Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

Climate change and its security implications
people and drug trafficking and are furthermore one of the entry routes
for both terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. From a legislative
point of view, it should be stressed that the population who make up these
migratory flows are not classified in any legal category and, despite being
called «environmental refugees», they do not come under the international
legal status of refugees laid down in the Geneva Convention of 1951. In
this respect the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Refugee Policy
Group (RPG) have opted for the term «environmentally displaced persons»,
considering that they are people displaced in their own country or displaced
across international borders on account of climate change.
Racial rejection
Racial rejection of immigrant communities may be expected. The very
culture of a country might begin to be perceived as endangered by the arrival
of other people with a very different language, values and behaviour. In
this respect defence of a country’s own culture may be at odds with the
egalitarian distribution of resources through the opening of frontiers. In this
situation the inhabitants of a democratic country may oppose this opening
and demand the right to choose whether or not to accept immigrants, and
may even end up electing governments that adopt an anti-immigration
stance. A fundamental aspect that determines the rejection of immigrants
resides in their social background and level of education. In some cases
immigrants are highly educated professionals whose coexistence poses
no problems and who go practically unnoticed. But in general it will be
immigrants with a low cultural and professional status who trigger conflictive
situations both with the population of the host country and among
themselves. Therefore the prospect of mass migration poses a conflict
between the moral rights of the citizens of all countries of the world to seek
subsistence or a better quality of life and the right of the inhabitants of the
host countries not to take in foreigners. This potential or real conflict between
moral principles and pragmatic considerations could raise its head
in a particularly virulent manner in the event of mass migration such as that
expected to be caused by climate change.
Extreme climate phenomena
The occurrence of extreme climate phenomena will call for greater
security requirements. Weather phenomena such as El Niño, La Niña,
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