Yesterday, European leaders promised to triple their spending on border protection from Euro 36 million a year to €108 million a year. With this paltry sum, Europe is hoping to “tackle the root causes of the human emergency“ it faces.

Europe’s response is wholly inadequate and will fail.

The Middle East is burning, from Libya to Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon are bursting with millions of refugees they can’t afford to help.

In Libya, there are 600,000 people waiting to get to Europe right now and if given the opportunity, a couple of million will join them from the refugee camps in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

This migration pressure from so many Middle Eastern states on fire is on top of one of the key drivers of migration from Africa to Europe via Mediterranean boats: the striking climate disaster unfolding in the Great Sahel Desert region of Africa.

Mounting food insecurity across North Africa

From Senegal in West Africa, to Eritrea in East Africa, via Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan, the Sahel region is affected by a ‘Chinese menu’ of climate change-related impacts.

Rainfall is decreasing, temperatures are increasing, agricultural output is disrupted and people are moving around the region searching for jobs, food, water and shelter. When they don’t find them in their countries, they migrate north.

Now they are joined by Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis from the Middle East, and others. The situation is calamitous, and getting worse.

Africa’s Lake Chad for example, on which 68 million people depend for water, shrank 95% since 1963. The Middle East and Northern Africa are predicted to see water shortages increasing fivefold by 2050.

Water stress will have dire implications on agriculture and climate change will in turn decrease crop yields by 15 to 20%. Further water shortages will also have devastating effects on the Nile Delta, where increased evaporation and heavier water use upstream have already negatively affected fertility.

Without fresh water to keep salinity levels low in the coastal farmland, the once fertile lands become barren and salt-encrusted. Egypt is now facing mounting food insecurity, despite a widespread food subsidy program.

Acute vulnerability to drought- sea level rise

The Middle East is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise, which could impact 24 of its port cities and affect 25% of the total population.

The Nile Delta, among the most densely populated agricultural areas in the world and home to two thirds of the 82 million Egyptians, is predicted to be one of the world’s most susceptible locations to sea level rise, with the most optimistic predictions still displacing millions of Egyptians. In some areas, the coast is already eroding at a rate of nearly 100m each year.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, estimates that Africa will suffer from a future warming of 0.2°C per decade (low warming scenario) to more than 0.5 °C per decade (high warming scenario).

The temperature rises are expected to be greatest in Sahel, which has experienced a dramatic reduction in mean annual rainfall throughout the region (the IPCC estimates this rainfall decrease at 29-49% compared to a 1931-1960 baseline period.

Not everyone is a climate refugee of course. In 2014, 220,000 irregular migrants arrived to Europe and more than 500,000 asylum applications were lodged. Many are fleeing the political oppression of dictatorships or the psychotic terror of Boko Haram.

Undoubtedly however, climate change is increasing migrant flows and will contribute to even greater increases going forward.

Tackling the root causes

The solution cannot be the deployment of ridiculously weak resources to police the Mediterranean, in a weak attempt to pander to the public.

Any strategy to address the migrant tragedy should shed light on the driving forces behind it and plans by the international community to help people stay where they are, even if that’s an effort which might take decades.

Sadly no one is about to stabilize Libya, Syria or Yemen any time soon. And Sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty is likely an even longer-lasting state of affairs – not least thanks to our own failed approach to ‘development’, which systematically undermines traditional and sustainable rural livelihoods.

In the meantime, what should be done right now is clear. Yes, we need more robust and effective policing in the short term. But above all we need a more humane and long term approach to the crisis, and one that recognises our own culpability in its creation.

Recognising climate refugees

First, all EU countries should share the burden, apportioning refugees across all member states.

Second, the US, Canada, Australia and other OECD members must also carry their fair share, which they are not: The US accepted 36 Syrian refugees in 2013, out of a total of some 3 million.

Third, recognizing that a basic principle of international law is an obligation to accept refugees – the law should be updated to accommodate climate change. It is ridiculous that it doesn’t already, given that climate change is a key factor in migration and in amplifying and worsening conflicts.

We are in the midst of a horrific negative spiral, where climate change makes conflicts uglier and new ones erupt over natural resources. Then violent conflicts amplify the impacts of climate change by degrading infrastructure, decreasing the capacity of governments to function and harming natural resources and employment opportunities. This in turn increases the likelihoods of more conflicts driven by climate change, and so on.

The current 1951 Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person who “has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion”

And so it excludes sea level rise, sinking or disappearing island states, droughts, water stresses and desertification, to name but a few examples. This should be revisited with urgency with the objective of clarifying the legal status of climate migrants as refugees.

We must stop focusing on symptoms and implement comprehensive approaches that address the causes behind Europe’s boat people tragedy.

Assaad Razzouk is the CEO and co-founder of Sindicatum Sustainable Resources, a clean energy company based in Singapore, and an expert in climate and clean energy policy and markets. Twitter: @AssaadRazzouk

Singing whales, talking trees, dancing bees, birds who make art, fish who navigate, plants who learn and remember.

We are surrounded by intelligences other than our own, by feathered people and people with leaves.

But we’ve forgotten. There are many forces arrayed to help us forget – even the language we speak.

I’m a beginning student of my native Anishinaabe language, trying to reclaim what was washed from the mouths of children in the Indian Boarding Schools. Children like my grandfather.

So I’m paying a lot of attention to grammar lately. Grammar is how we chart relationships through language, including our relationship with the Earth.

Imagine your grandmother standing at the stove in her apron and someone says, “Look, it is making soup. It has gray hair.” We might snicker at such a mistake; at the same time we recoil. In English, we never refer to a person as ‘it’.

Such a grammatical error would be a profound act of disrespect. ‘it’ robs a person of selfhood and kinship, reducing a person to a thing.

And yet in English, we speak of our beloved Grandmother Earth in exactly that way: as ‘it’. The language allows no form of respect for the more-than-human beings with whom we share the Earth. In English, a being is either a human or an ‘it’.

