On 13th January 2023, the Youth Ki Awaaz Zero se Hero campaign hosted a candid conversation on Climate Migration with Mr. Pradyut Bordoloi, member of parliament (MP), Nowgong Constituency, Assam, and Ms. Evita Rodrigues, Associate, Swaniti Initiative on the Private Member Bill titled “Understanding Climate Migration.”
Q. What is the Climate Migrants (Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2022, and how does it address Internal migration fuelled by climate change?
- Bordoloi: The Bill was drawn from the consequences of flood and erosion affecting riverine communities of Assam and the experience of erratic water flows and weather patterns. Chars, the riverine islands in the Brahmaputra water system, usually take 20 years for a single island to erode. However, the riverine islands have recently deteriorated over 5-10 years, forcing members of these communities to migrate. It is coupled with the political narrative of religious polarisation and habitat erosion, making the administration flag them as intruders. This causes great distress to them as Indian citizens who have been inhabiting these areas for decades and now have nowhere to go.
- Such internal displacement is caused due to climate change. It is caused by water behaviour due to erratic rainfall patterns for diverse reasons, including deforestation in upstream localities, water divergence from the Brahmaputra water system in Tibet and China, construction of dams, etc. Climate change has caused displacement due to sudden disasters like floods and drought and slow onset issues such as erosion, sea-level rises, desertification, etc.; Indian policy, however, only addresses sudden onset climate disasters, and there is a vacuum of people-centered policy measures to combat slow-onset disasters. This Bill tries to define, for the first time in Indian policymaking, climate migrants. It gives policy prescriptions to address difficulties faced by climate migration to ensure their rehabilitation through a tiered interministerial authority. The broad four-fold functions the Bill covers are setting up climate migration monitoring and risk assessment systems, prevention and mitigation of climate migration, relief, compensation for climate migration, and legal framework for resettlement, rehabilitation, and reintegration of climate migration.
Q. Is there any existing mechanism by which climate migration has been measured and defined to inform policymaking? How can the Bill help feed this into more effective decision-making?
- Evita: Climate migration is a South Asian problem and a significant risk for India as the third-most disaster-prone country in the world. Enormous dependence on natural resources for livelihoods, the particular geo-climatic conditions, and high socioeconomic vulnerabilities contribute to India being a significant climate migration hub. Coastal erosion in Odisha or the Sunderbans, etc show that this is a cause for concern, but there are no settled rehabilitation or compensation policies. The impacts of floods on Majuli, the largest river island in the world, on droughts in Jharkhand and Maharashtra all point to a significant climate migration problem. Terming it voluntary fails to acknowledge how it is a result of compulsions due to the loss of land and livelihoods dependent on natural resources. It is neither recognised in international legislation nor national legislation. It is also further aggravated by the need for more data, preventing consensus about this phenomenon. Based in Geneva, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre relies on the National Emergency Response Center – Disaster Reports, which is hugely limited for multiple reasons. They collect data only on sudden-onset disasters. There needs to be more data on slow-onset disasters like erosion, which limits the availability of essential data about climate migration. The Bill also tries to address this lack of data by institutionalizing systematic data collection on both slow-onset events and sudden-onset disasters.
Q. How do we address the challenge of who is a climate migrant – only those who face extreme climate events or even those who lose livelihoods and opportunities due to weather events- and protect these displaced communities from wrongfully being termed as Illegal in areas with numerous vulnerabilities such as the state of Assam?
- Bordoloi: Plight of the riverine communities affected by erratic climatic factors. Various climate change effects are seeping in, and people are being affected across the country. We need monitoring and assessment for climate migration. These people are not foreigners but are internally displaced. People who are affected by climate change transcend state boundaries. There should be a federal character to the framework. This Bill’s underlying objective is to sensitize these people, including politicians. In Assam, only because they belong to a particular religion are they discriminated against. There has to be a framework for relief, compensation, and resettlement with proper dignity, honor, and recognition should be given to the migrants affected by climate change factors.
Q. Media reports bring out instances of climate migration forcing women and children into human trafficking and prostitution. This is further aggravated based on caste, tribal, gender identities, etc. How does the Bill attempt to use policy to integrate climate migration risks into other policy challenges and vice-versa?
