A case for climate migrants

On February 7, 2021, many of us watched in horror as news channels showed visuals of the avalanche-triggered flash floods in Chamoli District, Uttarakhand. Several reports mentioned the devastation at Raini village, and we remembered that it was the women of this village who had played an important role in the 'Chipko movement' to prevent the destruction of forests around the village. One is moved by the injustice of seeing yet another example of the harsh global reality that the most vulnerable and marginalised communities, also the ones who contribute the least to factors causing climate change, are the most-affected by its effects.

In recent years, many parts of India have been affected by intense hydro-meteorological events that have devastated communities, such as the recent floods in Bengaluru, Silchar and several other parts of the country, cyclones in 2021, the landslides and floods in Kerala in 2018, 2019 and 2020, the Chennai floods in 2015, and the cloudburst in Uttarakhand in 2013. Most of the reports point to the number of fatalities to capture the scale of these events, but what about the ones left behind? The ones who form part of the thousands 'affected' and have been left to pick up the pieces of their lives. How had they been affected? Did they lose their homes? Or their livelihoods? Did they continue to live in their villages, or were they forced to move elsewhere where they could find shelter, and a means to eke out a living? Disaster-related displacements are an issue we need to address early through policy interventions, as we prepare to face more severe disastrous events. 

A recent study on disaster displacement in Asia and the Pacific by Asia Development Bank and Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre states that India is among the top three nations with the most internal displacements caused by floods (29.9 million), storms (11.3 million) and drought (68,000) in the period 2010-2021. These numbers are hard to confirm or contest, as systematic data is scarce and more efforts are needed to collect information on disaster-related migrations in our country. These numbers are crucial though to make policy interventions to reduce the circumstances that lead to migration and should be integrated into disaster risk reduction. The Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) developed by the UN-World Bank captures the human impact of disasters, including migration. The PDNA has been used in the floods of Kerala and also Odisha in 2018. Standardised measurements and indicators of whether we are making progress, however, need to be developed in post-disaster assessments that can reflect the scale, severity and duration of displacements that in turn can inform planning on disaster risk reduction.

Disaster migration is essentially a development issue, and a key part of risk mitigation is an early identification of vulnerable communities and addressing their development concerns. A convergence of various social development programmes such as employment guarantee schemes can help build community resilience. Not all displacements can be averted, however, and therefore, it is important to develop scientific climate change scenarios to understand the actual impact of future events, the avoidable and unavoidable displacements, to build community resilience through programmes such as focused skill enhancement and making robust plans for their safe rehabilitation. The current employment guarantee schemes such as MNREGS do little to cater to floating populations of climate migrants. It needs separate programmes to enable those at risk so that they do not get displaced again.

The National Disaster Management Plan 2019 has a brief forward-looking paragraph on relocation that mentions the need for activities to promote inclusivity, community participation, and livelihood considerations among others. This needs to be enhanced with risk-informed policies that consider possible scenarios and mitigation plans to address disaster migration challenges in our increasingly hazard-prone country. It is an arduous path, but one that we must take, and until we do that, the number of persons ‘affected’ by disasters and their sufferings will continue to rise.

Hari Kumar is Regional Coordinator (South Asia), GeoHazards International. He can be reached at hari@geohaz.org.