Recognising our kinship with the natural world

Objectification of the natural world reinforces the notion that our species is somehow more deserving of the gifts of the world than the other 8.7 million species with whom we share the planet. Using ‘it’ absolves us of moral responsibility and opens the door to exploitation. When Sugar Maple is an ‘it’ we give ourselves permission to pick up the saw. ‘it’ means it doesn’t matter.

But in Anishinaabe and many other indigenous languages, it’s impossible to speak of Sugar Maple as ‘it’. We use the same words to address all living beings as we do our family. Because they are our family.

What would it feel like to be part of a family that includes birches and beavers and butterflies? We’d be less lonely. We’d feel like we belonged. We’d be smarter.

In indigenous ways of knowing, other species are recognized not only as persons, but also as teachers who can inspire how we might live. We can learn a new solar economy from plants, medicines from mycelia, and architecture from the ants. By learning from other species, we might even learn humility.

Colonization, we know, attempts to replace indigenous cultures with the culture of the settler. One of its tools is linguistic imperialism, or the overwriting of language and names.

Among the many examples of linguistic imperialism, perhaps none is more pernicious than the replacement of the language of nature as subject with the language of nature as object. We can see the consequences all around us as we enter an age of extinction precipitated by how we think and how we live.

Might the path to sustainability be marked by grammar?

Let me make here a modest proposal for the transformation of the English language, a kind of reverse linguistic imperialism, a shift in worldview through the humble work of the pronoun. Might the path to sustainability be marked by grammar?

Language has always been changeable and adaptive. We lose words we don’t need anymore and invent the ones we need. We don’t need a worldview of Earth beings as objects any more. That thinking has led us to the precipice of climate chaos and mass extinction.

We need a new language that reflects the life-affirming world we want. A new language, with its roots in an ancient way of thinking.

If sharing is to happen, it has to be done right, with mutual respect. So, I talked to my elders. I was pointedly reminded that our language carries no responsibility to heal the society that systematically sought to exterminate it.

At the same time, others counsel that “the reason we have held on to our traditional teachings is because one day, the whole world will need them.” I think that both are true.

English is a secular language, to which words are added at will. But Anishinaabe is different. Fluent speaker and spiritual teacher Stewart King reminds us that the language is sacred, a gift to the People to care for one another and for the Creation. It grows and adapts too, but through a careful protocol that respects the sanctity of the language.

He suggested that the proper Anishinaabe word for beings of the living earth would be ‘Bemaadiziiaaki’. I wanted to run through the woods calling it out, so grateful that this word exists. But I also recognized that this beautiful word would not easily find its way to take the place of ‘it’. We need a simple new English word to carry the meaning offered by the indigenous one.

Living the grammar of animacy

Inspired by the grammar of animacy and with full recognition of its Anishinaabe roots, might we hear the new pronoun at the end of Bemaadiziiaaki, nestled in the part of the word that means land?

‘Ki’ to signify a being of the living earth. Not ‘he’ or ‘she,’ but ‘ki’. So that when we speak of Sugar Maple, we say, “Oh, that beautiful tree, ki is giving us sap again this spring.” And we’ll need a plural pronoun, too, for those Earth beings. Let’s make that new pronoun ‘kin’.

So we can now refer to birds and trees not as things, but as our earthly relatives. On a crisp October morning we can look up at the geese and say, “Look, kin are flying south for the winter. Come back soon.”

Language can be a tool for cultural transformation. Make no mistake: ‘Ki’ and ‘kin’ are revolutionary pronouns. Words have power to shape our thoughts and our actions. On behalf of the living world, let us learn the grammar of animacy.

We can keep ‘it’ to speak of bulldozers and paperclips, but every time we say ‘ki,’ let our words reaffirm our respect and kinship with the more-than-human world.

Let us speak of the beings of Earth as the ‘kin’ they are.

Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote this article for Together, With Earth, the Spring 2015 issue of YES! Magazine. Robin is the founding director of the Center for native Peoples and the Environment at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed Editions) was published in October 2014.

Twitter: #ki

Yesterday, European leaders promised to triple their spending on border protection from Euro 36 million a year to €108 million a year. With this paltry sum, Europe is hoping to “tackle the root causes of the human emergency“ it faces.

Europe’s response is wholly inadequate and will fail.

The Middle East is burning, from Libya to Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon are bursting with millions of refugees they can’t afford to help.

In Libya, there are 600,000 people waiting to get to Europe right now and if given the opportunity, a couple of million will join them from the refugee camps in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

This migration pressure from so many Middle Eastern states on fire is on top of one of the key drivers of migration from Africa to Europe via Mediterranean boats: the striking climate disaster unfolding in the Great Sahel Desert region of Africa.

Mounting food insecurity across North Africa

From Senegal in West Africa, to Eritrea in East Africa, via Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan, the Sahel region is affected by a ‘Chinese menu’ of climate change-related impacts.

Rainfall is decreasing, temperatures are increasing, agricultural output is disrupted and people are moving around the region searching for jobs, food, water and shelter. When they don’t find them in their countries, they migrate north.

Now they are joined by Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis from the Middle East, and others. The situation is calamitous, and getting worse.

Africa’s Lake Chad for example, on which 68 million people depend for water, shrank 95% since 1963. The Middle East and Northern Africa are predicted to see water shortages increasing fivefold by 2050.

Water stress will have dire implications on agriculture and climate change will in turn decrease crop yields by 15 to 20%. Further water shortages will also have devastating effects on the Nile Delta, where increased evaporation and heavier water use upstream have already negatively affected fertility.

Without fresh water to keep salinity levels low in the coastal farmland, the once fertile lands become barren and salt-encrusted. Egypt is now facing mounting food insecurity, despite a widespread food subsidy program.

Acute vulnerability to drought- sea level rise

The Middle East is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise, which could impact 24 of its port cities and affect 25% of the total population.

The Nile Delta, among the most densely populated agricultural areas in the world and home to two thirds of the 82 million Egyptians, is predicted to be one of the world’s most susceptible locations to sea level rise, with the most optimistic predictions still displacing millions of Egyptians. In some areas, the coast is already eroding at a rate of nearly 100m each year.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, estimates that Africa will suffer from a future warming of 0.2°C per decade (low warming scenario) to more than 0.5 °C per decade (high warming scenario).

