CLIMATE change is about to climb up the agenda of the United Nation鈥檚 Security Council, the body charged with maintaining global peace and security. The reason why was forcefully put two years ago in a (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, to India鈥檚 Military College of Telecommunications Engineering: 鈥淥ur defence forces might find themselves鈥� guarding our borders against climate refugees, as rising sea levels swamp low-lying areas [in Bangladesh], forcing millions of climate refugees across India鈥檚 border.鈥�
When diplomats and military strategists gather for a meeting of the council this July they will ask a simple question: how many refugees can we expect as regions and countries become uninhabitable due to climate change? A clear-cut answer could spur politicians to do something about this problem. If only one could be found.
The first stab at an answer came in 1995 when British academic Norman Myers calculated there were 25 million environmental refugees, 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 鈥渁 first-cut assessment鈥� to 鈥榞et a handle鈥�, however preliminary and exploratory, on an emergent problem of exceptional significance鈥�. That was either foolhardy or heroic, according to your point of view.
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The scandal is that those old figures still turn up in IPCC reports, the UK鈥檚 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 快猫短视频 can establish, nobody has attempted to improve on Myers鈥檚 鈥渇irst cut鈥� calculations (see 鈥淪earching for the climate refugees鈥�).
Stranger still, when 快猫短视频 questioned some of those who have quoted his 2010 prediction, none wanted to stand by it. Why?
There are many grounds for questioning Myers鈥檚 numbers. Last year, Gunvor J贸nsson of the University of Oxford鈥檚 International Migration Institute listed confusion about definitions of a climate refugee, ignorance about the many motives involved when people move, and a failure to understand that migration can be a normal part of coping with climate variability.
There are also concerns about how the statistics have been used. A UNHCR report in 2008 warned that they 鈥渆voked fantasies of uncontrollable waves of migration that run the risk of stoking xenophobic reactions鈥�.
There is no doubt that the continued reliance on Myers鈥檚 number is unhelpful. Climate sceptics have in recent days been trying to create a spectacle of embarrassment at the UN Environment Programme after it deleted a page on its website stating the prediction. The sceptics see the deletion as a sign that these refugees don鈥檛 exist: another alarmist prediction debunked.
Maybe. But Myers could be right. If his numbers cannot be relied on, then the critics should come up with better ones, preferably by July. Otherwise Myers鈥檚 first cut will carry on being circulated 鈥� to increasing, and justified, scepticism.