Climate Migration
The World Bank have published a 256 page report on the projected impacts climate change will have on migration around the world.
Migration patterns in south Asia have been dominated by movements from rural to urban areas as families search for economic security. The World Bank are predicting a partial reversal of this over the coming decades.
As climate change takes hold, low lying and coastal areas will become too hot and in many cases too flooded to be livable. The projected impacts of this on migration vary. The report looks at three different scenarios, all three predict significant flows of people within and between countries in South Asia.
Source: World Bank (2018) Groundswell - Preparing for Internal Climate Migration, Available online via: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/03/19/climate-change-could-force-over-140-million-to-migrate-within-countries-by-2050-world-bank-report
Climate change is not likely to be the main factor driving migration, economics will continue to play a major role. But, climate will become more important and more influential over time. How important depends on how quickly and how high temperatures rise.
The Glacier Trust works with communities in remote mountainous regions of Nepal, we enable climate change adaptation through agriculture, water supply and education programmes. The Groundswell report predicts that upland regions will see in-migration as people look to inhabit slightly cooler climes.
The southern Indian highlands, especially between Bangalore and Chennai will be climate in-migration hotspots. Parts of Nepal, as well as northwestern India, also see climate in-migration. (World Bank, 2018, p. 121).
We have to remember of course that the highland regions are already facing a lot of challenges due to climate change and these are likely to intensify. Indeed, the trend at the moment in the Himalayas is still out-migration as farming is getting harder and more unpredictable. People go to cities in search of work and a stable income. Our projects are changing this, farmers are staying and in some cases returning as they recognise the opportunities that now exist thanks to the project work we are enabling.
If the mountain regions become a refuge for climate migrants, we need to do all we can to ensure they are livable with thriving agricultural economies. We are already demonstrating the possibilities and hope to continue to innovate to show the way.
Coffee and Climate Change
Courage not hope
Climate scientists. People don’t listen to them much, but if you do this is what you’ll hear: the chances of avoiding dangerous climate change are now almost zero. 3°C or more of global warming looks inevitable, it is 95% certain.
We are in the midst of collective acceptance of this reality, the hope we’ve held for so long is ebbing away, the game is up, we failed to stop this thing. Sadness, regret, grief and anger are sweeping through the environment movement. This is an emotional moment; and a juncture.
We've covered this before, but two incredible short essays have been written this month; we'd love you to read them:
- We Need Courage, Not Hope, to Face Climate Change
by Kate Marvel. - I Felt Despair About Climate Change—Until a Brush With Death Changed My Mind
by Alison Spodek Keimowitz.
All over the world, as temperatures rise, people will suffer. How much they suffer is down to us, we can enable them to adapt so that the very worst impacts are avoided. Every donation you make fills a family in Nepal with hope, hope that they will be able to adapt.
Enable climate change adaptation in Nepal by donating to The Glacier Trust today.
Striking at the root
Eradicating poverty, whether it is through climate change adaptation projects or any other method, is not a straightforward task. We do what we can, but we are also aware that there are macro level economic and political forces that drive poverty. We feel weak in comparison, it is easy to feel resigned and resolving to just dealing with the consequences. Especially if your are as small as TGT; as one of our T-Shirts says 'If you can't beat them, adapt'.
But we mustn't remain blissfully (or willfully) ignorant of the bigger picture or leave claims of progress unquestioned.
Dr. Jason Hickel from London School of Economics explores this and more in his recent book 'The Divide'. The most urgent question he raises is whether charity is working or whether, in fact, we have a 'development delusion'? The delusion being that poverty is falling and that we are on course for the UN Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating poverty by 2030.
According to Hickel, the benefits of charity and aid are hugely outweighed by the problems caused by sovereign debt and the linked system of ‘remote control’ power. These two structural factors are preventing countries from developing. Hickel implies that richer countries know this and are engaged in a deliberate ploy; they prevent true development, to stave off competition. He makes a very persuasive case.
The NGO sector, too, is implicated in spreading the 'development delusion'. Charities like Oxfam are, by coercion, compelled to continue telling the story that 'development' is working. They do so to protect their very existence, they are tied into funding streams that demand continued allegiance to the status quo of the global economic order. But by spreading the delusion, they mask over the reality of sovereign debt, structural adjustment, imperialist hangovers and the workings of the World Bank, IMF and World Trade Organisation. The combined impact of these is a world of rising inequality, both between countries and within them.