The temperature rises are expected to be greatest in Sahel, which has experienced a dramatic reduction in mean annual rainfall throughout the region (the IPCC estimates this rainfall decrease at 29-49% compared to a 1931-1960 baseline period.

Not everyone is a climate refugee of course. In 2014, 220,000 irregular migrants arrived to Europe and more than 500,000 asylum applications were lodged. Many are fleeing the political oppression of dictatorships or the psychotic terror of Boko Haram.

Undoubtedly however, climate change is increasing migrant flows and will contribute to even greater increases going forward.

Tackling the root causes

The solution cannot be the deployment of ridiculously weak resources to police the Mediterranean, in a weak attempt to pander to the public.

Any strategy to address the migrant tragedy should shed light on the driving forces behind it and plans by the international community to help people stay where they are, even if that’s an effort which might take decades.

Sadly no one is about to stabilize Libya, Syria or Yemen any time soon. And Sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty is likely an even longer-lasting state of affairs – not least thanks to our own failed approach to ‘development’, which systematically undermines traditional and sustainable rural livelihoods.

In the meantime, what should be done right now is clear. Yes, we need more robust and effective policing in the short term. But above all we need a more humane and long term approach to the crisis, and one that recognises our own culpability in its creation.

Recognising climate refugees

First, all EU countries should share the burden, apportioning refugees across all member states.

Second, the US, Canada, Australia and other OECD members must also carry their fair share, which they are not: The US accepted 36 Syrian refugees in 2013, out of a total of some 3 million.

Third, recognizing that a basic principle of international law is an obligation to accept refugees – the law should be updated to accommodate climate change. It is ridiculous that it doesn’t already, given that climate change is a key factor in migration and in amplifying and worsening conflicts.

We are in the midst of a horrific negative spiral, where climate change makes conflicts uglier and new ones erupt over natural resources. Then violent conflicts amplify the impacts of climate change by degrading infrastructure, decreasing the capacity of governments to function and harming natural resources and employment opportunities. This in turn increases the likelihoods of more conflicts driven by climate change, and so on.

The current 1951 Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person who “has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion”

And so it excludes sea level rise, sinking or disappearing island states, droughts, water stresses and desertification, to name but a few examples. This should be revisited with urgency with the objective of clarifying the legal status of climate migrants as refugees.

We must stop focusing on symptoms and implement comprehensive approaches that address the causes behind Europe’s boat people tragedy.

Assaad Razzouk is the CEO and co-founder of Sindicatum Sustainable Resources, a clean energy company based in Singapore, and an expert in climate and clean energy policy and markets. Twitter: @AssaadRazzouk

Yesterday, European leaders promised to triple their spending on border protection from Euro 36 million a year to €108 million a year. With this paltry sum, Europe is hoping to “tackle the root causes of the human emergency“ it faces.

Europe’s response is wholly inadequate and will fail.

The Middle East is burning, from Libya to Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon are bursting with millions of refugees they can’t afford to help.

In Libya, there are 600,000 people waiting to get to Europe right now and if given the opportunity, a couple of million will join them from the refugee camps in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

This migration pressure from so many Middle Eastern states on fire is on top of one of the key drivers of migration from Africa to Europe via Mediterranean boats: the striking climate disaster unfolding in the Great Sahel Desert region of Africa.

Mounting food insecurity across North Africa

From Senegal in West Africa, to Eritrea in East Africa, via Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan, the Sahel region is affected by a ‘Chinese menu’ of climate change-related impacts.

Rainfall is decreasing, temperatures are increasing, agricultural output is disrupted and people are moving around the region searching for jobs, food, water and shelter. When they don’t find them in their countries, they migrate north.

Now they are joined by Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis from the Middle East, and others. The situation is calamitous, and getting worse.

Africa’s Lake Chad for example, on which 68 million people depend for water, shrank 95% since 1963. The Middle East and Northern Africa are predicted to see water shortages increasing fivefold by 2050.

Water stress will have dire implications on agriculture and climate change will in turn decrease crop yields by 15 to 20%. Further water shortages will also have devastating effects on the Nile Delta, where increased evaporation and heavier water use upstream have already negatively affected fertility.

Without fresh water to keep salinity levels low in the coastal farmland, the once fertile lands become barren and salt-encrusted. Egypt is now facing mounting food insecurity, despite a widespread food subsidy program.

Acute vulnerability to drought- sea level rise

The Middle East is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise, which could impact 24 of its port cities and affect 25% of the total population.

The Nile Delta, among the most densely populated agricultural areas in the world and home to two thirds of the 82 million Egyptians, is predicted to be one of the world’s most susceptible locations to sea level rise, with the most optimistic predictions still displacing millions of Egyptians. In some areas, the coast is already eroding at a rate of nearly 100m each year.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, estimates that Africa will suffer from a future warming of 0.2°C per decade (low warming scenario) to more than 0.5 °C per decade (high warming scenario).

The temperature rises are expected to be greatest in Sahel, which has experienced a dramatic reduction in mean annual rainfall throughout the region (the IPCC estimates this rainfall decrease at 29-49% compared to a 1931-1960 baseline period.

Not everyone is a climate refugee of course. In 2014, 220,000 irregular migrants arrived to Europe and more than 500,000 asylum applications were lodged. Many are fleeing the political oppression of dictatorships or the psychotic terror of Boko Haram.

Undoubtedly however, climate change is increasing migrant flows and will contribute to even greater increases going forward.

Tackling the root causes

The solution cannot be the deployment of ridiculously weak resources to police the Mediterranean, in a weak attempt to pander to the public.

Any strategy to address the migrant tragedy should shed light on the driving forces behind it and plans by the international community to help people stay where they are, even if that’s an effort which might take decades.

