Each time Dr. Kiran Banerjee presents on the topic of forced migration he knows he must update his notes to reckon with the increasingly grim reality of the situation. In a matter of months, the numbers of the globally displaced leap by millions.
鈥淯nfortunately, a word I repeat frequently in my work is unprecedented.聽 We鈥檝e crossed the 100-million-mark for the number of people currently displaced in the world, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It鈥檚 an incredibly significant number in terms of the global population which is affected by displacement at this point.鈥�
Syrian refugees arrive at Bardarash camp in Duhok, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq 漏 UNHCR/Hossein Fatemi
A stark future awaits
By the end of聽2021, the number of forced migrants amounted to the fourteenth largest country on Earth, equivalent to one per cent of the world population, and well over double the total population of Canada. The聽 indicates that one in every 74 people on Earth has been forced to flee.聽
Dr. Banerjee points to the civil war in Syria, a conflict spurred in part by drought, and the flooding in Pakistan that left hundreds of thousands homeless, as recent examples of climate-induced forced migration. He says these are just the first signs of a situation that threatens to overwhelm the world if we don鈥檛 begin to contend with the increasing pressures of extreme weather and conflict over scarce resources sparked by climate change.
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Dr. Kiran Banerjee.
鈥淭he future climate-induced challenges that we can see require a truly global response and we really have nothing in place in terms of formal mechanisms.鈥�
Building on a tradition of Canadian leadership
Dr. Banerjee says that Canada鈥檚 past leadership provides the country with an opportunity to advance and mobilize new policy frameworks focused on future impacts of global warming.
鈥淎s one of the world鈥檚 largest re-settlers of refugees, Canada is positioned very well to speak with moral authority toward the need for increased governance, increased international cooperation, and increased global solidarity,鈥� he says.
鈥淏ut of course, there is a need to ramp-up this thinking quickly because the projections regarding climate-induced migration are at a scale of magnitude that far exceeds anything we鈥檝e seen thus far.鈥�
Refugee in Pakistan鈥檚 north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province before it was swept away by flooding. 漏 UNHCR/Usman Ghani
Informed by climate science
Dr. Banerjee says that connecting his research to Dalhousie and its partners鈥� Transforming Climate Action research program will allow him to make policy recommendations informed by the latest climate science.
Scientists engaged in the Transforming Climate Action aim to use an unprecedented data-driven approach to track the ocean鈥檚 changing ability to absorb and sequester carbon. Current, global carbon reduction targets anticipate the ocean to remain unchanged as Earth鈥檚 most important carbon sink. It鈥檚 a significant risk as recent science shows dramatic deviations are afoot.
鈥淭he work being done by my more STEM-minded colleagues can provide a framework for understanding how urgent it is to develop new policies and mechanisms to contend with climate induced migration. It will clarify the severity of the events that we鈥檝e had and how limited our predictive capacity has been up to now,鈥� says Dr. Banerjee.
鈥淚deally, we want to develop long term frameworks based on science for something that is going to become only a more enduring aspect of global politics.鈥