Aware of all this, what is an NGO to do? Charities, large and small, should stop doing what they are doing. We are able to lessen the impact of economic failings, environmental disasters and so on through our work. And until the system changes we must continue to enable change as best we can - if you can't beat them adapt. But we must do this with our eyes open and take care not accept the current economic order as a 'fait accompli'. We must not leave UN / World Bank / large NGO assertions that poverty is declining unchallenged. There are things we can do, sharing Hickel's book and articles is a start[1].
Chapter 8 of The Divide, opens with this quote from Henry David Thoreau, it is as cautionary as it is challenging:
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce misery which he strives in vain to relieve.
So how do we 'hack at the branches' of poverty and climate change (those twin and related evils), while also 'striking at the root'? Indeed, can we do both? To be honest, we are unsure, we are exploring this. What follows is where we've got to so far, we'd love to hear your thoughts too.
Small charities, like ours, are only ever equipped to 'hack at the branches' - we enable remote mountain communities to adapt to the impacts of climate change. But, we can maybe 'strike at the root' a bit too.
Coffee - a crop we are supporting farmers to cultivate, harvest and sell - is sold by developing countries to developed countries in green bean form. A green bean is one which has not yet been roasted. But, it is during the roasting process that value is added to a raw material.
The process of converting a raw material into a final product is key to profit making in any manufacturing process. It is why, at the beginning of the industrial revolution, raw cotton was imported to the UK and then turned into fabric. The cost of converting cotton into fabric was far less than the price at which it was then sold. The same is true for coffee, a roasted coffee bean commands a far higher price than a green bean.
We are in the early stages of coffee production in Deusa and Waku, but we are already in conversation with Not1Bean a social enterprise that has a unique guarantee. Not one of the coffee beans that they sell has been roasted outside the country in which it was grown. As a consequence, the financial value added to the coffee bean during roasting stays within the community that grew it. This arrangement also supports jobs at roasting facilities that wouldn't previously have existed. Not1Bean are currently only working with farmers in South America, but they hope - and we hope - they will be able to set farmers up with roasting equipment in Nepal soon.
This will 'strike at the root' of poverty as it strengthens the manufacturing sector in Nepal, driving up economic activity and income into the country. It is a model that can be replicated in other areas of agriculture and other economic sectors. Of course, unfavourable trading relationships will still be an inhibitor and Nepal still needs to cope with the impacts of decades of structural adjustment, but it is a programme of work that shines a light on an economic system that badly needs reform.
The Glacier Trust, working with partners like Not1Bean and with our eyes wide open to the dangers of the 'development delusion' will continue to do what we can to strike at the root. But, we are also pragmatic; we must continue our climate change adaptation work with great energy and commitment. Maybe we should change our T-Shirt to 'Until we beat them, adapt'?
--------------------------------
1. Hickel's writings are very accessible, as well as The Divide, we recommend the following articles:
Could you live on $1.90 a day? That's the international poverty line ;
It will take 100 years for the world’s poorest people to earn $1.25 a day ;
Time for degrowth: to save the planet, we must shrink the economy ;
Interactive map
Duncan Clark from data visualization studio Flourish has created a brilliant interactive map to show how many times temperature records have been broken over the last two decades.
Here's what Flourish say about it:
The winter of 2018 has seen some extreme cold. When the polar vortex froze the US east coast, some people took this as evidence that global warming is a myth. Something similar is now happening as the “Beast from the East” grips Europe. But analysing hundreds of millions of weather records to look for all-time high and low temperatures tells a different story.
Click the arrow button to begin
You can learn more about the map and how it was made on the Flourish website. For an handy Q&A article on what the 'Beast from the East' snow storm means for Climate Change, check out this guardian article.
Frederick Mulder Foundation
We are delighted to announce that The Glacier Trust has been awarded a grant of £30,000 spread over three years by the Frederick Mulder Foundation.
This grant is one of three that together fully cover our core costs. This means we can continue to guarantee that 100% of your donation will go to enabling climate change adaptation in Nepal.
Staff, volunteers and trustees at The Glacier Trust would like to thank the Frederick Mulder Foundation for their generous support.
Please visit frederickmulderfoundation.org.uk to learn more about the work they support.