Sadly no one is about to stabilize Libya, Syria or Yemen any time soon. And Sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty is likely an even longer-lasting state of affairs – not least thanks to our own failed approach to ‘development’, which systematically undermines traditional and sustainable rural livelihoods.

In the meantime, what should be done right now is clear. Yes, we need more robust and effective policing in the short term. But above all we need a more humane and long term approach to the crisis, and one that recognises our own culpability in its creation.

Recognising climate refugees

First, all EU countries should share the burden, apportioning refugees across all member states.

Second, the US, Canada, Australia and other OECD members must also carry their fair share, which they are not: The US accepted 36 Syrian refugees in 2013, out of a total of some 3 million.

Third, recognizing that a basic principle of international law is an obligation to accept refugees – the law should be updated to accommodate climate change. It is ridiculous that it doesn’t already, given that climate change is a key factor in migration and in amplifying and worsening conflicts.

We are in the midst of a horrific negative spiral, where climate change makes conflicts uglier and new ones erupt over natural resources. Then violent conflicts amplify the impacts of climate change by degrading infrastructure, decreasing the capacity of governments to function and harming natural resources and employment opportunities. This in turn increases the likelihoods of more conflicts driven by climate change, and so on.

The current 1951 Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person who “has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion”

And so it excludes sea level rise, sinking or disappearing island states, droughts, water stresses and desertification, to name but a few examples. This should be revisited with urgency with the objective of clarifying the legal status of climate migrants as refugees.

We must stop focusing on symptoms and implement comprehensive approaches that address the causes behind Europe’s boat people tragedy.

Assaad Razzouk is the CEO and co-founder of Sindicatum Sustainable Resources, a clean energy company based in Singapore, and an expert in climate and clean energy policy and markets. Twitter: @AssaadRazzouk

Yesterday, European leaders promised to triple their spending on border protection from Euro 36 million a year to €108 million a year. With this paltry sum, Europe is hoping to “tackle the root causes of the human emergency“ it faces.

Europe’s response is wholly inadequate and will fail.

The Middle East is burning, from Libya to Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon are bursting with millions of refugees they can’t afford to help.

In Libya, there are 600,000 people waiting to get to Europe right now and if given the opportunity, a couple of million will join them from the refugee camps in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

This migration pressure from so many Middle Eastern states on fire is on top of one of the key drivers of migration from Africa to Europe via Mediterranean boats: the striking climate disaster unfolding in the Great Sahel Desert region of Africa.

Mounting food insecurity across North Africa

From Senegal in West Africa, to Eritrea in East Africa, via Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan, the Sahel region is affected by a ‘Chinese menu’ of climate change-related impacts.

Rainfall is decreasing, temperatures are increasing, agricultural output is disrupted and people are moving around the region searching for jobs, food, water and shelter. When they don’t find them in their countries, they migrate north.

Now they are joined by Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis from the Middle East, and others. The situation is calamitous, and getting worse.

Africa’s Lake Chad for example, on which 68 million people depend for water, shrank 95% since 1963. The Middle East and Northern Africa are predicted to see water shortages increasing fivefold by 2050.

Water stress will have dire implications on agriculture and climate change will in turn decrease crop yields by 15 to 20%. Further water shortages will also have devastating effects on the Nile Delta, where increased evaporation and heavier water use upstream have already negatively affected fertility.

Without fresh water to keep salinity levels low in the coastal farmland, the once fertile lands become barren and salt-encrusted. Egypt is now facing mounting food insecurity, despite a widespread food subsidy program.

Acute vulnerability to drought- sea level rise

The Middle East is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise, which could impact 24 of its port cities and affect 25% of the total population.

The Nile Delta, among the most densely populated agricultural areas in the world and home to two thirds of the 82 million Egyptians, is predicted to be one of the world’s most susceptible locations to sea level rise, with the most optimistic predictions still displacing millions of Egyptians. In some areas, the coast is already eroding at a rate of nearly 100m each year.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, estimates that Africa will suffer from a future warming of 0.2°C per decade (low warming scenario) to more than 0.5 °C per decade (high warming scenario).

The temperature rises are expected to be greatest in Sahel, which has experienced a dramatic reduction in mean annual rainfall throughout the region (the IPCC estimates this rainfall decrease at 29-49% compared to a 1931-1960 baseline period.

Not everyone is a climate refugee of course. In 2014, 220,000 irregular migrants arrived to Europe and more than 500,000 asylum applications were lodged. Many are fleeing the political oppression of dictatorships or the psychotic terror of Boko Haram.

Undoubtedly however, climate change is increasing migrant flows and will contribute to even greater increases going forward.

Tackling the root causes

The solution cannot be the deployment of ridiculously weak resources to police the Mediterranean, in a weak attempt to pander to the public.

Any strategy to address the migrant tragedy should shed light on the driving forces behind it and plans by the international community to help people stay where they are, even if that’s an effort which might take decades.

Sadly no one is about to stabilize Libya, Syria or Yemen any time soon. And Sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty is likely an even longer-lasting state of affairs – not least thanks to our own failed approach to ‘development’, which systematically undermines traditional and sustainable rural livelihoods.

In the meantime, what should be done right now is clear. Yes, we need more robust and effective policing in the short term. But above all we need a more humane and long term approach to the crisis, and one that recognises our own culpability in its creation.

Recognising climate refugees

First, all EU countries should share the burden, apportioning refugees across all member states.

Second, the US, Canada, Australia and other OECD members must also carry their fair share, which they are not: The US accepted 36 Syrian refugees in 2013, out of a total of some 3 million.

Third, recognizing that a basic principle of international law is an obligation to accept refugees – the law should be updated to accommodate climate change. It is ridiculous that it doesn’t already, given that climate change is a key factor in migration and in amplifying and worsening conflicts.

We are in the midst of a horrific negative spiral, where climate change makes conflicts uglier and new ones erupt over natural resources. Then violent conflicts amplify the impacts of climate change by degrading infrastructure, decreasing the capacity of governments to function and harming natural resources and employment opportunities. This in turn increases the likelihoods of more conflicts driven by climate change, and so on.

