Syrians battle harsh weather in refugee camp (photo: Mhmad al Salh)

Inside the refugee camps, only 500 meters from the Syrian border, families were glued to television news reports from Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera. Laptops with wireless internet connections were on Skype where refugees connect with friends and families inside Syria. Refugees will often inquire about access to staples because in many cities such as Homs, the regime has cut off water, electricity and food supplies. Syrians in these camps organize and infiltrate the border to deliver food packages, medical supplies and water. The porous borders serve as a vital communication channel for the refugee community and play an imperative role in keeping the opposition alive.

One Syrian refugee I interviewed said he keeps track of the number of dissidents killed, detained or missing through underground networks and then relays that information to international media outlets. Refugees are central to coordinating protests in Syria; and Army defectors in these camps provide military intelligence to soldiers in the Free Syria Army.

The refugees are also faced with everyday challenges living in Turkey. The Hatay province in Antakya, Turkey at one time used to be a part of Syria and consists of a large Alawite community. Turkish Alawites have enjoyed a strong relationship with the Assad regime and many have benefited from sending their children to Syrian universities. Thus, the recent influx of Syrian dissidents has caused problems with the host community. Refugees have to be wary as many Turkish Alawites are suspected of spying for the regime. One refugee told me that a group of men severely beat him after he spoke openly against Assad and in favor of the revolution.

There are also concerns about the living conditions in the camps. Turkey has not developed a long-term strategy for hosting them. Consequently, their children have no access to public schools and there is no potential for legitimate employment. And harsh weather has wreaked havoc. Syrians living inside Turkey are in desperate need of winter clothes, blankets, new tents, and shoes to cope with winter weather. As the violence in Syria persists, more refugees have been crossing over to Turkey in need of basic essentials. Furthermore, access to health care is limited in the refugee camps where there is only one health tent for 3,000 people. The health unit is not equipped to treat severe wounds or infections.

The refugees continue to aid the opposition but it’s unclear, given worsening living conditions and security fears, how long their efforts will remain effective.

“Climate change could cause extreme weather leaving millions of people trapped, a new report claims.” Photo: AFP

Climate Change Could Trap Hundreds of Millions in Disaster Areas

Hundreds of millions of people may be trapped in inhospitable environments as they attempt to flee from the effects of global warming, worsening the likely death toll from severe changes to the climate, a UK government committee has found.

Refugees forced to leave their homes because of floods, droughts, storms, heatwaves and other effects of climate change are likely to be one of the biggest visible effects of the warming that scientists warn will result from the untrammelled use of fossil fuels, according to the UK government’s Foresight group, part of the Office for Science.

But many of those people are likely to move from areas affected by global warming into areas even worse afflicted – for instance, by moving into coastal cities in the developing world that are at risk of flood from storms and rising sea levels.

“Millions will migrate into, rather than away from, areas of environmental vulnerability,” said Sir John Beddington, chief scientific advisor to the UK government, and head of the Foresight programme. “An even bigger policy challenge will be the millions who are trapped in dangerous conditions and unable to move to safety.”

The scientists, in a report entitled Migration and Global Environmental Change, found that between 114 million and 192 million more people were likely to be living in floodplains in urban areas of Africa and Asia by 2060, partly as a result of climate change.

Study: Rising Seal Levels Will Hit Hard in South Florida

A sea-level rise of just a few inches will bring flooding to South Florida cities, contaminate sources of drinking water and lead to sharp increases in utility bills over the next 20 or 30 years, according a study released Wednesday by Florida Atlantic University.

The study found that projected sea level increases of 3 to 6 inches by 2030, due to global warming, could overwhelm flood-control systems that in many areas are more than 50 years old. The authors provided a list of steps to be taken in the coming decades, from moving drinking-water wells inland to installing more pump stations, that could help the region cope with the higher water.

