrant group can depend on what\u2019s driving their displacement.<\/strong> Studies suggest, for example, that refugees fleeing from armed conflict<\/strong> are especially likely to be women and children<\/strong>, with men often staying behind as combatants. By contrast, women<\/strong> made up the vast majority<\/strong> of people who remained in New Orleans<\/strong> in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, mainly because they didn\u2019t have the means to flee.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That brings us to the report\u2019s second big mistake<\/strong>. Its claim that women constitute up to 80 percent of refugee and displaced populations<\/strong> is attributed to a 2004 fact sheet<\/strong> on climate change and disaster mitigation, produced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. That fact sheet doesn\u2019t clearly specify a source, but its phrasing of the statistic bears resemblance to an often-repeated assertion, published in a 1999 report<\/strong> by the U.N.\u2019s Inter-Agency Standing Committee, that \u201cup to eighty percent of the internally displaced persons and refugees around the world are women and children.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When people migrate, it is often due to a combination of factors.
Environment, when it comes into play, is just one of them.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crucially, the 2004 fact sheet omitted \u201cand children\u201d from its phrasing of the statistic \u2014 as did the Women\u2019s Environmental Network report that first applied the number in the context of climate change. It\u2019s unclear whether the omission was intentional. (I was unable to reach the fact sheet\u2019s author, Lorena Aguilar, despite multiple email attempts.) But what is clear, according to Huang, at least, is that the 80 percent figure \u201cdoes not have a scientific basis\u201d \u2014 especially not in the context of climate change.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople just ran with the number,\u201d<\/strong> Huang told me, noting that the statistic is used by some but not all U.N. organizations. On its website, UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, says that \u201c[w]omen and girls make up around 50 per cent of any refugee, internally displaced or stateless population,\u201d<\/strong> a classification that includes people migrating for reasons other than climate. Likewise, data from the U.S. Census Bureau<\/strong> indicate that women represent around 51 percent of people displaced by natural disasters.<\/strong> And yet the 80 percent figure has gained traction in the media and among policymakers and activists.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The potential consequences of this\u00a0misinformation<\/strong>\u00a0are many. First, by steering attention and resources toward women climate migrants, it could\u00a0distract from the needs of women who haven\u2019t been displaced but are impacted by climate change nonetheless<\/strong>. These women are affected in small and big ways. They often must take over agricultural and head-of-household duties from men who have moved in search of work, which places increased demand on their time and labor. Understanding the needs of these women is critical to crafting an effective response to climate change, but their narratives are often missing from media coverage.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Global warming could create 150 million \u2018climate refugees\u2019 by 2050. The Guardian (2009)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Comment: <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The author is not skeptical enough to dig into the underlying claim that as of 2010 there are 26 million \u201cclimate refugees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From NewScientist<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When diplomats and military strategists gathered for a meeting of the council in July 2011 they asked a simple question: how many refugees can we expect as regions and countries become uninhabitable due to climate change?<\/strong> A clear-cut answer could spur politicians to do something about this problem. If only one could be found.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first stab at an answer came in 1995<\/strong> when British academic Norman Myers calculated there were 25 million environmental refugees<\/strong>, mostly in drought-hit parts of Africa. He predicted that numbers would swell to 50 million by 2010 and 200 million by mid-century. However, he did warn that his figures were \u201ca first-cut assessment<\/strong>\u2026 to \u2018get a handle\u2019, however preliminary and exploratory<\/strong>, on an emergent problem of exceptional significance\u201d. That was either foolhardy or heroic, according to your point of view.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scandal is that those old figures still turn up in IPCC reports, the UK\u2019s Stern review of the economics of climate change, and statements from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They do so because, as far as New Scientist can establish, nobody has attempted to improve on Myers\u2019s \u201cfirst cut\u201d calculations. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Important Finding, Nature Communications (2021) Climatic conditions are weak predictors of asylum migration<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent research suggests that climate variability and change significantly affect forced migration<\/strong>, within and across borders. Yet, migration is also informed by a range of non-climatic factors,<\/strong> and current assessments are impeded by a poor understanding of the relative importance of these determinants.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, we evaluate<\/strong> the eligibility of climatic conditions relative to economic, political, and contextual factors<\/strong> for predicting bilateral asylum migration to the European Union<\/strong>\u2014a form of forced migration that has been causally linked to climate variability.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Results<\/strong> from a machine-learning prediction framework reveal that drought and temperature anomalies are weak predictors of asylum migration, challenging simplistic notions of climate-driven refugee flows.<\/strong> Instead, core contextual characteristics shape latent migration potential whereas political violence and repression are the most powerful predictors<\/strong> of time-varying migration flows.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Future asylum migration flows are likely to respond much more
to political changes in vulnerable societies than to climate change.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: This is consistent with previous studies claiming climate causing displacement in Africa.  See<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Food, Conflict and Climate<\/a><\/blockquote>