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Climate-Induced Displacement is a Global Phenomenon, but Not Evenly Experienced

As world leaders presented their plans to combat rising global temperatures at the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 28) in Dubai from Nov. 30-Dec. 13, 2023, discussions are centered on how countries can cut greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate a dire environmental future. But a UC Berkeley researcher says that future is already here for millions of people displaced by the climate crisis. And those climate refugees are predominantly from formerly colonized countries that are not responsible, in large part, for the factors that exacerbate climate change.

Published

12 months ago

January 8, 2024

Oakland Post

In Ethiopia's Ghibe valley, farmers plough a field with cattle. Soil erosion has impacted farming in the country due to the climate crisis. Wikimedia photo.

UC Berkeley policy analyst from the Othering and Belonging Institute shares recommendations to protect people displaced from the climate crisis.

By Ivan Natividad
UC Berkeley News

But a UC Berkeley researcher says that future is already here for millions of people displaced by the climate crisis. And those climate refugees are predominantly from formerly colonized countries that are not responsible, in large part, for the factors that exacerbate climate change.

Those nations — in the global south regions of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and much of Asia and Oceania — also lack the wealth and infrastructure to withstand intensifying natural disasters, rising sea levels and the collapse of industries dependent on stable climates, according to a recent Berkeley report.

“There are many examples of how global south countries face the brunt of a crisis they did not produce, due to the activities of countries and industries in the global north,” says report co-author Hossein Ayazi, a senior policy analyst at UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute. “So, we want to help protect the most marginalized — climate-induced displaced persons — while targeting the sources of their marginalization.”

That is why the institute’s Global Justice Program recently launched an interactive database that helps both policymakers and impacted communities explore global data on climate-induced displacement. The report also offers strategies to ensure the protection of people displaced by the climate crisis, and climate resilience for them moving forward.

Ayazi said the research shows that sea levels are expected to rise drastically in the coming decades, which will impact nearly 40% of the world’s population that lives in coastal areas. And over 75% of all coastal populations — 90% of the world’s poor rural coastal areas — live in the global south.

Berkeley News spoke with Ayazi about what’s causing climate change displacement and what needs to happen to protect climate refugees and make their communities more resilient.

Berkeley News: Your research unpacks why people in the global south are more vulnerable to being displaced from the impacts of the climate crisis. What are some of the economic dimensions of this vulnerability?

Hossein Ayazi: Many countries in the global south have a relatively large percentage of their gross domestic product (GDP) derived from agriculture, forestry, and fishing — industries that are by nature more vulnerable to a changing climate.

In Ethiopia, for example, agriculture comprises almost 40% of its total GDP. That sector also employs over 80% of its population. So as these countries experience climate extremes — droughts, floods, increased temperatures and so on— their economies are impacted on a deep level.

A defining feature of countries in the global south is that their economies have been organized by, and to the benefit of, the global north — wealthier and powerful nations in North America and Europe. This means agricultural production that’s largely export-oriented, and not diversified, makes these countries especially inflexible and vulnerable to climate impacts.

Berkeley News: What other significant economic or financial factors cause or worsen climate-induced displacement?

Hossein Ayazi: Global south countries have a high external debt burden, with surcharges making things worse. In fact, global south debt payments in 2023 reached their highest level in 25 years.

This high debt burden means a poor sovereign credit rating, and a lack of fiscal space to invest in climate-resilient infrastructure and economies that can adequately respond to disasters. This is true at the individual and household level: When disaster strikes, it’s hard for people to manage when they are struggling financially.

Protecting climate refugees and affording people the right to stay in their communities means addressing such issues.

Berkeley News: While the focus of your data is on the global south, when you talk about climate displacement in this way it seems like it can happen anywhere — even in the United States.

Hossein Ayazi: It certainly can. Consider Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Residential segregation and decades of disinvestment in New Orleans’ levee infrastructure meant that when the storm hit, it would be the city’s poorer Black residents who would be displaced or lose their lives.

In the wildfires in Maui this year, we saw the inequalities in those communities exacerbated. Tourists had the means to reach safety and secure a place to stay, while many Native Hawaiians struggled to flee, save their homes, or recover afterward.

The climate crisis is a global phenomenon, but its impacts are not evenly experienced.