“Unprecedented sea level rise and other climate change impacts are likely to result in serious threats to the water supply, increased risks of flooding, hurricane damage, huge infrastructure investments and other consequences both known and unknown at this time,” states the study, conducted by researchers at the university’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Report: 64,000 in Mass. Have “Clean Energy” Jobs

Massachusetts energy officials are pointing to what they say is significant job growth in the state’s renewable energy sector.

A report released Tuesday by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center estimates there are now more than 64,000 people in the state working in the so-called “clean energy” economy — or about 1.5 percent of all jobs in the state.

The report identified 4,909 clean energy companies across the state.

The report said those companies saw a 6.7 percent increase in jobs between July 2010 to July 2011, and expect employment growth rate of 15 percent from July 2011 to July 2012.

World Bank to Fund Small, Cleantech Firms $60 Million

The World Bank group said it is launching a $60 million equity financing facility to help kick-start small companies that sell goods and services aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions in developing nations.

A maximum investment of $10 million will be made in any one company, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a World Bank group member, said in a statement late on Tuesday.

The Cleantech Innovation Facility, by blending private and public funds, should be able to “address a market gap” within climate finance, said Mohsen Khalil, global head of IFC’s climate business group.

“It will support clean-tech companies originating from or moving to developing countries — companies that have the potential to be scaled up and make a real impact but cannot access commercial risk capital,” he said in the statement.

IFC said its equity investments in the clean technology sector now total around $150 million in commitments.

2011 Global Cleantech 100 List Released

The third annual Global Cleantech 100 list was released by Cleantech Group earlier this week. This list recognizes 100 of the most innovative companies in the renewable energy, energy efficiency, low-carbon transportation and water and waste fields, who are projected to be significant market players over the next five to ten years.

Any company that is independent, for-profit, and not listed on any major stock exchange is qualified to appear on this list. This year, 4,274 companies from over forty-five countries were nominated. Companies ranging from DuPont to Proctor and Gamble to Coca-Cola surveyed the 213 companies that made it to the shortlist, resulting in the final 100.

This year, the 100 companies hail from 16 countries, though most come from the US. When weighted for economy size, however, the companies from small countries like Denmark, Israel, Sweden and the Netherlands had the edge. Over 350 investors, coming from twenty-eight countries, hold shares in the companies, and GE and Siemens proved to be the most active partners within the 1oo.

Japan Eyes Renewable Energy Deregulation

Japanese cabinet ministers will call on the government to ease rules on building geothermal, wind and hydraulic power plants to boost renewable energy use after the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the Nikkei business daily reported on Thursday.

The world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami in March, has heightened public safety concerns and kept 44 of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors off-line.

Following the atomic disaster, Japan vowed to review from scratch the country’s energy policy, which previously had aimed to rely on nuclear power for more than 50 percent of the country’s electricity supply by 2030.

A panel of cabinet ministers in charge of energy and environmental issues will make a 93-point list of recommendations to the government on cutting costs and saving time to build more renewable energy plants, the Nikkei said without citing sources.

Funding for the refugees ran out on Friday, but Paul refuses to lift his hold out of a professed concern that the money could be used to aid terrorists:

In a statement to POLITICO on Tuesday, Paul confirmed he was blocking the bill over concerns the money could be used to aid domestic terrorists. Two alleged terrorists, who came to the U.S. through a refugee program and were receiving welfare benefits, were arrested this year in Paul’s hometown of Bowling Green, Ky.

“This incident alone raises serious questions about the system through which they came to the United States, and I am insisting on a full investigation on our practice of providing welfare to refugees,” Paul said. [...]

The bill would extend funding for one year for about 5,600 elderly and disabled refugees from war-torn regions of the world, including Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. Some are victims of human-trafficking or torture.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the bill’s sponsor, points out that Paul’s actions threaten the lives of disabled refugees “who have aided American troops overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan — and risked their lives for America’s cause.” “The bill ensures that refugees will not lose critical life-sustaining benefits that are their only safety net protecting them from homelessness, illness and other effects of extreme poverty,” he said.

