Their problems are also ours.
This is what we should be thinking when we learn that 3.5 billion human beings now live in an environment “highly vulnerable to climate change”.
The information comes from the report published Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This document represents (another) crying call to action. From technologies to money to popular support, it shows that we have all the cards in hand to limit the most serious effects of climate change. But the window for action is dangerously narrowing.
Quebecers and Canadians may be (falsely) relieved to know that among the billions of human beings most vulnerable to climate change, most are found in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
This would be a bad reflex for three reasons.
There is first of all an elementary question of solidarity. Today, those who have contributed the least to climate change are being hit hardest by its consequences. This injustice should instill in us a sense of responsibility and spur us to action.
The second reason is that it would be wrong to believe that we are safe. The consequences of the climate emergency are also evident at home. Talk to the inhabitants of the Îles-de-la-Madeleine who see their land disintegrating into the sea. Or to the communities of the North who are wading through thawing permafrost.
The IPCC also warns us that it has only just begun.
The third reason is that a recent event has made us realize that we can no longer live as if we were on an island isolated from the great problems that shake the world.
This event is the massive arrival of migrants via Roxham Road.
Roxham showed us that the misery of the world can drive back to our doorsteps. He provided us with a very concrete illustration that everything is connected and that we are all in the same proverbial boat.
PHOTO CHRISTINNE MUSCHI, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Migrants arriving via Roxham Road are a stark reminder of the effects of the climate emergency.
Those who still believe that it is possible to erect watertight barriers against migratory movements are on the wrong track.
Despite all their means (and desperate attempts like the absurd wall dreamed up by Donald Trump), the United States has never managed to stem the flow of migrants crossing its 3000 kilometer border with Mexico. To think that with a population ten times smaller, Canada can secure a border three times longer is unrealistic.
The climatic migrations announced by the IPCC therefore concern us directly and we have a responsibility to tackle their causes.
These migrations have already begun.
Of the migrants crossing at Roxham, it is difficult to know the proportion of those fleeing their country because of the climate emergency, either directly or indirectly. But in a report titled “The Great Climate Migration,” the New York TimesMagazine showed that this is the case for many of them.1
It documents the case of peasant families in Central America who, in the face of droughts and floods, flee first to the cities of their country, then to the north, through Mexico and Texas.
We now know that such routes can lead to Roxham. In short, a drought in Guatemala can lead to a request for help from a food bank in Montreal North.
Climate change has already compromised access to water and food for millions of people. Each tenth of a degree that will be added to the warming already observed will push millions more to join their ranks.
We must not only help these people adapt to climate change, but also contribute to countering its causes by taking our reduction targets seriously.
It’s not just a duty. It is in our own interest.