Berkeley News: Your research reveals that industries using extreme amounts of nonrenewable energy sources mostly come from wealthier countries in the global north. How do those industries affect the surrounding communities they inhabit?

Hossein Ayazi: Globally, we have come to be dependent on extractive, exploitative industries that might provide for some, but collectively harm us all, and certainly harm the people in closest proximity to them.

These industries are usually placed in marginalized communities in the global north — and in countries across the global south — and, rife with health and environmental impacts, they become mainstays of the broader economy.

Berkeley News: What is an example of this locally?

Hossein Ayazi: We can look to Richmond, California, and the Chevron oil refinery located there. Nearly 24% of the city’s general fund comes from the refinery, which also provides regional employment.

So, the question is: How do communities and countries become less dependent on these extractive industries that harm them, and us? How are these harms — past and present — addressed?

That’s the point of this work: Protecting peoples most harmed by the climate crisis, targeting the sources of the climate crisis, and building communities and economies that are just, sustainable and resilient against the climate crisis.

Berkeley News: What do world leaders need to do to make this vision a reality?

Hossein Ayazi: World leaders need to recognize the rights of people displaced by the climate crisis and across international borders. They also need to act upon demands for the transformational changes needed to materialize inclusive, just, and climate-resilient communities.

These demands entail ending the exploitation of land, resources and labor, and demilitarizing borders, among other key climate justice demands.

Berkeley News: What type of policy does your research recommend?

Hossein Ayazi: What we conceptualize as the “Right to Stay” is not only the right for climate-displaced people to safely resettle when their lives are uprooted. It is also the right to stay in place amidst the climate crisis, and against the extractive and exploitative structures that are forcing them to move.

To be able to aid the transition to climate-resilient societies and regenerative economies globally — while protecting the world’s most marginalized and exploited people and communities — a Right to Stay policy platform entails:

Legal rights for all peoples displaced by the climate crisis, within and across national borders
Climate reparations to countries in the global south, whose vulnerability to the climate crisis follows centuries of global north extractive and exploitative political and economic activity
Just transitions that democratize, decentralize, and diversify economic activity and (re)distribute resources and power

Berkeley News: Why should the general public care about people displaced by climate change?

Hossein Ayazi: To address the condition of climate displacement is to come at the work of climate justice from multiple angles — from worker protections to migrant rights to prison abolition to reparations for the harms of colonialism and slavery to food sovereignty, and so on.

These struggles for justice and self-determination are all connected, especially under the climate crisis.

It’s that work that we’re trying to hold together through this database, and through the reports and recommendations that accompany it. Our work aims to map and strengthen this global constellation of efforts by helping the public and policymakers understand the structural nature of climate displacement.

Berkeley News: How do we build climate resilience in our own communities?

Hossein Ayazi: It begins with organizing ourselves as renters, as students, as workers, as debtors and so on. It’s about all the ways that we can collectively determine and respond to the sources of hardship in our life, in ways that are connected to these other issues.

And it must be through a hopeful message, a message that we’re going to co-create the future that we all deserve to live in.

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Books for Ghana

Published

1 day ago

December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

Min. Rauna Thurston, Chief Mpuntuhene Afua Ewusiwa I

By Min. Rauna Thurston, Chief Mpuntuhene Afua Ewusiwa I

My travels to Afrika began in June 2022, on a tour led by Prof. Manu Ampim, Director of the organization Advancing The Research. I was scheduled to become an ordained Minister by Wo’se Community of the Sacred African Way. It was vital that my feet touch the soil of Kemet and my spirit connect with the continent’s people before ordination.

Since 2022, I’ve made six trips to Afrika. During my travels, I became a benefactor to Abeadze State College (ASC) in Abeadze Dominase, Ghana, originally founded by Daasebre Kwebu Ewusi VII, Paramount Chief of Abeadze Traditional Area and now run by the government. The students there were having trouble with English courses, which are mandatory. The Ghanaian Minister of Education endorsed a novel written by 18-year-old female Ghanaian first-time writer, Nhyira Esaaba Essel, titled Black Queen Sceptre. The idea was that if the students had something more interesting to read, it would evoke a passion for reading; this seemed reasonable to me. Offer students something exciting and imaginative, combined with instructors committed to their success and this could work.