The idea that the refugee program is being used to usher terrorists into the U.S. has been thoroughly debunked by international organizations. As the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights has noted, asylum seekers are the victims of terrorism, not its perpetrators. “Refugee” is actually an elite status conferred by the international community to those who have already proven they are victims of, or have a well-founded fear of, persecution. To be admitted to the U.S., asylum seekers have to go through a grueling, years-long process and provide extensive proof of identification and documentation for their claims. Claiming refugee status opens one up to extensive scrutiny and investigation by the government — in short, the last thing prospective terrorists would want to do.

Yet Paul is perpetuating a dangerous myth responsible for depriving victims of the aid they need. In the wake of 9/11, a ridiculously broad definition of what it means to provide “material support” to terrorists groups has denied protection to thousands of persecuted refugees who pose no threat to national security. Refugees caught up in this legal snare include those who were violently coerced into helping the very groups they are now seeking protection from, or involuntarily aided organizations that are not even officially considered terrorist groups.

In a roundtable discussion with a diverse group of bloggers, former President Bill Clinton addressed many facets of the challenges caused by global warming pollution, and also what he believed are the opportunities for building a global green economy. Clinton spoke passionately about the challenge of climate refugees, who are growing in number as floods, storms and droughts grow more intense and frequent:

You have to assume because of climate change there will be a lot more refugees. The laws which exist are built for a different time, when you’d have a surge from a particular country because of a particular disaster or event. That’s almost certainly not going to work now. The countries who take the most refugees should try to reach an agreement on broadbased strategies.

In addition to policy changes that reflect our changing world, Clinton said that the culture of how people in developed countries perceive immigrants and refugees needs to change.

“America needs to become more pro-immigration again. I think it helps our economy. In the refugee category the United States and other countries need to create opportunities for housing and jobs, even if it increases the likelihood they want to stay.” Clinton rejected the idea that it makes sense to have policies that prevent integration of people who can’t quickly return to their homeland. “Keeping people in long-term limbo is a waste of human potential.”

– Sarah Bufkin

Unprecedented rain that has hammered Colombia over the past year has affected three million people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. In March, I spent three weeks traveling across the Caribbean region visiting families displaced by the floods. The alarming conditions I encountered more than three months since President Santos declared a state of emergency are described in a new report by Refugees International entitled, “Surviving Alone: Improving Assistance to Colombia’s Flood Victims.”

In the town of Manatí in Atlántico Department I was greeted by the Iraida, an Afro-Colombian mother of four who leads a local women’s organization. “Today we don’t have a glass of water to drink,” Iraida tells me. “The water truck has not come to distribute water. It comes every eight days.” She explains that water rations are not sufficient to allow her to bathe her baby and provide enough water for the other four members of her family.

Watch a personal account from Iraida and her husband:

Iraida points to her house, which is submerged except for the tops of the windows and roof. “We had a store, a business. We took out a loan and now we are unable to pay the bank. We need food, water, clothes – yes, even clothes because we have lost everything.”

Tragically, her story was similar to dozens of others I heard in Atlántico, Córdoba, Bolívar, Sucre and Magdelana Departments. Flood victims received some basic aid during the height of the floods in December; many had been encouraged by news that the government had launched a multi-media campaign to raise flood aid. But more than three months later, what little assistance they had received was tapering off, leaving them to survive on their own. As described in the report, an uncoordinated, bureaucratic process set up by the Colombian government to distribute millions of dollars in flood relief was severely hindering the provision of emergency humanitarian assistance. According to a recent report by the Colombian General Accountability Office, only half of the flood aid has been distributed to date.

In 2010 alone, 300 million people across the globe were affected by natural disasters, the majority of which were climate-related, including 182 floods that affected 180 million people — almost double the annual average for the last decade.

