Here’s what we need to do to avoid total climate breakdown

It’s time for governments to face the hard truth about climate breakdown – without a plan for climate migration, there is no solution.

As the climate crisis continues to wreak havoc on the lives of people in global majority countries, governments, like ours in the UK, are closing their borders and making it harder and harder for people to seek safety.

Across human history – natural disasters, floods, erratic harvest cycles – have forced entire populations to uproot and relocate to different parts of the planet. As the climate disaster unfolds it will become more and more common for people to move; this is the reality. While we need to prevent further climate devastation we also need to adapt – that means expecting more movement and demanding justice for migrants.

As many of us have found in recent months, poor harvests and reduction in food supply can lead to rising prices, empty supermarket aisles and fewer choices. Extreme weather and drought are already leading to harvests failing worldwide and forcing people to move for a better chance of survival.

Extreme air pollution is sweeping mega cities across the world, choking and suffocating people trying to get on with their daily lives. People move in response, as they always have. Nearly 90 per cent move within their country or to a neighbouring country, but as climate breakdown worsens there will be a greater need for people to move further.

Lawyers at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) are already representing clients who have moved to the UK due to climate induced migration, and we believe this is only set to increase. The answer lies in urgently opening safe routes for climate refugees.

But our government continues to come out with the same tired rhetoric, and unleash law upon law demonising those seeking safety and a better life. The “Anti-Refugee Bill”, Rwanda plan, using army barracks and barges to house asylum seekers, and the threat of declaring a state of emergency in the Channel all serve to punish those who move and further reinforces the myth that migration harms our country. Anti-immigration sentiments only serve to further jeopardise the lives of millions facing climate crisis – unless we can stop them.

Internationally, COP27 showed us that governments are more willing to pay loss and damages to the most affected countries. But they refuse to discuss how those most affected people can be supported to move to safety. The only route for people suffering from climate breakdown right now is migration.

The richest 1 per cent of the world’s population cause twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorest 50 per cent. That same poorest 50 per cent – 3.5 billion people – live overwhelmingly in countries most vulnerable to climate change, meaning that they are bearing the brunt of a crisis they did not cause.

It’s high time to turn the tide on the decades of demonisation that migrants have faced in this country. The UK would not be the country it is without migration – the NHS and our culture would all be much worse off without migrants. That this still needs to be said shows just how little progress has been made. Now, more than ever, is the time for us to embrace migration and provide safety for those in danger from the worst effects of climate breakdown.

The pandemic has shown us that rapid and transformative change is possible. But we must act fast to ensure people who move due to climate breakdown are welcomed and not scapegoated. Migration is our most natural and oldest survival technique, and as humanity races to survive the climate crisis it will again be our key solution. A climate-just future needs a green new deal, and a politics of welcome towards those forced to flee through no fault of their own.

People move and have always moved. Migration is part of human existence. It enriches our communities and society, and it will be a key part of the solution to the climate crisis.

Ravishaan Rahel Muthiah is an award-winning campaigner due to his work with Greenpeace. He currently leads our Climate Justice campaign