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Revision as of 18:37, 4 November 2024

Climate Migration

Climate migration is the displacement of people both internally within their home countries or internationally due to climate-related disasters, which include both rapid and slow onset events. Slow onset events describe natural disasters that are exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change and occur over several years or decades. Rapid onset events have a distinct beginning and end, occurring in a matter of days.

Changing water patterns

The water cycle is an important system that moves the water on Earth around, cycling it continuously between the atmosphere, rivers, oceans, lakes, and glaciers, and groundwater supplies. This pattern is crucial aspect of how the Earth systems work, contributing weather patterns as we know them. However, climate warming is causing the water cycle to speed up, or intensify, a process known as water cycle intensification that contributes to more frequent and intense weather events, changing sea levels, and more extreme temperatures, facilitating the need for more climate migration and forcing many out of their homes. It is highly likely that global warming is increasing the average amount of precipitation and evaporation each year, allowing more moisture to enter into weather systems driving the mean wetness of wet seasons and events to increase. and that a increased warming over land as opposed to the ocean increases the severity of droughts. A 2004 analysis of water runoff found that it fluctuations in water runoff correlated with increases of carbon dioxide, leading to what the authors of the study described as the first time the link between the intensification of the water cycle and global warming has been shown by experimental-based evidence. A study conducted in 2000 found that all the places with long-term records in the Global Soil Moisture Data Bank, with samples representing a wide variety of geographies, were trending upwards in their soil moisture. Some other variables that have been explored pertaining to the intensification of the water cycle include precipitation, which is trending upwards at both regional and global scales in the 20th century, actual evapotranspiration, which was found to be increasing on a regional scale in the latter half of the 20th century, floods, which were found to have not changed or to be increasing on a regional scale in the 20th century, and droughts, which were found to be increasing on a regional scale in the latter half of the 20th century. Looking to the future, increased ammounts of heavy precipitation are predicted, and, while flood occurances conclusively be predicted, increased soil moisture is expected to increase the severity of flooding events.

Who is most affected (SIDS + LDCs, women and children)

Several groups of people are disproportionately impacted by climate change and displacement globally. This includes those living in the Global South and small island developing states (SIDS), who are increasingly the most impacted by climate change despite having contributed the least to global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) historically.

Human Rights Law

((((((((((((In this section I will discuss what human rights law is, its history, and the international bill of rights. continuing I will go over some of the un guaranteed rights based on the international bill of rights)))))))))))))

Right to clean water

(water is a human right - even displaced people are entitled to clean water. Not having access to clean water violates international law obligations - UN adopted the right to safe and clean drinking water as a human right in 2010. Many refugee camps have inadequate water and sanitation services - violates right to clean water. Clean water access is expensive and difficult to monitor in refugee camps - many refugees are not guaranteed a consistent supply of clean, safe, drinking water.)

Implications & Future Action

(overall review: droughts, water scarcity, and rising sea levels turn land uninhabitable - displace many people. Rising temperatures could cause conflicts over resources - forcing migration onto populations. According to UN, there are about 21.5 million climate refugees per year. By 2050, it is predicted there will be around 1.2 billion climate refugees.

future action: European green deal, Paris Agreement)

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3. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ed. (2023), "Water Cycle Changes", Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1055–1210, doi:10.1017/9781009157896.010, ISBN 978-1-009-15788-9, retrieved 2024-11-04
4. Labat, David; Goddéris, Yves; Probst, Jean Luc; Guyot, Jean Loup (2004-06-01). "Evidence for global runoff increase related to climate warming". Advances in Water Resources. 27 (6): 631–642. doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2004.02.020. ISSN 0309-1708.
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8. "About Small Island Developing States (SIDS) | Department of Economic and Social Affairs". sdgs.un.org. Retrieved 2024-10-21.