As I write this blog two months after visiting Manatí, persistent rains and ongoing flooding in Colombia continue to displace hundreds of thousands of people, and record-breaking flooding along areas of the Mississippi River inundate vast swaths of land in the southeast United States. In all the debate over whether the increase in the frequency and force of climate-related disasters is a portent of things to come or evidence that climate change already is occurring, I am left wondering whether policy makers, in their quest for scientific certainty, have missed the point. I am left questioning the wisdom of continuing to view today’s extreme events as unforeseen occurrences for which no one is responsible, as acts of God or nature, as risks that cannot be managed.

It is starkly evident that neither national governments nor the humanitarian community are prepared to respond to the increasing pressure that climate variability is bringing to bear not only on some of the world’s poorest and most crisis-prone countries, but also on a humanitarian system that is already over-stressed and woefully underfunded. The discussion must therefore focus on prevention, protection, and the underlying factors that render people vulnerable to begin with like poverty, weak social protection networks, lack of preparedness and the weak capacity of local governments to respond quickly and in an accountable manner.

Read Alice’s original, extended post at Refugees International.

Nicholas Stern, one of the world’s most prominent climate economists, believes that failure to address global warming could eventually lead to World War Three. In 2006, he produced the Stern Review on behalf of the British government, clearly laying out the potentially catastrophic economic consequences of failing to address climate pollution. Since then, the scientific understanding of the damages from global warming has grown, and Stern has warned that his report “underestimated the risks.”

In an exclusive interview with ThinkProgress, Stern described his current understanding of the stark consequences of inaction, which defy the scope of standard economic language. If no global policy to cut carbon pollution is enacted, there is about a 50 percent risk that global temperatures would rise above levels not seen for 30 million years by 2100, an extraordinary rate of change. The “potentially immense” consequences of this radical transformation of our planet, Stern explained, include the “serious risk of global war”:

The temperature increases, the temperature changes of this kind, transform where people can be. In the upwards direction, you’re going to get some areas that become deserts, probably most of southern Europe. Others that are inundated: Florida, Bangladesh, and so on.

The point is that climate change will change the lives and livelihoods and where you can live all across the globe. We live where we live because of patterns of climate, where the rivers are, where the seashores are. That’s what determines where we are.

What we’re talking about here — this the cost of inaction, the cost of not doing much — is a transformation of where we can be. Over a hundred, 120 years, we can’t be that precise, a serious risk of global war, really, because you’ve got hundreds of millions of people, perhaps billions of people moving. That’s the cost of inaction. It’s potentially immense.

Watch it:

The global climate system gives us both life and death, feeding civilizations and smashing them. Our fossil fuel pollution has already altered that system, pushing it out of natural balance. With the pollution we have already generated, the world now has 25 to 50 million climate refugees.

If we do not change course, and continue to increase the burning of coal and oil as multinational energy companies desire, we will fundamentally transform the very land we live on, the water we drink, the air we breathe in ways that are beyond our ken. The U.S. military dryly describes these consequences as a “threat multiplier.” If we are to learn anything from history, these are the kinds of threats that lead to war, and geometrically growing global warming brings threats on a global scale.

Lord Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics, was visiting the United States to receive the Leontief economic prize from the Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute for his work on the economics of climate change.

Sanghvi notes that the surprising low participation rates are not for lack of will or interest, but rather, red tape and bureaucratic hoops. SVI applicants must first obtain a letter of clearance from the U.S. Embassy. A mistake as minor as using the wrong letterhead can delay an application for months. Then the applicant must send the paperwork through the unreliable Iraqi postal service to Nebraska before going through two more similar approval rounds that can each takes months to complete.

The SIV program was specifically implemented to bypass the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, or “the regular refugee program,” which many displaced Iraqis other than those who worked for the U.S. qualify for. However, at this point, even senior State Department officials admit that “the refugee program administratively is just easier to navigate.”