Hope you can spread
Daniel Oberhaus published an article on Motherboard (a branch of Vice magazine) last week. He looked at the emotional toll Climate Change is having on us as we worry more and more about the impact it is having. Oberhaus reports on a thread of tweets by climate scientist turned journalist Eric Holthaus and a condition psychologists are terming pre-traumatic stress disorder. Holthaus was interviewed for the piece and concluded with this quote:
"... climate change is in some ways inevitable at this point, so we have to accept that and realize that there's still positive things we can do in our lifetimes that will make the world better for people who will come after us."
As hard as it is to find something positive to say in the face of the looming climate crisis, or any grave problem, we feel compelled to try. Martin Luther King Jr. is famous for saying ‘I have a dream’ not ‘I have a nightmare’. When we talk about the gravity of the climate crisis, we firstly want audiences to empathise with and perhaps share our feelings of despair, but we don’t want to leave them in that pit of despair. We want to offer them some sense of hope. It was maybe what Oberhaus was doing by ending with the Holthaus quote above.
As Climate Change tightens it’s grip, it will hit the most vulnerable first. Those who are least able to use money to emigrate themselves out of harms way and those least able to build large flood defences, air conditioning systems, roads that do not collapse in the rainy season, water supply systems and so on. There are millions (maybe billions) of people, all over the world, in countries rich and poor, who are vulnerable in this way. As they learn about Climate Change and the fate that awaits them, are they hopeful? What can we do to offer them hope?
In wealthier countries like the UK, many of us will live out our lives comparatively well insulated from the worst impacts of climate change (thanks to our relative personal and national wealth). Observing the ways we live, those most vulnerable to Climate Change might easily conclude that we are content to ignore them. This of course isn't true, we care deeply. When we learn about flood victims, farmers who have had their crops destroyed and abandoned mountain villages, we are moved and feel something of the despair Eric Holthaus was describing.
In Nepal, vulnerable communities live in hope that TGT and other NGOs will increase their support for climate change adaptation projects. Management of that hope is a delicate process for NGOs, we must provide hope, but we can not over promise. In the UK too we have a role. We can show that positive things are being done to enable climate change adaptation and that they are working - this can help ease the despair (the pre-traumatic stress) we are feeling about climate change. We can also give people an opportunity to take positive action by helping them fundraise or donate money to fund our project work in Nepal.
DON'T DESPAIR
Take a look at our project news section to learn more about what we do and how we are enabling people in remote mountain communities to adapt to climate change.
TAKE POSITIVE ACTION
Fundraise for The Glacier Trust, or any other NGO that does great work in the field of Climate Change Adaptation. If you are sporty, or like a physical challenge, how about doing a bespoke fundraising challenge.
Make a donation to The Glacier Trust. 100% of the money you donate will be spent in Nepal on projects that enable climate change adaptation. You can send a cheque, donate securely via Virgin Money Giving, or set up a standing order to make a regular gift. Please don't forget to Gift Aid your donation if you are eligible.
What is Agroforestry?
There was an excellent article in the Guardian earlier this week on the role Agro Forestry is playing in Brazil to tackle land inequality and environmental degradation. For those new to Agro Forestry (something our projects in Nepal have at their heart) it is also a great introduction into how it works.
An organisation called the Landless Workers Movement (MST) have been reclaiming unused land and using it to empower local farmers. The farmers have been learning and adopting agro forestry and are now seeing the benefits. The article explains more, but we have pulled out a few quotes that certainly echo what farmers in Nepal tell us:
Zaqueu Miguel one of the farmers at Mario Lago in south-east Brazil:
In a forest, when a tree falls, it opens a clearing and an infinity of life forms follow. But while in nature this only occurs every now and then, in agro forestry we make it happen more often... We have studies that show that this pulse in the clearings, this falling and growing, is much better in terms of climate, soil and water.
Amar Rai practices agro forestry techniques at his farm in Deusa. The TGT funded Agro Forestry Resource Centre in Deusa, Solukhumbo is working in tandem with our NGO partners to spread agro forestry throughout the region.
Another farmer at Mario Lago, Nelson Correa:
In agroforestry we work to regenerate the environment... productivity is a consequence of that regeneration.
Finally, farmer José Ferreira:
He who understands the processes of agroforestry doesn’t go back to conventional farming.
There are more great stories throughout the article. Find out what TGT is doing to enable agro forestry on our project pages.