It’s no secret that climate change is real, it’s happening, and it’s affecting a lot of things we take for granted every day. But one of the biggest impacts that climate change has on the world is something we don’t feel is talked about enough, and that’s the affect is has on forcibly displaced people around the world.

“Climate-related displacement and migration is set to be the greatest challenge of our era,” says Maram Ahmed, of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. The technical term for a person who has been displaced because of climate change is called an “environmental migrant” or “climate refugee”. Just those names alone are heartbreaking, aren’t they? We can’t imagine having to flee our home because of a natural disaster or famine or floods or droughts, and not having any other options or backup plans, but this is the reality of millions of people around the globe. When we hear numbers like that, millions, it doesn’t seem like a fathomable number. We’ve been asking ourselves this question a lot, but how did we as a society get here?

In the same article written by Ahmed, he lists some staggering numbers about how climate change affects refugees:

16.1 million people were displaced last year due to climate-related issues.

Between 150 to 200 million people are at risk of having to leave their home due to desertification, rising sea levels, and extreme weather conditions by 2050.

What is equal parts sad and infuriating is that the people who are being displaced, the people that climate change affects the most, are the ones who are the least responsible for it, yet they are the ones being forced to leave their homes in search of safe havens. Can you imagine already having to flee your home because of war and persecution and violence, and adding the ongoing climate change crisis on top of that that’s causing even more issues in an already stressful time?

What are some issues that climate change is causing for displaced people?

According to UNHCR’s website, Somalia, a country which has some of the largest numbers of refugees in the world, is being affected in the following ways:

An estimated 5.4 million people were likely to be food insecure by July 2019 due to below average rains during the first part of the year and rainy seasons during the end of the year that has caused an extreme drought in many parts of the country.
Some 2.2 million of these will be exposed to severe conditions needing immediate emergency assistance unless aid is given immediately.
More than 49,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since the beginning of the year because of the drought. They flee in search of food, water, and work in urban areas.
More than 7,000 people became displaced in May alone.

To learn more about how climate change has affected Somalia, click here, and to see what the top countries are that refugees are coming from, click here.

As you can see, it’s bad. Extremely, horribly bad. And the crazy part is that we wouldn’t even know about any of this if we didn’t research and educate ourselves. These are real people with real families and friends who are just doing what they can to survive a crisis they didn’t create. When it’s put into perspective like that, it makes you sit back and question everything about the life you lead and almost forces you to appreciate what you have.

While there is a lot to be worried and discouraged about, there are huge glimpses of shining light throughout this entire crisis. Many refugees are doing what they can to help combat climate change in their communities and make a difference for themselves as well as other displaced people around the world. Their stories are inspiring and uplifting and remind us that, despite everything being taken away from them, at the end of the day, people are good and want to do good things for others.

USA for UNHCR shared a few of their stories with us and we’ll be sharing them in a couple of upcoming posts, so stay tuned for that. We want to thank you for reading this and being interested in a cause that’s extremely important to us and even more important for humanity as a whole. It’s just the beginning for us, and we hope you’ll follow along and get inspired to do what you can to help out, too.

Thank you, again, friend.

PS: how to help refugees now.

(photo provided by USA for UNHCR)