Sanghvi offers a few recommendations that the agencies involved in determining the fate of Iraqi SVI applicants should implement:

Gather information on Iraqi employees from contractors and internal databases so that they can verify the applicants’ employment records themselves.

Allow Iraqis to submit their applications by e-mail, and then bring their original documents to a subsequent interview.

Provide rejected applicants with sufficient information about why they were denied visas and a fair, transparent process for challenging the decisions.

Retired U.S. Air Force Major Dorian de Wind wrote last week, “As a nation that bears a special responsibility for the Iraq war and for the resulting humanitarian crisis, we can still reflect the ‘character of our nation’ by, as we leave Iraq behind, not leaving behind the helpless Iraqi refugees.” Meanwhile, President Obama has already warned troops in Fort Bliss, TX that “our task in Iraq is not over yet.” And it shouldn’t be considered over until the responsibility we have to those Iraqi men and women who risked their lives to work for the U.S. is fulfilled.

The most immediate threats from climate change are in the form of storms of increasing intensity, such as Cyclone Nargis in Burma; greater incidence of drought and floods that make traditional livelihoods unsustainable; and increased conflicts over access to limited resources. The war in Darfur derives, in part, from conflict over scarce resources as the desert expands. Other dramatic impacts are also predicted in the long term, such as the disappearance of island states like the Maldives. Estimates of the numbers of people expected to be displaced by climate change range from 50 million to 1 billion over the next 50 years. By comparison, there are currently 41.2 million people displaced by conflict.

Ken Bacon’s gift to the future comes at a tragic moment in his life. As he discussed in an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for health care reform, he has life-threatening brain cancer. Ken’s choice to establish this center in a time of personal crisis is a tribute to his integrity and passion for the world he has spent his life making a better place. “The most voiceless people in the world are probably refugees,” Nick Kristof writes, “and for the last decade one the great spokesmen for them has been Kenneth Bacon, the head of Refugees International.”

“Besides the specific problem of welcoming to our shores people who danced in the streets at the destruction of the Twin Towers, there’s the more general issue of resettling as refugees people who have somewhere else to go…Resettlement in America, regardless of the total numbers (and I obviously prefer lower numbers), should be reserved only for those who can’t stay where they are and will never have anywhere else to go.”

It’s unclear whether Krikorian’s limited knowledge of the subject is driven more by his xenophobic agenda or intellectual laziness. Iraqi Palestinians are definitely not in a position to stay where they are and they have limited options in terms of where they could possibly go. Iraq’s Palestinian community is largely made up of those who were already driven from their homes in 1948 and others that were expelled from Kuwait in 1991. According to Refugees International, following the U.S. invasion, Iraqi Palestinians have fled killings, kidnappings, torture, and death threats as nearly 3,000 of them were left stranded in three of the “most desolate refugee camps in the world” along the border between Syria and Iraq. Most of the Arab world has shut its doors, as Europe and Canada have already accepted the responsibility of several hundred refugees. For many in the State Department and international community, accepting these individuals is “part of a moral imperative” the U.S. has to “clean up the refugee crisis created by invading Iraq.”

Krikorian’s suggestion that Iraqi Palestinians are terrorists is based on the same shamefully misleading logic that the Bush administration used to justify the war in Iraq. While it is true that Saddam treated them well, they are a far cry from being Saddam loyalists. Iraqi Palestinians are “apolitical,” and “basically desperate, scared, miserable and ready to just get out of Iraq,” says Human Rights Watch refugee policy director Bill Frelick.

Krikorian doesn’t just think that the U.S. refugee program is a load of crap, he’s also suggesting we dump our “problems” into the backyards of other countries. Krikorian insists that there must be some other country for the Iraqi Palestinians to settle in, preferably somewhere within the Arab League of Nations. Krikorian told the Christian Science Monitor:

“This is politically a real hot potato…[A]merica has become a dumping ground for the State Department’s problems — they’re tossing their problems over their head into Harrisburg, Pa., or Omaha, Neb.”

