Climate change migration on the increase

Timothy Murombedzi, 30, from Buhera district in Zimbabwe, is one of many people living in South Africa illegally. “I was a farmer in Zimbabwe but the climate conditions have become unpredictable. It is now difficult to have a good rain-fed cropping season. I used to have more than 20 head of cattle but lost 15 beasts due to drought. I came here in 2010 and am doing menial jobs on the local farms. It is better than watching my cattle dying back home. Yes some people are running away from (President Robert) Mugabe’s iron-fist rule but I am not one of those people. I am running away from drought and hunger,” Murombedzi said.

Murombedzi is one of the millions of climate change refugees from Zimbabwe searching for sustenance in various countries in and outside Africa. Although there are many reasons that force people to migrate, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is increasingly recognising that environmental degradation and climate change are among major drivers in both forced and voluntary migration.

Shocking revelations

Climate change threatens to cause one of the biggest refugee crises of all time and climate change experts have warned that up to 200 million people would be forced to abandon their homes over the course of the next century.

Despite these shocking revelations, many African governments, Zimbabwe included, are not taking climate change migration seriously.

In a recent interview, a renowned USA climate change activist, journalist and author, Ross Gelbspan warned that: “…. as we experience more crop failures, water shortages, and uncontrolled migrations by people whose lands become less able to support them, governments will become more totalitarian in their efforts to keep order in the face chaos. So it's really the political and economic aspects that I've been thinking about.”

In search of jobs

While the accepted line of argument has been that most of the migrants in South Africa are political and economic refugees, the truth however is that some are climate change refugees. And some people are migrating from as far as the Sahel Region and Horn of Africa in search of jobs. Crops are failing, livestock is dying and clean water is becoming scarce, forcing many people to abandon their traditional homes.

A Zimbabwean climate change journalist based in South Africa, Fidelis Zvomuya, says farmers in Zimbabwe no longer employ as many workers as before due to persistent drought. This forces people to cross borders in search of employment in neighbouring countries. The lack of food in areas like Matabeleland provinces in Zimbabwe where droughts are now an annual event is forcing people to cross to South Africa for jobs.

Conflict

An expert on climate change migration, Mukundi Mutasa, recently opined that discussing migration was particularly important to southern Africa, a region that had suffered a number of climate-induced disasters in recent history. These include the flooding in the Zambezi Valley in Mozambique and Zimbabwe and in the Namibia’s Caprivi region, and droughts across the entire region.

Mutasa warned that the mass movements have resulted in conflict among people as they fight over resources. Conflicts as a result of climate change migration have been evident in some parts of Zimbabwe where people are moving in large numbers to regions which are still receiving good rainfall. “And the xenophobic attacks in South Africa in the recent years are just a dress rehearsal of impending fights over resources,” he warned.

But migration as a result of climate change is not isolated to the southern parts of Africa. The Horn of Africa and Sahel regions have experienced among the worst climate change induced famines, forcing people to seek refuge in other countries. Millions have been affected. Governments and humanitarian organisations having been caught napping, as they are not prepared for such devastating famines and massive movements of people.

Poverty, failing ecosystems, vulnerability to natural hazards and gradual environmental changes have always been linked to migration. Experts say climate change is expected to significantly affect migration in three distinct ways. First, the effects of warming and drying in some regions will reduce agricultural potential and undermine the provision of clean water and availability of fertile soil.

Second, the increase in extreme weather events such as heavy rains and resulting flash or river floods in tropical regions will affect even more people and generate mass displacement. And sea-level rise will permanently destroy extensive and highly productive low-lying coastal areas that are home to millions of people who will have to relocate permanently.

While the consequences of mass migration are not de facto negative, its main impacts overwhelmingly are. These include escalating humanitarian crises, rapid urbanisation and associated slum growth, and stalled development.