The climate crisis is increasingly a factor in driving the migrants who arrive in Italy to leave their homelands, according to the ‘Immigrazione 2022’ report released by the Idos research centre on Monday.
The report, prepared in collaboration with the Confronti study centre and the ‘S. Pio V’ Political Studies Institute, said that the top countries of origin of the migrants who fled to Italy in 2021 were States hit especially hard by climate-linked phenomena. This is not the first study to have reached this conclusion. Put simply, climate change will cause population movements by making certain parts of the world much less viable places to live; by causing food and water supplies to become more unreliable and increasing the frequency and severity of floods and storms. Called climate stressors, changing rainfall, heavy flooding, and sea level rise put pressure on people to leave their homes and livelihoods behind. It makes their homes uninhabitable.
The countries that have been worst hit, and whose population is heavily represented among migrants landing in Italy, include Tunisia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Syria, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Guinea, Pakistan and Iran.
The report said these migrants are ‘invisible’ before the law in the sense that Italy and the European Union do not give climate migrants refugee status.
“Climate injustice and social injustice are merging and migration is becoming the only adaptation strategy available for those who have no other alternative in order to flee poverty in all its forms,” said Idos President Luca Di Sciullo.
“Preventing conflict is not sufficient to resolve the issue of forced migration.
“It is also necessary to learn to live in a more sustainable way with our planet, turning the current development model on its head and thinking practically about the right to migrate”.
