Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

Yolanda Castro Díez
a more limited adaptive capacity and are more dependent on climatesensitive
resources such as local water and food supply.
Mass migrations
Environmental factors have long had repercussions on world migratory
flows. The expected droughts, food shortages and flooding will give rise to
mass displacements of people, which may reach 200 million environmental
refugees by halfway through the 21st century (12).
There is an interrelationship between migration and environment: environmental
factors are conducive to migration and migration affects the
environment. Climate change makes this relationship even more complex.
Many other causes, such as conflicts, wars, famine, human rights, gender,
development level, public health and governance are added to the environmental
factors which give rise to migrations.
A particularly serious situation is that of small island territories both
in the tropics and at higher latitudes, as their characteristics make them
especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, the rise in sea level
and extreme phenomena. Coastline recession and the submergence
of large areas will cause loss of territory and may even give rise to the
disappearance of whole countries, such as some island states.
SUMMARY OF THE PREDICTED IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Table 2 summarises the main impacts caused by changes in extreme
weather and climatic phenomena based on projections for the second half of
the 21st century included in the IPCC-4AR. These impacts do not take into
account changes or developments in adaptive capacity. The most significant
phenomena that affect the population and environment have been selected,
and for which there is high confidence in the Assessment Report.
SECURITY IMPLICATIONS
The 1994 World Development Report of the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) establishes seven aspects that affect human securi-
(12) N. My e r s, «Environmental Refugees: A Growing Phenomenon of the 21st Century»,
Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, Vol. 357, No. 1420, pp. 609-613,
2002.
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