Migrating From Climate Change: Ontological Insecurities and Global South

In contemporary times, involuntary migration is inevitable when the climate crisis is real. Climate change is resulting in the melting of glaciers, an increase in sea level, water crisis,  change in the pattern of monsoons, frequent cyclones and droughts, leading to forced displacement as climate refugees. Tuvalu, Kiribati, Marshall islands are some frontline states facing existential threat. Beyond the material loss, such displacements threaten what Volker Boege terms ontological security, which is the fundamental human and state need for continuity, stability, and identity. At its core, ontological security demands continuity in the biographical narrative, which involves the reproduction of identities by performing routine practices that maintain a coherent sense of self and belonging. Displacement fractures these narratives, triggers anxiety, identity dislocation, and socio-political instability. Climate change induced migration results in ontological insecurity for both state and individuals.

In this article we are going to analyse the link between securitisation of climate change, climate-induced migration and ontological insecurities particularly in the Global South. In doing so, we also aim to provide a framework for understanding how environmental disruptions are also deeply geopolitical and identity-centric in nature.

Seeing the Past: Analysing Historical Responsibility

Root cause of climate change can be traced back to the age of  industrial revolution. Historical contributions of developed countries to greenhouse gas emissions continue to drive climate change today. In the 18th century, nations like the United Kingdom, Germany, and later the United States rapidly industrialized through extensive use of coal, oil, and gas. Colonialism provides a continuous supply of natural resources from the global south to ensure sustained industrial revolution in developed countries. It also places the global south as a mere provider of raw material and global north as industrialised. This shaped the developmental ontology of the South, an externally imposed economic identity wherein 'progress' was measured by replication of Northern industrial models, regardless of ecological or cultural fit. The geopolitical imbalance also emerges from the fact that while developed countries are responsible for over 70% emission of greenhouse gases historically, they now expect developing nations to curb emissions without equitable compensation and technology transfer. As per Global Carbon Project Report, the U.S., with just 4% of the global population, has contributed approximately 25% of global CO₂ emissions. Although the Paris Agreement attempted to address this disparity by urging developed nations to mobilize $100 billion annually to support climate adaptation and mitigation in the Global South, it's still unmet.  As the climate crisis is becoming a deeply geopolitical situation, the global south is still facing disparities in responsibility, power, and access to sustainable development pathways.

Global South As Centre of Climate Vulnerability and Migration

In 2023, global GHG emissions reached a record high of 53.0 Gt CO2. China is the highest emitter, followed by the USA and EU. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Latin American and Caribbean( LAC) countries account for only 7-8% of global emissions, and Africa accounts for 2-3%. According to the World Bank Groundswell Report, Global climate change will displace about 143 million people in the Global South by 2050. However, the global south is not a major contributor; the brunt of climate change affects it disproportionately, leaving millions of people with no other option but to move. Consequences of climate change will necessarily affect patterns of human mobility and their identity.

Question Of Identity

Flood or drought situations, water crises and increases in sea levels affect the basis of identity of both state and individual. At the state level, many coastal and island states face existential threats. In the global south, Bangladesh, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Dominico, Brunei, Pacific islands, Indonesia, Japan and many others are the frontline countries facing extinction and related problems of being stateless. Additionally, ontological insecurity is intensified in countries struggling with social, political and economic instability. When analysed at the intersection of climate change and societal instabilities, consequences such as displacement, poverty, misery and loss of identity intensified. As a result, countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America will face heightened crises of identity. It leads to greater propensity of migration as well.

Forced Migration

Climate change will lead to both horizontal and vertical migration i.e from rural to urban and from developing to developed countries to secure livelihood. Rural-to-urban migration is generating unplanned sprawl of urban areas and slums. It also results in compromising citizen's identity  to mere economic agents concerned only with fulfilling their livelihood needs. As a result spaces of social and cultural interaction shrunk due to a lack of structures and institutions, and the polarization of identities happened, further threatening their individuality. Regarding cross-border migration, problems intensify as the sense of space and place gets distorted. Relative insecurity of identity by climate refugees in host countries is comparatively greater than internal migration as the scope of rehabilitation is meagre when national borders are concerned. MENA region, Pacific islands, and Sub-Saharan Africa will experience more migration due to reduced inhabiting capacity owing to increased temperature. Migration in Latin America and Caribbean countries will result from the deforestation of the Amazon and the melting of glaciers in the Andes region. In both ways, food, livelihood and economic insecurity force people to migrate. However, there are various agreements that aim to address climate change but geopolitical gaps persist.

Politicising  Climate Treaties 

The Paris agreement and Kyoto protocol is directly related to addressing factors of migration. The Kyoto protocol was the first global commitment to address emission and the Paris agreement aims to address global temperature. Both phenomena are pivotal to determining the pattern of migration from the global south. However, several countries from the global north fail to achieve their targets. The United States has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement.  Other nations, like Canada, have also faced difficulties in meeting their Kyoto Protocol obligations, ultimately leading to withdrawal. Failure to meet commitment by the global north countries deepens unequal power dynamics between global north and global south. Additionally, it also makes global responses more insensitive to climate change. It will result in adoption of unsustainable short term mechanisms such as adaptation and migration, while ignoring contextuality and particular realities.