The challenge is how to acquire 800 books?!

I was finishing another project for ASC, so my cash was thin and I was devoid of time to apply for annual grants. I sat on my porch in West Oakland, as I often do, when I’m feeling for and connecting to my ancestors. On quiet nights, I reminisce about the neighborhood I grew up in. Across the street from my house was the house that my Godfather, Baba Dr. Wade Nobles and family lived in, which later became The Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family Life & Culture (IASBFLC). Then, it came to me…ancestors invited me to reach out to The Association of Black Psychologists – Bay Area Chapter (ABPsi-Bay Area)! It was a long shot but worth it!

I was granted an audience with the local ABPsi Board, who ultimately approved funding for the book project with a stipulation that the Board read the book and a request to subsequently offer input as to how the book would be implemented at ASC. In this moment, my memory jet set to my first ABPsi convention around 2002, while working for IASBFLC. Returning to the present, I thought, “They like to think because it feels good, and then, they talk about what to do about what they think about.” I’m doomed.

However, I came to understand why reading the book and offering suggestions for implementation were essential. In short: ABPsi is an organization that operates from the aspirational principles of Ma’at with aims of liberating the Afrikan Mind, empowering the Afrikan character, and enlivening: illuminating the Afrikan spirit. Their request resulted in a rollout of 400 books in a pair-share system. Students checked out books in pairs, thereby reducing our bottom line to half of the original cost because we purchased 50% fewer units. This nuance promoted an environment of Ujima (collective work & responsibility) and traditional Afrikan principles of cooperation and interdependence. The student’s collaborative approach encouraged shared responsibility, not only for the physical book but for each other’s success. This concept was Dr. Lawford Goddard’s, approved by the Board, with Dr. Patricia “Karabo” Nunley at the helm.

We effectively facilitated cross-continent community building! We met the call and provided 400 books for ASC’s students at the call of the Minister of Education. We supported the work of a new African writer whose breakout novel is an action-packed depiction of a young woman steeped in Ghanaian culture who travels to the USA for college, all the while experiencing the twists, turns, and uncertainties that life brings. (A collectible novel for all ages). A proposed future phase of this collaborative project is for ASC students to exchange reflective essays on Black Queen Sceptre with ABPsi Bay Area members.

We got into good trouble. To order Black Queen Sceptre, email esselewurama14@gmail.com.

I became an ordained Minister upon returning from my initial pilgrimage to Afrika. Who would have imagined that my travels to Afrika would culminate in me becoming a citizen of Sierra Leone and recently being named a Chief Mpuntuhene under Daasebre Kwebu Ewusi VII, Paramount Chief of Abeadze Traditional Area in Ghana, where I envision continued collaborations.

Min. Rauna/Chief Mpuntuhene is a member of ABPsi Bay Area, a healing resource committed to providing the Post Newspaper readership with monthly discussions about critical issues in Black Mental Health, Wealth & Wellness. Readers are welcome to join us at our monthly chapter meetings every 3^rd Saturday via Zoom and contact us at bayareaabpsi@gmail.com.

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Arts and Culture

In ‘Affrilachia: Testimonies,’ Puts Blacks in Appalacia on the Map

Published

1 day ago

December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

Author Chris Aluka. Photo courtesy of Chris Aluka.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez

An average oak tree is bigger around than two people together can reach.

That mighty tree starts out with an acorn the size of a nickel, ultimately growing to some 80 feet tall, with a canopy of a hundred feet or more across.

And like the new book, “Affrilachia” by Chris Aluka Berry (with Kelly Elaine Navies and Maia A. Surdam), its roots spread wide and wider.

Affriclachia is a term a Kentucky poet coined in the 1990s referring to the Black communities in Appalachia who are similarly referred to as Affrilachians.

In 2016, “on a foggy Sunday morning in March,” Berry visited Affrilachia for the first time by going the Mount Zion AME Zion Church in Cullowhee, North Carolina. The congregation was tiny; just a handful of people were there that day, but a pair of siblings stood out to him.

According to Berry, Ann Rogers and Mae Louise Allen lived on opposite sides of town, and neither had a driver’s license. He surmised that church was the only time the elderly sisters were together then, but their devotion to one another was clear.

