This land is your land, and this land is my land From the California to the New York Island, From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters, God blessed America for me. [This land was made for you and me.] I roamed and rambled and followed my footsteps To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts, And all around me, a voice was sounding: God blessed America for me. [This land was made for you and me.] Was a high wall there that tried to stop me A sign was painted said: Private Property, But on the back side it didn't say nothing — God blessed America for me. [This land was made for you and me.] One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple By the Relief Office I saw my people — As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me. [This land was made for you and me.]
Woody Guthrie penned the words to this universally renowned song, ‘This Land is Your Land,’ in a dingy hotel room in New York City during the cold winter of February 1940. Spending most of the late 1930s traveling across the U.S., Guthrie encountered many Americans displaced by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression and suffering from abject poverty.
While many of us — particularly those who grew up in the U.S. — could sing along to the familiar verses, the fourth and sixth stanzas may be less recognizable due to their omission from the most famous version of the song.
Guthrie’s song conjures feelings of patriotism and hope, as well as the ideals of inclusion and equality. However, these omitted verses highlight a more progressive and political message about how the climate- and poverty-displaced people Guthrie met faced exclusion and failed to receive the promises of the American dream. Even earlier than the passage of the 1951 Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Guthrie’s song reflects the need for refugees, including these climate refugees, to receive the promises of inclusion and hope that they deserve.
In this Impactfull series, we will discuss the identity and plight of climate refugees, like those who Guthrie met and who inspired these words. We will further try to reconcile the challenges that climate refugees face with solutions to advance the rights of this vulnerable population, both now and in the future.
Who are Climate Refugees?
Under the leadership of the United Nations, the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees defines the term “refugee” and discusses the protections afforded to such individuals. The Convention identifies five categories for recognition of refugee status. A person must hold “a well-founded fear of persecution” on the basis of: race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. International humanitarian law entitles refugees to the principle of non-refoulement, which refers to a universal protection against involuntary return to a country where a refugee has reason to fear persecution. Notably, none of these categories address climate change, and neither have many scholars who study human migration.
Climate refugees are individuals who face the persistent fear and threat of climate change — whether by natural disaster, desertification of farmland, loss of access to fresh water, or any other manifestation of the climate crisis. Next week for Impactfull, we will discuss these and other challenges that climate refugees uniquely face. Climate refugees, just like all other refugees, unwillingly lose their access to safety, stability, and well-being at home. Just like all other refugees, they unwillingly lose connection to their communities, cultures, and ancestral spaces. Just like all other refugees, they are forced to seek out better opportunities for themselves and their families far from home. Where they differ from all other refugees is in their lack of recognition by the name of “refugee” in international law.
Why Don’t We Call Them Climate Refugees?
If climate refugees are not accepted by this language in international law, then how do organizations like the United Nations view them? The UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, uses the phrase “persons displaced in the context of disasters and climate change” to refer to internally displaced persons and international migrants who have fled the effects of climate change and natural disasters. Organizations like the International Organization for Migration (IOM) also use the term “climate migrants” to refer to these climate refugees. Although many at the UN and especially the UNHCR may be sympathetic and personally supportive of the term “climate refugee,” this decision reflects an important distinction in international law.
Climate change and natural disaster do not fit neatly into one of the five categories for receiving refugee status; however, these causes still leave individuals and communities in the same vulnerable conditions as those in the other five. As such, climate refugees are uniquely vulnerable because they lack the legal protections afforded to those recognized internationally as refugees. Later in this month’s Impactfull series, we will dive more deeply into the language surrounding climate refugees and what the IOM and others call the “climate-migration nexus” that will be an ever-increasing source of both internally displaced people and international migrants forcibly displaced by environmental degradation.
Where Have We Seen Climate Refugees Before?
Guthrie’s song is not the only place where we can find mention of climate refugees — these refugees are an essential part of our political, cultural, and historical landscape. The Institute for Economics and Peace, an Australian think tank, estimates that 18 million people in 2017 alone were forced to move due to natural disasters. Climate refugees can be people who move from mountainous Alta Verapaz in Guatemala to the United States when their coffee crop fails for the fourth season in a row and their children begin to starve. They can also be Kiribatians and Fijians seeking asylum in New Zealand as their islands shrink due to rising ocean levels in the Pacific.
Perhaps surprisingly, climate refugees can even be Syrian men and women from Raqqa who have been forced to seek refuge in Lebanon from the conflict spurred on by a devastating drought. Over the course of this Impactfull series, we will examine who these climate refugees are and what challenges they face in the twenty-first century. Most importantly though, this series will challenge us to rethink our perspectives on climate refugees and to envision what a world can look like where these individuals receive all the hope and promises of inclusion, safety, and a bright future.
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