The current 1951 Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person who “has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion”

And so it excludes sea level rise, sinking or disappearing island states, droughts, water stresses and desertification, to name but a few examples. This should be revisited with urgency with the objective of clarifying the legal status of climate migrants as refugees.

We must stop focusing on symptoms and implement comprehensive approaches that address the causes behind Europe’s boat people tragedy.

Assaad Razzouk is the CEO and co-founder of Sindicatum Sustainable Resources, a clean energy company based in Singapore, and an expert in climate and clean energy policy and markets. Twitter: @AssaadRazzouk

Yesterday, European leaders promised to triple their spending on border protection from Euro 36 million a year to €108 million a year. With this paltry sum, Europe is hoping to “tackle the root causes of the human emergency“ it faces.

Europe’s response is wholly inadequate and will fail.

The Middle East is burning, from Libya to Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon are bursting with millions of refugees they can’t afford to help.

In Libya, there are 600,000 people waiting to get to Europe right now and if given the opportunity, a couple of million will join them from the refugee camps in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

This migration pressure from so many Middle Eastern states on fire is on top of one of the key drivers of migration from Africa to Europe via Mediterranean boats: the striking climate disaster unfolding in the Great Sahel Desert region of Africa.

Mounting food insecurity across North Africa

From Senegal in West Africa, to Eritrea in East Africa, via Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan, the Sahel region is affected by a ‘Chinese menu’ of climate change-related impacts.

Rainfall is decreasing, temperatures are increasing, agricultural output is disrupted and people are moving around the region searching for jobs, food, water and shelter. When they don’t find them in their countries, they migrate north.

Now they are joined by Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis from the Middle East, and others. The situation is calamitous, and getting worse.

Africa’s Lake Chad for example, on which 68 million people depend for water, shrank 95% since 1963. The Middle East and Northern Africa are predicted to see water shortages increasing fivefold by 2050.

Water stress will have dire implications on agriculture and climate change will in turn decrease crop yields by 15 to 20%. Further water shortages will also have devastating effects on the Nile Delta, where increased evaporation and heavier water use upstream have already negatively affected fertility.

Without fresh water to keep salinity levels low in the coastal farmland, the once fertile lands become barren and salt-encrusted. Egypt is now facing mounting food insecurity, despite a widespread food subsidy program.

Acute vulnerability to drought- sea level rise

The Middle East is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise, which could impact 24 of its port cities and affect 25% of the total population.

The Nile Delta, among the most densely populated agricultural areas in the world and home to two thirds of the 82 million Egyptians, is predicted to be one of the world’s most susceptible locations to sea level rise, with the most optimistic predictions still displacing millions of Egyptians. In some areas, the coast is already eroding at a rate of nearly 100m each year.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, estimates that Africa will suffer from a future warming of 0.2°C per decade (low warming scenario) to more than 0.5 °C per decade (high warming scenario).

The temperature rises are expected to be greatest in Sahel, which has experienced a dramatic reduction in mean annual rainfall throughout the region (the IPCC estimates this rainfall decrease at 29-49% compared to a 1931-1960 baseline period.

Not everyone is a climate refugee of course. In 2014, 220,000 irregular migrants arrived to Europe and more than 500,000 asylum applications were lodged. Many are fleeing the political oppression of dictatorships or the psychotic terror of Boko Haram.

Undoubtedly however, climate change is increasing migrant flows and will contribute to even greater increases going forward.

Tackling the root causes

The solution cannot be the deployment of ridiculously weak resources to police the Mediterranean, in a weak attempt to pander to the public.

Any strategy to address the migrant tragedy should shed light on the driving forces behind it and plans by the international community to help people stay where they are, even if that’s an effort which might take decades.

Sadly no one is about to stabilize Libya, Syria or Yemen any time soon. And Sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty is likely an even longer-lasting state of affairs – not least thanks to our own failed approach to ‘development’, which systematically undermines traditional and sustainable rural livelihoods.

In the meantime, what should be done right now is clear. Yes, we need more robust and effective policing in the short term. But above all we need a more humane and long term approach to the crisis, and one that recognises our own culpability in its creation.

Recognising climate refugees

First, all EU countries should share the burden, apportioning refugees across all member states.

Second, the US, Canada, Australia and other OECD members must also carry their fair share, which they are not: The US accepted 36 Syrian refugees in 2013, out of a total of some 3 million.

Third, recognizing that a basic principle of international law is an obligation to accept refugees – the law should be updated to accommodate climate change. It is ridiculous that it doesn’t already, given that climate change is a key factor in migration and in amplifying and worsening conflicts.

We are in the midst of a horrific negative spiral, where climate change makes conflicts uglier and new ones erupt over natural resources. Then violent conflicts amplify the impacts of climate change by degrading infrastructure, decreasing the capacity of governments to function and harming natural resources and employment opportunities. This in turn increases the likelihoods of more conflicts driven by climate change, and so on.

The current 1951 Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person who “has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion”

And so it excludes sea level rise, sinking or disappearing island states, droughts, water stresses and desertification, to name but a few examples. This should be revisited with urgency with the objective of clarifying the legal status of climate migrants as refugees.

We must stop focusing on symptoms and implement comprehensive approaches that address the causes behind Europe’s boat people tragedy.

Assaad Razzouk is the CEO and co-founder of Sindicatum Sustainable Resources, a clean energy company based in Singapore, and an expert in climate and clean energy policy and markets. Twitter: @AssaadRazzouk

The European Commission’s proposed new rules on the approval of food derived from genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), published this week, have immediately attracted criticism from environment NGOs, the agribusiness sector, the US trade neotiator, and both Green and Conservative MEPs.

For the first time, the proposal formally allows EU countries to opt-out from the Europe-wide approval system and choose whether or not to allow GMO foods in their territories.

This article is a synthesis of two articles originally published by Euractiv: ‘US trade negotiator ‘very disappointed’ at European GM food ban‘ and ‘EU proposal on GMO food critisised by Greenpeace, industry‘.

