Introduction
Studies on socio-economic impacts of climate change are divided on arguing whether climate change causes population movement or not. Some literature argue that climate change has the potential to make lands uninhabitable â leading to deterioration in the living conditions of its inhabitants â and consequently, the inhabitants migrate from their homes in search of new livelihoods (Guzman, 2013, pp. 11â18, pp. 63â71). Some of the areas most vulnerable to climate change are small island countries and countries at lower altitudes because they are more prone to inundation because of the climate change-induced sea level rise. Among those at risk are the Pacific Island countries (such as Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu), Bangladesh, and the Maldives (Guzman, 2013, pp. 54â96). Climate change is also causing droughts and water shortages in other countries, notably Yemen, Syria, the entire Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf Coast, and Northern Africa (particularly sub-Saharan Africa) (Chellaney, 2013, p. xxi, pp. 161â165). People in these countries are being forced to leave their homes in want of water (Chellaney, 2013, p. xxi, pp. 161â165).
On the other hand, Jane McAdam (2011, p. 12) contradicts the discussion above and argues, âIt is conceptually problematic and empirically flawed in most cases to suggest that climate change alone causes migrationâ. She established this argument based on her field research in Bangladesh, Kiribati, and Tuvalu â the countries that are at risk of climate change-induced sea level rise. She claims that these displacements do not take place directly due to climate change or its impacts, but rather for economic reasons (see McAdam, 2011, pp. 13â14). Climate change, she explains, destroys crops, shelter, and sources of earning of the inhabitants of climate-stressed areas. The inhabitants then move from a disaster-prone area to a safer place in search of food, shelter, and earning. Therefore, climate change causes poverty, and then it is the poverty that drives people to move. Thus, for her, climate change alone does not cause people to move, and that the salient reasons are more to do with poverty and economics.
Alongside these two opposite arguments â that climate change can or cannot cause population movement â debates also exist around how to label the climate change-induced uprooted people. The actors who support the framing that climate change causes population movement are divided regarding the issue of labelling the climate change-induced uprooted people. Some argue that these people should be categorized as climate refugees because the effects of climate change completely destroy their habitat and there is no way for them to return to it but to take refuge in a host country. Others argue that climate change and its effects have no potential to generate cross-border migration but only internal displacements, for which reason these people should be labelled climate change-induced internal migrants or displaced people (more on this below).
These different conflicting but coexisting arguments raise the following questions: Why do some pieces of literature argue that climate change can cause population movements if it is not the actual scenario? Is it simply climate change deniers or sceptics who have advanced the argument that climate change does not cause population movement? Is the labelling of climate change-induced uprooted people just a matter of terminology/use of words (i.e. the choice between âclimate refugeesâ or âclimate change-induced migrants/displaced peopleâ), or is there any political significance behind the labelling of these people?
By considering the different arguments, this book aims to investigate what kind of actors are involved in producing the knowledge of climate change and population movement and is there any political significance of labelling (and relabelling) the displaced people differently. The actors include state actors, and non-state actors such as climate scientists (considered as individual actors), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations.
This chapter, first, introduces the international context under which state actors, non-state actors, NGOs, and international organizations label and relabel the climate change-induced uprooted people. It is worth noting that the early publications on climate change between the 1980s and early 2000s identified a sharp disagreement between two sets of actors involved in naming the uprooted people (Methmann & Oels, 2015, pp. 52â60). The disagreement revolved around issues related to legal, politicalâeconomic, and security-related challenges/opportunities. For example, there existed a tacit alliance between low-lying countries, environmental NGOs, and climate scientists who prefer to label the climate change-induced uprooted people as climate refugees (McAdam, 2011, p. 6; Methmann & Oels, 2015, p. 52). On the other hand, there existed a tacit coalition of high-carbon-emitting countries, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the World Bank who never agreed to categorize the climate change-induced uprooted people as climate refugees; instead, since the 2010s, they have preferred to label the people as climate change-induced displaced or migrants (Methmann & Oels, 2015, pp. 52â64). For the convenience of our discussion, I name the first set of actors ârefugee-groupâ and the second set of actors âmigrant-groupâ (see Table 1.1).
Table 1.1 Refugee-group and migrant-group | Coalitions | Time frame | Preferred labelling | Actors involved |
| Refugee-group | From the early 1980s to the 2000s | Climate refugees | Low-lying countries, environmental NGOs, and climate scientists |
| Migrant-group | From the 1980s to the 2000s | Never recognized climate refugees | High carbon-emitting countries, ADB, the UNHCR, the UNFCCC, and the World Bank |
| Since the 2010s | Label climate change-induced displaced people/migrants |
| Source: The table was constructed on the basis of the writings of Biermann and Boas (2010), pp. 62â67; Docherty and Giannini (2009), pp. 360â365; Karasapan (2015), para. 3; McAdam (2011), p. 6; Methmann and Oels (2015), p. 52. |
Although the literature noted that there had been a sharp division in the way the uprooted people were labelled, I have identified that refugee-group recently adopted the definition of migrant-group, abandoning their previous one and compromising the interests that had underpinned their earlier preference for it. Therefore, the puzzle around labelling the uprooted people is: Why has refugee-group adopted migrant-groupâs definition, even though it goes against refugee-groupâs long-term interests? In this book, I describe the puzzle by focusing on a single case study on Bangladesh, and I shape my research question accordingly. The reason I choose Bangladesh as a case study is discussed later in this chapter.
