Climate humanitarian visa: international migration opportunities as post-disaster humanitarian intervention

Abstract

With global action being outpaced by climate change impacts, communities in climate-vulnerable countries are at increased risk of incurring climate-induced losses and damages. In the last few years, disasters from extreme weather events such as typhoons have increased and have breached records, with typhoon Haiyan being the strongest ever typhoon to make landfall. Such an event solicited global compassion and altruism where Canada and the USA, apart from doling out traditional humanitarian aid, also offered immigration relief opportunities to typhoon Haiyan victims who have familial connections to their residents. Drawing from these immigration relief interventions, this paper uses a sociopolitical approach in proposing a climate humanitarian visa that would be offered to climate change victims on the basis of transnational family networks and skilled labor. Noting that several countries such as in Europe have demographic deficits and labor shortages, such a scheme would benefit both climate change victims and receiving countries. To counter the risk of selective compassion against economically trapped populations, potential receiving countries could provide skills upgrading geared toward addressing their labor shortages through their existing development programs. While migration is only one strategy in a spectrum of responses to climate change impacts, a climate humanitarian visa could provide climate change victims a legal choice for mobility while invoking altruism, hospitality, and compassion from potential receiving countries, whether or not they historically cause climate change.

“There's so much more to that sinking island!”—Restorying migration from Kiribati and Tuvalu to Aotearoa New Zealand

“…And more than symbolic recognition of their worth, it would include amnesty for irregular migrants, wraparound resettlement support (cf. Farbotko et al, 2022; McClain et al, 2022), funding for community initiatives, and legal options for accessing permanent residency (e.g., Farbotko et al, 2022; Heyward & Ödalen, 2016; Matias, 2020; McCarney & Kent, 2020).…”

Who is the climate‐induced trapped figure?

“…One striking key finding from the analysis is that the literature following the Foresight Report overwhelmingly located trapped populations in South America [e.g., in Guatemala (Afifi et al, 2015;Milan & Ruano, 2014), Peru (Adams, 2016), and Colombia (Matias, 2020)], Africa [e.g., in Morocco (Sow et al, 2015), Ghana (Hillmann & Ziegelmayer, 2016), Senegal (Zickgraf, 2019), Zambia (Nawrotzki & DeWaard, 2018), Ethiopia (Hermans & Garbe, 2019), and Burkina Faso (Gray & Wise, 2016)], as well as in the Middle East (Geddes, 2015), and Asia (Bhatta et al, 2015), including Vietnam (Warner & Afifi, 2014), Bangladesh (Ayeb-Karlsson, 2020bPenning-Rowsell et al, 2013), Indonesia (McCaughey et al, 2018, and Tajikistan (Blondin, 2020). At the same time, none of the study samples identified involuntarily immobile populations in Europe or Australia, while the articles placing them in the US referred mainly to Afro-Americans (Figure 1).…”

The Impact of Disasters and Climate Change on Migration and Displacement

“…Disasters and climate change can have a significant impact on migration and displacement. Climate change is causing extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels, which can lead to displacement and migration [27]. Disasters such as floods, storms, and drought can cause people to flee their homes to seek safety elsewhere.…”