The Indian government has launched an all-out attack on Greenpeace India by freezing its bank accounts, suspending its registration under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act and unleashing a smear campaign which accuses the group of “anti-national” activities aimed at preventing India’s ‘development’.

The blocking of bank accounts since 9th April means that Greenpeace India cannot pay salaries to its staff or fund their work and travel. Nor can it receive donations from overseas sources or from the more than 75,000 domestic members or supporters who fund 70% of its budget.

These actions are part of the Narendra Modi government’s unfolding plans to intimidate numerous civil society organisations and bully people’s movement activists who protest against industrial, mining and irrigation and power generation projects that are wreaking havoc on India’s forests, rivers, wetlands and other fragile ecosystems, as well as poor people’s livelihoods.

The actions carry a clear message: the government will tolerate no dissent on ‘development’ projects, and in particular, on the mining and burning of coal – no matter how harmful the climate impact.

To dissent is our patriotic duty!

The government’s moves against Greenpeace India have provoked strong protests from civil society activists and public intellectuals, more than 180 of whom have signed a letter to the home minister. The letter highlights the government’s violation of democratic freedoms and its profoundly negative consequences.

The protest letter, delivered to the home minister on 21st April, says: “Civil society organisations in India have a long and credible history of standing up for social justice, ecological sustainability, and the rights of the poor.

“When certain government policies threaten these causes, civil society has a justified ground to resist, and help affected communities fight for their rights. This is in fact part of the fundamental duties enjoined upon citizens by the Constitution of India.”

The letter deplores the government’s anti-Greenpeace measures as attempts “to divert attention from the serious issues” that people’s movements have raised regarding the rights of those who depend on forests, wetlands, coastal areas, and other ecosystems, and the need for “policies that are ecologically sustainable and do not cause further climate change …

“Dissenting from the government’s development policies, helping communities who are going to be displaced by these policies to mobilise themselves, and generating public opinion for the protection of the environment can by no stretch of imagination be considered anti-national, or against public interest.

“Quite the contrary, any reasonable policy of sustainable development (which the government claims to adhere to) will itself put into question quite a few of the mining, power, and other projects currently being promoted.”

The measures, it says, are “a blatant violation of the … freedom of expression and association … These are dangerous signs for the future of democracy in India.”

The latest in a series of hostile moves

These actions against Greenpeace India are only the latest in a series of recent hostile government moves against the group, including prohibition on accessing funds legitimately sent by Greenpeace International, income-tax demands for past years amounting to more than Rs 90 million, and most notoriously, preventing campaigner Priya Pillai from boarding a flight to London this past January.

Pillai was scheduled to visit London to make a presentation to an all-party group of British MPs on human-rights violations at a coal-mining project at Mahan in Madhya Pradesh, operated by Essar, a London-based company.

She was stopped in an “arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional manner”, ruled the Delhi High Court when Greenpeace approached it. The court also overturned the order blocking its access to funds sent by Greenpeace-International.

The High Court dismissed the government’s contention that Greenpeace India has been working against the “public interest” and the “economic interest of the state”, allegations that were repeated in the April 9 order.

It said NGOs “often take positions which are contrary to the policies formulated by the government of the day. That by itself … cannot be used to portray [the] petitioner’s action as being detrimental to [the] national interest.”

The court also held that “contrarian views held by a section of people … cannot be used to describe such section or class of people as anti-national.”

The High Court’s admonitions did not deter the Modi government’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) from launching its third and latest attack on Greenpeace India, based on a series of charges, some of which defy credulity. The group responds that

“The MHA’s repeated moves to restrict our funding and the movement of our personnel are clear attempts to silence criticism and dissent. Instead of pursuing such diversionary tactics, the Government’s commitment to’ sustainable and inclusive development’ is better met by actually engaging with different viewpoints and solutions that are being offered.”

It’s all part of a wider intolerance and anti-environment policy

The Modi government’s attack is in keeping with its generally muscular, intolerant approach to all dissent, rooted in its hardline Hindu-Right politics. This intolerance has been in evidence right since the government took office last May.

So has been its zeal in dismantling India’s already weak environmental regulations, diluting forest protection laws, and ruthless ‘fast-tracking’ of industrial projects without proper scrutiny or appraisal. It sees these measures as key to boosting business confidence in official policies and raising GDP growth.

This government views protests against destructive projects with even greater hostility than its predecessors. It regards such protests as “anti-development” and “anti-national”, even if they are legitimate and peaceful.

Earlier this month, Narendra Modi addressed a conference of the higher judiciary and advised it not to be guided by what he derogatorily termed “five-star” NGO activists. Such maligning of NGOs, who have a legitimate place in democracy and some of whom have done work of great integrity on life-and-death environmental issues, does little credit to the office Modi holds.

This caps a number of hostile anti-NGO moves by the Modi government. Last June, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) leaked a ‘secret’ report to the media which accused more than 100 NGOs and individuals of indulging in “anti-national activities”, which it claimed, are calculated to “take down” development projects. At the top of the list were groups opposing coal-based and nuclear power projects and genetically modified crops.

The IB’s charges were based on flimsy evidence of the NGOs’ alleged “subversive links”. The report fantastically claimed that their activities inflict a loss on the economy equivalent to 2% to 3% of India’s GDP.

The report caused a furore. Therefore there was no investigation into these charges. But these groups were effectively maligned.

The report’s basic premise is that Indian NGOs and grassroots activists who oppose projects out of conviction and passion have no mind or agency of their own – they need to be instigated by “the foreign hand” which doesn’t want India to prosper. Yet, the government itself zealously courts foreign investment by offering investors all kinds of incentives.

Another clampdown on mainstream environment groups

Yet again, in December, the Indian home ministry clamped down on four North American-origin NGOs: Bank Information Centre (which monitors the World Bank group’s lending programmes for their ecological consequences), Sierra Club (a mainstream environmental organisation), 350.org (active on climate change), and Avaaz (a human rights and environmental campaign group), all concerned with climate issues, with a particular focus on coal.