As the service ended, he asked Allen if he could visit her. Was she willing to talk about her life in the Appalachians, her parents, her town?

She was, and arrangements were made, but before Barry could get back to Cullowhee, he learned that Allen had died. Saddened, he wondered how many stories are lost each day in mountain communities where African Americans have lived for more than a century.

“I couldn’t make photographs of the past,” he says, “but I could document the people and places living now.”

In doing so he also offers photographs that he collected from people he met in ‘Affrilachia,’ in North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, at a rustic “camp” that was likely created by enslaved people, at churches, and in modest houses along highways.

The people he interviewed recalled family tales and community stories of support, hardship, and home.

Says coauthor Navies, “These images shout without making a sound.”

If it’s true what they say about a picture being worth 1,000 words, then “Affrilachia,” as packed with photos as it is, is worth a million.

With that in mind, there’s not a lot of narrative inside this book, just a few poems, a small number of very brief interviews, a handful of memories passed down, and some background stories from author Berry and his co-authors. The tales are interesting but scant.

For most readers, though, that lack of narrative isn’t going to matter much. The photographs are the reason why you’d have this book.

Here are pictures of life as it was 50 years or a century ago: group photos, pictures taken of proud moments, worn pews, and happy children. Some of the modern pictures may make you wonder why they’re included, but they set a tone and tell a tale.

This is the kind of book you’ll take off the shelf, and notice something different every time you do. “Affrilachia” doesn’t contain a lot of words, but it’s a good choice when it’s time to branch out in your reading.

“Affrilachia: Testimonies,” by Chris Aluka Berry with Kelly Elaine Navies and Maia A. Surdam

c.2024, University of Kentucky Press, $50.00.

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Black History

Alice Parker: The Innovator Behind the Modern Gas Furnace

Born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1895, Alice Parker lived during a time when women, especially African American women, faced significant social and systemic barriers. Despite these challenges, her contributions to home heating technology have had a lasting impact.

Published

1 day ago

December 22, 2024

Oakland Post

In 1919, Alice Parker patented the design for a gas-powered central heating system, a groundbreaking invention. Image courtesy of U.S. Patent Office.

By Tamara Shiloh

Alice Parker was a trailblazing African American inventor whose innovative ideas forever changed how we heat our homes.

Born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1895, Parker lived during a time when women, especially African American women, faced significant social and systemic barriers. Despite these challenges, her contributions to home heating technology have had a lasting impact.

Parker grew up in New Jersey, where winters could be brutally cold. Although little is documented about her personal life, her education played a crucial role in shaping her inventive spirit. She attended Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C., where she may have developed her interest in practical solutions to everyday challenges.

Before Parker’s invention, most homes were heated using wood or coal-burning stoves. These methods were labor-intensive, inefficient, and posed fire hazards. Furthermore, they failed to provide even heating throughout a home, leaving many rooms cold while others were uncomfortably warm.

Parker recognized the inefficiency of these heating methods and imagined a solution that would make homes more comfortable and energy-efficient during winter.

In 1919, she patented her design for a gas-powered central heating system, a groundbreaking invention. Her design used natural gas as a fuel source to distribute heat throughout a building, replacing the need for wood or coal. The system allowed for thermostatic control, enabling homeowners to regulate the temperature in their homes efficiently.

What made her invention particularly innovative was its use of ductwork, which channeled warm air to different parts of the house. This concept is a precursor to the modern central heating systems we use today.

While Parker’s design was never fully developed or mass-produced during her lifetime, her idea laid the groundwork for modern central heating systems. Her invention was ahead of its time and highlighted the potential of natural gas as a cleaner, more efficient alternative to traditional heating methods.

Parker’s patent is remarkable not only for its technical innovation but also because it was granted at a time when African Americans and women faced severe limitations in accessing patent protections and recognition for their work. Her success as an inventor during this period is a testament to her ingenuity and determination.

Parker’s legacy lives on in numerous awards and grants – most noticeably in the annual Alice H. Parker Women Leaders in Innovation Award. That distinction is given out by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce to celebrate outstanding women innovators in Parker’s home state.

The details of Parker’s later years are as sketchy as the ones about her early life. The specific date of her death, along with the cause, are also largely unknown.