THE LONG GOODBYE

Joseph J. Ellis, the renowned American historian known for his work on the founders of the United States of America and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for History for the book “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation”, wrote in his book “American Dialogue”, “ all utopian expectations for paradise on Earth were delusional dreams destined to end at the guillotine or the firing squad wall.” These words were written in a completely different context, involving different characters and a different scenario. However, as it is with words, the correct ones have a haunting, pervading quality. They resonate and become eidolons; they survive and thrive, acquiring meanings and adapting disguises.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), does not condone the term “climate refugees”. A “refugee”, as per the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, is a person who has crossed the international border “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons for race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” It also covers “nexus dynamics”- if a drought-related famine is linked to situations of armed conflict and violence. However, as per UNHCR, climate change, generally, initially leads to internal, and not international displacement.

All official jargon aside, and whether we call them “refugees”, or “persons displaced in the context of disasters and climate change”, it is fair to say that environmental migration has become a cause célèbre, and a question looms over the despondent scenario; the same question that dangles over all earthly matters; is it a Shakespearean tragedy, or a Greek one?

Climate change, even before Greta Thunberg's arrival, has been a major cause of concern. “Humanitas vocabatur cum pars servitutis essel” (“They called it, in their ignorance, civilization, but it was really part of their enslavement”), wrote historian Tacitus, on Britons adopting Roman culture and traditions. Once again, thousands of years later, the words morph, their meanings transcending generations.

The World Bank, in March 2018, released a report titled Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration, which produced some startling discoveries; climate change, water scarcity, crop failure, and rising sea levels may cause as many as 143 million people to be displaced by the year 2050. The major regions that were covered, and would be affected, were Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, three of the most highly populated regions in the world. The International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), have released more damning statistics. In 2018, 17.2 million people in 144 countries and territories were newly displaced in the context of disasters within their own countries. In the first half of 2019, 7 million new internal displacements occurred. As things stand, utopia remains a mirage, a mere façade. It is but dystopia that we seem to be heading towards.

The Nansen Initiative, a state-led consultative process and the brain child of Norway and Switzerland, describes its overall goal as building the consensus among States on key principles and elements to protect people displaced across borders in the context of disasters caused by natural hazards, including climate change. The Nansen Initiative works on varied plains, with its wings spread across Southeast Asia, Central America, Great Horn of Africa and the Pacific.

The Atlas of Environmental Migration, written by Dina Ionescu, Daria Mokhnacheva and Francois Gemenne, also covers this phenomenon, describing the reasons and factors at play.

However, both the book and the Nansen Initiative deal with international migration, a situation which does not arise very often. People, for obvious economic and logistical reasons, prefer to move to another area within the same country for environmental reasons.

The Groundswell report also provided some solemn solutions: urgent steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and engaging in climate change preparation could result in the number of people being displaced reduce drastically, from 143 million to about 40 million.

Amidst all the kerfuffle and razzmatazz, all the conspiracy theorists and naysayers, one truth stands unbroken, as it always does, ad infinitum. Sea levels are rising, glaciers are melting, and whole cities are sinking. Climate change is real; it is happening as you read this; a brutal side-effect of which is environmental migration.

“Know thyself” is carved into the pronaos of the temple of Apollo at Delphi; a stark reminder of how petty fights and short-term actions are derailing and suffocating the very planet we live in.

“The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all,” said Severian, the protagonist of Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun. Words permeate again.