Climate disasters bring the plight of the displaced to the spotlight at COP27

Hassan, 82, said that with Somalia mired in its worst drought in 40 years, “people were weakened by hunger, so we had to run for our lives”. But he could not escape the tragedy.

“My wife starved to death here and I became helpless,” he said in a video interview distributed by UNHCR.

According to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM), some 22 million people like Hassan are displaced each year by climate-induced disasters.

Some live on coastlines or islands that have lost land to rising seas. Others in the Arctic have fled ramshackle cliffs as permafrost thawed.

Displaced, they are more vulnerable to violence, starvation and disease, experts say. As climate change exacerbates extreme weather globally, the number of displaced people is projected to increase to about 143 million by mid-century.

At the COP27 climate summit in Egypt this month, developing countries are demanding more help from richer nations amid growing demand.

Some are seeking more money to adapt to extreme weather. They also want rich countries to pay for the loss and damage they are seeing now.

Caroline Dumas, the IOM’s special envoy for migration and climate action, said that “every government of migration affected by climate change can raise this topic at the UN summit”.

Most displaced people remain in their countries of origin so their governments can represent citizens. But those crossing international borders may end up without a safety net because climate migrants do not qualify for refugee status under the UN Refugee Convention.

“I’m a refugee, a refugee once,” said Emtithal Mahmoud, UNHCR’s Goodwill Ambassador. The Sudanese-American poet, whose family was driven by the war in Sudan, told Reuters she had also experienced the wreckage that extreme weather could bring.

“I know a few things about drought,” she said. “For us, the drought kills the plants, kills everything, and then the rain washes away your home,” she said.