Second, this chapter describes the method of data collection for writing this book. This book takes a qualitative approach since the understanding of defining the climate change-induced uprooted people is located in the constructivist tradition. The method of data collection includes field research in Bangladesh, which comprised elite interviews and a literature search. By elites, I identify people who are climate scientists, university professors, government officials, and officials of international organizations who work on climate change and climate change-induced migration issues. On the other hand, the literature search helped find important official documents that recorded the issue of climate change scenario in Bangladesh and that produced the knowledge: climate refugees and climate change-induced displaced/migrants.
Third, this chapter concludes by explaining the plan of the book. Excluding this introductory chapter, this book contains six chapters and a conclusion. Chapter 2 showcases a literature review that contains existing debates in international climate change-related discussions about defining climate change-induced uprooted people. Chapter 3 presents a new theory â knowledge network theory â which contains conceptual and theoretical understandings of politics of climate change knowledge. Chapter 4 gives an overview of the climate change scenario in Bangladesh. This chapter is important for understanding which effects have been considered and/or ignored in framing the knowledge of climate refugees and climate change-induced displaced people/migrants. Chapters 5â7 contain an empirical analysis of how knowledge brokers1 play a significant role in replacing the term climate refugees with that of climate change-induced displacement by maintaining a transnational network. The conclusion summarizes the argument of this book and the original contribution of this research. It also explains the limitations of this research and gives a direction for future research.
The international context
According to Methmann and Oels (2015, pp. 52â58), the official papers and documents of climate science from the 1980s and 1990s labelled the climate change-induced uprooted people as climate refugees. Academic and non-academic literature did likewise. However, no international/regional organization or jurisdiction classified climate refugees as one of the recognized categories of refugees. Anyone can indicate the incident that the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) published a colour-coded map on their website in 2005, titled 50 million climate refugees by 2010, and argue that the UNEP, as a part of the United Nations, already recognized the term climate refugees via the title of their published map (Wall Street Journal, 2011, para. 1). However, the argument can be refuted by stating that the UNEP deleted the map from its server in 2010 (Wall Street Journal, 2011, para. 1). The deletion of the map can be an indication that the UNEP was not confident to classify the climate refugees as one of the recognized categories of refugees.
The non-recognition of the term âclimate refugeesâ by any jurisdiction produced two conflicting groups around the world â refugee-group and migrant-group. In refugee-group, the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) became the âlone supporterâ of the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) in the UNFCCC, standing in favour of the term climate refugees (Eckersley, 2015, p. 485). The PPP expresses an âobligation by states to compensate climate refugees on the basis of each stateâs relative causal contribution to the loss and damage suffered, measured in terms of total cumulative emissions rather than current aggregate or per capita emissionsâ (Eckersley, 2015, p. 485). In 2006, the Maldives proposed an amendment to the UNHCRâs definition of refugee in favour of including climate refugees (McAdam, 2011, p. 6). The then finance minister of Bangladesh, in a similar tone, demanded a revision to the UNHCRâs refugee status definition at the 2009 UNFCCCâs annual conference in Copenhagen, COP15 (McAdam, 2011, p. 6). Sara Shaw, climate justice and energy coordinator at Friends of the Earth International (FoEI; an international network of environmental organizations) stated, âWe believe that climate-refugees have a legitimate claim for asylum and should be recognized under the U.N. refugee convention and offered international protectionâ (Deen, 25 August 2015, para. 6).
On the other hand, the high-carbon-emitting countries in migrant-group never agreed to classify climate change-induced displaced people as one of the recognized categories of refugees. Australia, for example, which is the highest per capita carbon dioxide emitter in the world, does not recognize climate refugees (Karasapan, 2015, para. 3). The Australian Labour Party proposed in 2006 to accept climate refugees from the Pacific Island countries, but this was rejected by the then Australian government (Biermann and Boas, 2010, p. 66). In 2007, the Australian Green Party tabled a bill at the Australian parliament named the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007 to recognize climate refugees (Parliament of Australia, 2007). However, this effort was not successful (Parliament of Australia, 2007). By 2015, New Zealand and Australia had rejected 17 applications from the Pacific Island countries seeking climate refugee status (OâBrien, 2015, para. 7â10). In a similar tone, the United States â one of the top three carbon-emitting countries in the world â is also against recognizing the term climate refugees (Buckley, 2014, p. 200). Hartmann argues that climate refugees are on the US security agenda, with the United States viewing itself as threatened by âbarbarianâ climate refugees who may take up arms and enter the United States by undermining the US border security forces (Hartmann, 2010, pp. 238â242).
Although the high carbon emitters never agreed to recognize the knowledge of climate refugees, they agreed to give funds to the climate-affected countries for implementing climate change resilience and adaptation projects (UNFCCC, 1992, article 4). The high carbon emitters do not give the funds directly to the climate-affected countries but under the fiduciary management of many development organizations such as the World Bank, ADB, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and International Financial Corporation (IFC).
These development organizations, according to Methmann and Oels (2015, pp. 59â63), re-conceptualized climate refugees as climate change-induced migration, and offered prescriptions to manage/govern the migrants through climate change resilience and adaptation projects in a way that the projects politically and economically âco-benefitâ both â the donors (i.e. Coalition B) and the recipients of the funds (i.e. Coalition A). The projects are mainly anti-migration projects which restrict cross-border and internal migration of the climate-affected-people2 , but encourage the people to be resilient while encountering the effects of climate change (a detailed analysis of the projects has been described in Chapter 7 of this book) (Methmann & Oels, 2015, p. 63; Tabassum, 2017, pp. 51â52). Thus, the resilience projects facilitate âa shift of responsibilityâ from the high carbon emitters to the climate change-aff...