- Bordoloi: Ill-effects because of the distress they face, displacement, marginalization. Survival is an issue for these marginalised communities, where women and children suffer the most. Human trafficking is a perennial problem amongst these communities, as they are always the target. Once mitigation measures are taken, rehabilitated, and livelihood patterns are assured, this problem can be addressed reasonably. Monitoring and assessment, access to education and healthcare, and livelihoods can mitigate this concern. This is why the Bill suggests a designated fund for tackling the problems of climate migrants. A legal framework with a tiered interministerial authority at the national and state level that must deal with the concerns of climate migration would be the prudent thing to do.
Q. An issue like climate migration might need two states to work together. How can this Bill be a practical application of the spirit of federalism? Are there any examples that can be replicated or learned from? How does the Bill propose overcoming this challenge so vulnerable communities are not marginalised further? What can the states do to work together to protect and rehabilitate displaced climate migrants internally? Can State Action Plans on Climate Change become a practical application of the spirit of federalism here?
- Evita: Climate migration will not recognise state borders, so cooperation between states is essential. While a national policy is necessary to set a common basic minimum programme that defines and outlines an institutional structure, understanding the risks and reasonable mitigation measures are very state specific. The State Action plans on climate change are crucial practical aspects of the spirit of federalism. They are essential for devising state-specific solutions for climate migration and other challenges. However, the state action plans are very cookie-cutter. They have a very copy-paste model, and we must utilise the scope for decentralised policymaking. The Bill prescribes State authorities that will be interministerial, on top of the national authority, to diagnose the state-specific challenges. The state authorities will have a significant role to play by developing localised plans, but the national policy will ensure cooperation.
- Evita: Regarding best practices, the global methodology of post-disaster needs assessment devised by the UN and other multilateral organizations, first implemented in India after the 2018 Kerala floods, estimated that the state needs 4.5 Billion USD just for recovery. It helps to assess the extent of financial and social damage due to a disaster. In 2022, eight other states will use this assessment, including Meghalaya and Assam. It is necessary to implement it across states in the wake of the loss and damage conversations at COP27. However, this only happens in severe disasters like floods or cyclones, not in slow-onset disasters like erosion. We need to implement this in these cases as well.
- Bordoloi: There is a need to revisit and recognize natural disasters. There is a need to work in a non-partisan and humanitarian manner. It is a tragedy that people discriminate based on religion, even in such conditions as in the state of Assam. We should work cooperatively and actively both at the federal and state levels.
Q. What can young people do to back the Climate Migrants (Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill 2022 bill and contribute positively to the policymaking process around climate change and its impacts?
- Bordoloi: Young people can do miracles. They can force policymakers to sit up and notice climate change and its effects on the people in various parts of the country. I have an abiding belief in that young people can go beyond sectarian chauvinism and that they can bring real change. They can force policy planners and policymakers to rectify and take measures to address these problems.
- Evita: More legislators, hopefully, will be open to having young people work with them. Increasingly, more young people are entering the offices of Indian parliamentarians through fellowships and engaging with processes that are different from what we know externally.
- Bordoloi: I raised a notice in the winter session during a Zero hour to allow people as young as 21 to be eligible to become parliamentarians and legislators. If we lower the age for eligibility, we can see many young parliamentarians and legislators who can make a massive change.
- Evita: The issue of climate change will affect young people and future generations disproportionately. It is hence vital for young people to make it an advocacy point. Young people can engage with their representatives to raise these issues through other interventions in the parliament. Many young people in the private sector and the government’s adjacent sectors are trying to work on climate change these days. A lot of it, however, is focused on net zero reduction or renewable energy, but very little attention goes to climate justice. Communities that disproportionately bear the brunt of ecological distress should be an integral priority of our strategies.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) is working on remote voting for internal migrants. These internal migrants make up almost 33% of the eligible voters in India. If the ECI implemented this step, would it help draw more attention to internal migration caused due to climate-induced natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, etc.?
Internally displaced persons become nomadic since the authorities must keep track after being replaced. How can the election commission give them this voting power? Many people need to exercise their voting rights. An assessment and clear-cut auditing are necessary. It is required that there be a legal framework and appropriate rehabilitative measures be taken; only then can these people be accounted for. Then they will have the opportunity to exercise their fundamental democratic rights.