This past January, the government put ten international organisations / foundations on a list of agencies that need “prior permission” for donating money to Indian NGOs – many of them concerned with climate change.

They include Catholic Organisation for Relief and Development Aid (Cordaid), the Dutch HIVOS and IKV-Pax Christi, the Danish International Development Agency, and the US-based Climate Works.

Two factors seem to have played a special role in the government’s recent vindictive actions. The first, minor, factor is the paranoid xenophobia typical of India’s intelligence agencies. The second, major, factor is extreme official hostility towards those who question the state’s ‘development’ policies, to which the mining and burning of coal is pivotal.

India’s Intelligence Bureau, set up in the colonial period, remained subservient to MI-5 even after Independence. The IB is not accountable to Parliament and has been used to parochial political ends by the government of the day. It tends to exaggerate “threats” to “national security” from NGOs with a foreign link, as distinct from multinational corporations.

The IB’s espionage-based reports have been the main inspiration behind the home ministry’s recent actions against environmental groups.

Even former intelligence officials have publicly criticised the IB for allowing itself to be abused to spy on NGOs, for example V Balachandran wrote of Greenpeace that “Though they are sometimes accused of pulling foolhardy stunts as part of their campaign to highlight environmental issues, they cannot be accused of anti-national activities. Amateurish attempts by Indian agencies against Greenpeace will only bring disrepute to our nation.”

The importance of the second factor is revealed in extensive recent changes in project clearance norms, and proposed amendments to environmental laws. The changes in norms include:

• doing away with clearances for industries inside Special Economic Zones, Investment Zones and ports;
• restricting the powers of statutory expert appraisal committees; allowing mining and other disruptive activities in forests;
• and undermining environmental impact assessment processes.

Don’t believe the solar hype – Modi is for coal all the way!

All this acquires great salience as the government is busy auctioning away dozens of coal-deposit sites (called blocks) for corporate exploitation.

Mahan, where Greenpeace India is active, is one such. Mahan is part of Singrauli, India’s coal and power heartland, where huge private corporations like Reliance, Hindalco and Lanco, besides Essar, are entrenched. So is the public sector company NTPC. Singrauli has since the 1960s been quintessentially about coal-mining and burning, which have played havoc with people’s health.

Cracking down on NGOs that oppose coal – the dirtiest, most climate-destructive fossil fuel – sends out an unmistakable message. India may talk of promoting renewable energy. But that’s just talk.

In reality, the government intends to rely on coal to generate electricity that powers ‘development’. Coal’s share in power generation is 70% and unlikely to fall for the next few decades.

As India’s finance minister Arun Jaitley put it at a recent meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, India is prepared to play its part in combating climate change provided the world recognises the need to reconcile the poor countries’ energy needs with the objective of restricting greenhouse gas emissions.

Coal will remain India’s most important source of energy, he insisted: “Unless coal can be greened and cleaned, it may not possible to reconcile development and climate change goals. The international community needs to therefore go on a war footing to generate greener technologies especially technologies that can help green coal.”

It is doubtful if coal can ever be greened. But meanwhile, the Indian government will brook no dissent on coal. It will continue to bully, ban, obstruct and malign environmental NGOs, making a particular example of Greenpeace India.

Praful Bidwai is a political columnist, social science researcher, and activist on issues of human rights, the environment, global justice and peace. A former Senior Editor of The Times of India, and a Fellow of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam, he is one of South Asia’s most widely published columnists, whose articles appear in more than 25 newspapers and magazines. He is also frequently published by The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, openDemocracy and Il Manifesto.

Drax power station, the biggest carbon emitter in the UK, has converted two of six units to burn wood pellets in place of coal, with plans for a possible two further conversions.

Under the guise of renewable, low-carbon energy generation, Drax is receiving vast support to do this. In 2016 alone, Drax stands to receive around £660 million in subsidies.

These subsidies, in the form of Renewable Obligation Certificates, a Contract for Difference, and a Treasury Public Loan Guarantee, make Drax’s biomass operations very profitable, and allow Drax to comply with the EU’s Industrial Emissions Directive.

Without subsidies and support for Drax’s biomass conversion, the power station would have faced closure. Secretary of State Vince Cable himself told the FT that without converting to biomass and the loan from the Green Investment Bank that has helped to finance it, Drax “would have closed down because it has to meet European rules on coal use and it wouldn’t have been able to survive”.

Even at the early stages of the growth of this industry, whole trees are being turned into pellets, with a significant proportion of Drax’s biomass sourced from biodiverse hardwood forests in the southern US.

In its recent biomass sourcing report Drax insists it uses predominantly “forest residues” and “thinnings”. However, on-the-ground research in the southern US shows that much of the biomass being sourced and falling within these categories is very large material, including whole trees cut from mature hardwood forests.

This has serious impacts on biodiversity, and means that the carbon emissions quoted by Drax are likely to be seriously underestimated.

On top of this, if evidence collected on wood sourcing for Drax’s largest pellet supplier, Enviva, is applied to DECC’s own recently published BEAC biomass carbon calculator, it can be shown that a significant proportion of wood that Drax burns results in as much as three times more carbon emissions than equivalent generation from burning coal.

Drax is currently getting away with reporting substantial carbon emission reductions because of a flawed carbon accounting methodology. Drax’s carbon accounting relies on the Ofgem Solid and Gaseous Biomass Carbon Calculator (B2C2) – a framework that does not account for changes in the carbon stock of the forest, foregone carbon sequestration of land, or indirect impacts on carbon stocks in other areas of land.

The impacts of Drax’s future sourcing are likely to be felt in other areas, too. The Brazilian company Tanac SA has reported entering into a sourcing agreement with Drax which will see the company build a large pellet plant and which is likely to result in the expansion of monoculture tree plantations in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Monoculture tree plantations in Brazil are associated with the displacement of indigenous and traditional communities, deforestation, water and soil depletion, and pollution.

Mounting evidence and opinion from the scientific community shows that the carbon intensity of biomass electricity, and the carbon debt that is created when it is burned, must be fully accounted for. The scientific community is increasingly appealing to policy makers to correct carbon accounting mistakes.

