UN report highlights negative effect of climate change

New York, 22 Jun - Climate change can play a role in driving people from their homes into areas of conflict and potentially across borders, according to a new United Nations report. “Climate Change, Vulnerability and Human Mobility,” based on discussions with around 150 refugees and internally displaced people in Ethiopia and Uganda in 2011, is published by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

(UNHCR) and the UN University (UNU).  Most of those interviewed for the report, which was produced with the support of the London School of Economics and Bonn University, were farmers and pastoralists from Eritrea, Somalia and eastern Sudan. They were asked questions about the extent to which climate change contributed to their decision to leave their homes, and, eventually, their countries. Most refugees reported that leaving their homes was a last resort and their first displacement was temporary and to an area close to home, according to a news release on the report. (ANA)

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