Krikorian’s perception of Iraqi Palestinian refugees isn’t just cold-hearted and stringent, it’s ignorant. In fact, it’s surprising he’s even recognizing their right to simply exist as individuals seeing as he’s previously described their homeland as having “no past, no distinctiveness, no commonality other than being the negation of Israel, the anti-Israel — anti-matter, if you will, on the periodic table of nations.”

Laura Heaton at Enough Said observes that “The camp was built to accommodate far fewer inhabitants, but since the beginning of the year, Dadaab has seen an influx of 4,000-5,000 new arrivals each month.” At the moment, UNHCR is trying to expand the camp to accommodate its many inhabitants but is having trouble getting Kenya to agree to offer up more land. All that aside, the sheer quantity of people is staggering. “Camp” doesn’t really fit the bill when you’re really talking about a small city all full of absolutely desperate people.

Amid all the self-congratulation among American supporters of the “surge” and the controversy over a potential long-term security agreement between the United States and Iraq, there has been remarkably little discussion about the ticking time bomb of Iraq’s displaced population. Through no fault of their own, these refugees and internally displaced persons have the potential to seriously disrupt Iraqi politics and roll back the security gains of the past six-plus months. And the United States and Iraqi governments are doing next to nothing to find solutions to the status of Iraq’s displaced people or the problems associated with their potential return.

The political dynamics of refugee return were made clear in a weekend article in the New York Times detailing the struggles of a group of displaced Iraqi Shi’a to return to their homes in Diyala province. Their homes razed, these returnees are waiting on assistance from the Iraqi government. As the Times notes, “Whether supplies and compensation are forthcoming could make the difference between the return’s success and its failure.”

More broadly, the issue of refugee return is contentious because the property of many refugees and IDPs has been expropriated by sectarian militias. These militias in turn “resettled” members of their own sect, reinforcing the homogenization created by the expulsion of refugees. As a new report on the plight of Iraqi refugees by the International Crisis Group notes, “militias and armed groups exploited the refugee crisis for self-enrichment and war racketeering.” This sectarian cleansing has created two intertwined political dilemmas critical to any peaceful political settlement in Iraq.

First is the issue of how refugees and IDPs should be able to vote in upcoming provincial elections. Will they be able to cast absentee ballots in their original places of residence? Will they be able to vote in their current locations? Will the displaced themselves be able to choose where to vote? Or will they be denied voting rights altogether? As it currently stands, the upcoming law governing the elections will allow IDPs to vote in their place of origin while disenfranchising refugees outside Iraq. As Marc Lynch notes, by refusing to offer internally displaced Iraqis both options with regard to their votes, the Iraqi government has placed itself in a political straightjacket. If it allows IDPs to vote in their place of origin, it prevents them from voting for the provincial government under which they currently live; however, if the Iraqi government allows IDPs to vote in their current locations, it risks legitimizing sectarian cleansing.

This conundrum brings us to the larger problem of what to do with Iraqi refugees and IDPs. Are they to have a right to return to their pre-displacement residences, or will they be resettled elsewhere inside Iraq? Without a broad consensual framework for displaced person returns, accompanied by a resolution of Iraq’s internal conflicts, the return of Iraq’s refugees and IDPs will either not occur or create more problems than they solve. If there is no formal way of adjudicating property disputes between returnees and squatters, militias offering their own brand of “justice” will be empowered and the cycle of sectarian conflict could reignite. If Iraqis decide to ratify sectarian cleansing and resettle returnees elsewhere, it will require a commitment by the Iraqi government hitherto unseen to help those who choose to return to Iraq.

Unfortunately, the political problems of Iraqi refugees are nowhere to be found in Congressional benchmarks or President Bush’s statements. The United States needs to place a higher priority on resolving the political questions created by Iraq’s displacement crisis, and push Iraqi politicians to keep the final status of Iraq’s refugees and IDPs in mind when resolving Iraq’s conflicts.