If Drax converts 3 units to biomass, it will still be burning as much as 4 million tonnes of coal a year. This is a significant proportion of the UK’s overall coal use, and is incompatible with recent party pledges to phase out unabated coal burning. If we are to have any hope of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, we have to leave remaining fossil fuels in the ground.

This means phasing out Drax’s remaining coal units as quickly as possible. However, in contradiction to this, Drax will receive a direct subsidy in the form of Capacity Market payments on two of its operating coal units, which will only make the continued burning of coal at Drax more profitable.

Drax’s coal has serious implications for communities across the globe, as well as the carbon emissions it is responsible for. For example, Drax burns coal from Colombia, where communities have been violently displaced for coal mining operations, and continue to be impacted by the environmental and health implications of the huge mines.

If the UK is to take its climate change and human rights responsibilities seriously, then coal burning at Drax must end.

Now, work towards genuinely sustainainable energy!

Subsidising the burning of biomass and coal at Drax, and the substantial environmental, human rights and climate impacts of its operations, must cease.

Energy-related subsidies should be spent on measures that reduce overall energy use, such as conservation and energy efficiency, and on genuinely low carbon and sustainable forms or renewable energy, such as sustainable wind and solar power.

We request that DECC halt subsidies for Drax’s existing biomass capacity, commit to halting supports for further biomass unit conversions, and work towards the earliest possible phase out of its coal units.

This article is based on an Open Letter to the Department of Energy & Climate Change by the undersigned organizations delivered today, Earth Day 2015. Please refer to the original version for all annotations, references and calculations.

Signed by:

• Biofuelwatch, UK/US
• Fuel Poverty Action, UK
• Dogwood Alliance, US
• Campaign Against Climate Change, UK
• Fern, EU
• People & Planet, UK
• NRDC, US
• The Gaia Foundation, UK
• Coal Action Network, UK
• Operation Noah, UK
• Econexus, UK
• The Corner House, UK
• Center for Biological Diversity, US
• Reclaim the Power London, UK
• Global Justice Ecology Project, US
• Time to Act, UK
• London Mining Network, UK
• Occupy London, UK
• Colombia Solidarity Campaign, UK
• Occupy Environment Working Group, UK
• Global Forest Coalition, Int
• Comisión de Justicia y Paz de Colombia
• World Rainforest Movement, Int
• Comunidades Construyendo Paz en los Territorios, CONPAZ
• Comité Ambiental en Defensa de la Vida, Tolima, Colombia.

Israeli settlers have stolen large amounts of nutrient-rich soil belonging to Palestinians in the Salfit-district village of Kafr ad Dik in the northern part of the West Bank, witnesses reported last weekend.

They said that Israeli bulldozers moved huge piles of the fertile soil from Kafr ad Dik into the illegal settlement of Lishim.

According to researcher Khaled Maali, the red soil was of an extremely high quality and suitable for horticultural use.

He said it would now be used in settlers’ gardens and also to grow trees in land bordering exclusive settler routes that Israeli military forces have seized from Palestinians as a ‘buffer zone’ for the roads.

Kafr ad Dik has already suffered from the theft of its land by nearby settlements. About a year ago Israeli colonists, backed by the army, bulldozed and stole 600 dunams (60 hectares) of village land in the face of determined opposition from residents (shown in video, below).

Kafr ad Dik has also suffered the demolition of homes and water wells, and the deliberate destruction of olive trees.

Not the first Palestinian soil theft

A soil theft from Palestinian farmland was previously reported in  2012 by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. An Israeli farmer from the Jewish settlement of Ofra in the West Bank, needed soil to cover foundations he had built.

But instead of buying it, he “sent a rented tractor and truck to the outskirts of the settlement, next to the Palestinian villages of Silwad and Deir Dibwan, where they simply stole dirt.”

The theft was easily carried out, wrote Haaretz, because “wide expanses of land belonging to Deir Dibwan and Silwad are enclosed within Ofra’s security fence, and the villages’ residents do not have free access to their own fields. Entry into Ofra requires coordination with the Israel Defense Forces and a constant security escort.”

Israeli police were aware of settlers stealing Palestinian soil, the report added, but did nothing about it because there was no formal way of enforcing laws against this kind of theft.

“Crimes pertaining to real estate are handled by the Civil Administration, since they have the authority to determine the true ownership of the land and other such issues”, the newspaper reported, however “there is no formal channel for passing information regarding crimes of this nature to the Civil Administration.”

But what is new in Kafr ad Dik is that the soil was apparently stolen for agricultural / horticultural use. If carried out more widely this would represent a whole new dimension to Israel’s systematic expropriation of Palestinian land and resources.

In the mostly rocky terrain of the West Bank, fertile soil is a valuable commodity – and its large scale theft would further undermine Palestinian efforts to remain rooted in their native land.

A long history of land and water theft

More than 85% of the Kafr ad Dik’s 15,500 dunams are classified Area C under the Oslo Accord, giving Israel full civil and military authority, according to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem.

Of those lands, nearly 1,300 dunams have been confiscated for the construction of settlements, which are illegal under international law.

Land has also been confiscated for the construction of Israeli bypass road no. 446, which passes through village lands for 4km and divides the village’s north and south. Approximately 75m have been seized on each side of the road so as to create a ‘buffer zone’.

The Salfit region has a Palestinian population of 60,000, distributed among the 19 villages and one major town, but accordiong to an IMEMC report, “the aggressive expansion of the illegal settlements in the area means that the indigenous population is now outnumbered by the settlers – one settlement alone, Ariel, has a population of 40,000.”

According to the mayor of Kafr ad Dik, quoted in the report, Salfit is a target for aggressive settlement expansion because of the area’s water resources: it contains the second largest aquifer in historical Palestine. However, the villages have to pay for water to be imported from Israel as they are not allowed to drill wells.

The mayor also complained of health problems in the area linked to pollution from the illegal industrial settlement of Ale Zahav.

Principal source: Ma’an News Agency.