Climate refugees essay sample

Climate change threatens not only helpless animals that desperately seek for an alternative habitat. Local population of coastal or mountainous regions is also put at risk due to the fierce weather conditions that destroy their homes and bury hundreds of victims under the ruins. The international Organization for Migration defined several types of climate refugees in their documents. They are distinguished according to the severity of weather conditions that force them to move. Environmental emergency migrants leave their habitat because of an environmental disaster with the high level of destruction. They are victims of the hurricanes and earthquakes evacuated from the place of disaster. The other type is environmental forced migrants. They experience a strong need to move because of deterioration that has already affected their land. Expecting exacerbation of the weather conditions, people are uncertain about their future safety. Yet another type of climate refugees refers to people who do not suffer from climate change yet but are economically induced to move. Infertile lands and desertification makes rural population search for a place more favorable to agriculture.

Environmental emergency migrants are the largest group of refugees that urgently need a new settlement. Tropical cyclones are quite frequent in the North East and West Pacific, North Atlantic, and South Indian oceans. Merely in the US, hurricane Katrina killed 1500 people and thousands of others were deprived of their homes. But not only hurricanes force people to move. More than 40 millions of people were displaced in 2010 in Asia due to storms and floods caused by the rise in sea level.