Vulnerability of Indigenous communities

Indigenous communities whose biographical continuity revolves around forests, coastal and mountainous regions are comparatively more vulnerable to ontological insecurity. It's not only about relocation but separation from their ancestral lands that are integral to their cosmology, identity, and community cohesion. Their displacement constitutes a deeper ontological rupture than mainstream populations experience, as their identity is not just spatial but cosmological.  ‘Migration with Dignity’ is eschewed in the case of indigenous communities. Additionally, epistemic marginalisation of indigenous communities and climate refugees reinforce forms of structural violence, as their ways of knowing are still invisible in dominant mitigation and adaptation narratives. When analysed at the intersection of climate change, ontological security is necessary to capture nuanced details of displacement, dislocation and denial of identities. However, addressing the historical-structural root of the problem will be more efficient in creating a just world.

Exploitation of Climatic Anxieties

In the face of the climate crisis, migration is a singular available, involuntarily chosen option for survival. Plight intensifies when lack of resources and technology restricts mitigation and adaptation opportunities. However, the situation becomes worse when sufferings are exploited and manipulated to create legitimacy for the militarisation of climate. Chaturvedi and Doyle have also pointed out that fear-inducing climate change discourses result in new forms of dependencies, domination, and militarised 'climate security’.

Securitisation of Climate Change

Global North is also contributing to securitisation of climate change through speeches, policies, and market frameworks. Climate change has been portrayed as the wrath of Mother Earth that needs to be controlled. Structural dimension of climate change as a byproduct of an industrialisation-led development model has been collectively invisiblised. Industrialisation-based development models result in the institutionalised extraction of resources, which provides the material basis for the expansion of capitalism in the world. As the focus has been shifted from underlying cause to symptom, legitimacy to climate terror narratives is generated.

Militarisation of Migration Policies

Climate change-induced migration is being presented as a threat to national and territorial security. Hence, militarised border and migration policies are adopted by the global north, which is increasing the struggle of climate refugees from the global south. EU securitised response to climate-induced migration from the Mediterranean highlights policy discourse around border security. The US has also focused on border enforcement and immigration control. It has also withdrawn from the Paris Agreement in November 2020, which affects climate change mitigation efforts, as the USA is a major emitter of greenhouse gas.

Australia's "Pacific Solution” is an example of the externalisation of migration control. This policy involves intercepting asylum seekers in international waters and detaining them in offshore facilities in countries like Nauru and Papua New Guinea, which reflects outsourcing responsibility for their care and processing to countries which owe nothing in terms of reparation. The Refugee Council of Australia notes that the policy is intended to deter people from coming to Australia by punishing them.  These framings are based on straightforward externalisation and dehumanisation of climate migrants. It is also slippery terrain that criminalises vulnerable populations while ignoring the structural violence that forces migration in the first place. In the Arctic, developed countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and so on are also militarising the environment in the veiling argument of climate security.

Ambiguity of Legal Framework

The Global Compact for Migration acknowledges climate change as a factor influencing human mobility but stops short of recognising climate refugees with legal protections. This lack of a clear legal status leaves many displaced individuals without the political rights and social support. This ambiguity also provides geopolitical leverage to the global north. Additionally, climate terror is sustained through market mechanisms. Neoliberalism is focusing on adaptation while addressing climate change. While channelled through the market, solutions are destined to be profit-oriented and technocratic. It is aggravating the situation on two fronts: by denying development of adaptation capabilities of those who lack resources; and increasing the rate of climate change by residing on an industrialised solution to address it in the first place. Neoliberalisation of climate change has also reproduced structural inequalities between the Global North and the Global South.

Conclusion 

Mobility is a perennial question of the growth of civilisation. Climate crisis-induced migration is a significant source of ontological insecurity. The world has been divided into two fronts of haves and have-nots, so ignorance of this aspect will lead to many challenges and struggles. There is a need to focus on structural problems, i.e. the narrative of industrialisation-based development as the sole engine to ensure economic development and prosperity. Acknowledging this will shift the focus towards including indigenous knowledge systems, particular necessities and localised solutions to climate change. Policy discourses that focus on flexibility and adaptability, transcending from being to becoming need to be evolved. Countries in the Global South must collaborate on science, technology, and policy initiatives to share knowledge and resources, strengthening collective resilience and reducing dependency on the Global North. The New Becoming needs to be ecologically sensitive and based on the notion of interdependence and the more-than-human identity of Mother Earth.

References

Boege, Volker. Ontological Security, the Spatial Turn and Pacific Relationality: A Framework for Understanding Climate Change, Human Mobility and Conflict/Peace in the Pacific. Part I. Policy Brief No. 123. Tokyo: Toda Peace Institute, 2023.

Chaturvedi, Sanjay, and Timothy Doyle. Climate Terror: A Critical Geopolitics of Climate Change. New Security Challenges Series. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-31895-4.

Ritchie, Hannah, Max Roser, and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina. Our World in Data. Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford. https://ourworldindata.org/