Hoo boy, government bureaucratic idiocy at its finest. Not only is the original claim bogus, the attempts to disappear it are hilariously inept. Apparently, they’ve never heard of Google Cache at the UN. Rather than simply say “we were wrong”, they’ve now brought even more distrust onto the UN.
Back on April 11th, Gavin Atkins of Asian Correspondent asked this simple question:
What happened to the climate refugees?
It is a valid question, and he backs it up with census numbers. Here’s the first part of his story:
==============================================================
In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. These people, it was said, would flee a range of disasters including sea level rise, increases in the numbers and severity of hurricanes, and disruption to food production.
The UNEP even provided a handy map. The map shows us the places most at risk including the very sensitive low lying islands of the Pacific and Caribbean.
It so happens that just a few of these islands and other places most at risk have since had censuses, so it should be possible for us now to get some idea of the devastating impact climate change is having on their populations. Let’s have a look at the evidence:
Nassau, The Bahamas – The 2010 national statistics recorded that the population growth increased to 353,658 persons in The Bahamas. The population change figure increased by 50,047 persons during the last 10 years.
The island-nation of Saint Lucia recorded an overall household population increase of 5 percent from May 2001 to May 2010 based on estimates derived from a complete enumeration of the population of Saint Lucia during the conduct of the recently completed 2010 Population and Housing Census.
Population 2002, 81755
Population 2010, 88311
The latest Solomon Islands population has surpassed half a million – that’s according to the latest census results.
It’s been a decade since the last census report, and in that time the population has leaped 100,000.
=========================================================
After Asian Correspondent posted the story on April 11th, it was picked up by news outlets around the world such as Investor News, American Spectator and was cited in the Australian newspaper. It was also a report on Fox News.
Since that story appeared, the “handy map” he cites in his original story, which has this URL:
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees-by-2010
…seems to be gone down the memory hole. This is what you get now, note my yellow highlight:
Only one small problem there UN people, a little annoyance called Google cache, which has that page archived here.
It pulls up this page that had been removed, with the 50 million refugees title, but the map is missing. Click to enlarge.
Fear not dear readers, because as astoundingly smart as those UN people think they are, they forgot one very important yet tiny detail. The map links to a hi-resolution version of the “climate refugee map” and if you delete the page above and the map it contains, you also have to delete the hi-res image it links to.
http://maps.grida.no/library/files/storage/11kap9climat.png
Ooops.
I’m always happy to help the UN in times of “need”, sooooo I’ve recovered it and saved it here on WUWT, because that image link is likely to go down the memory hole on Monday.
Here’s the map at web resolution as it would have appeared in the disappeared web page above.
And here it is in full sized hi-resolution glory, suitable for printing, slides, or coffee mugs…wherever it might be appropriate to show the folly of these boneheads. Click the link for the hi-res image:
11kap9climat.png 3012 x 1699 pixels PNG (577K)
And there you have it folks, another bogus climate claim rubbished by reality, followed by an inept cover up attempt.
Thanks to the reality of census numbers, followed by the UN’s handling of this, we can now safely say that the claim is “climate refugees” is total fantasy. Be sure to leave comments on any website that makes this claim, and link to this and the Asian Correspondent website.
Kudos to Gavin Atkins for asking this simple question after 6 years of this fantasy being used to push an agenda
UPDATE: A couple of commenters asked for the source of the predictions. Happy to oblige. This is what the UNEP web page originally said and the author cited:
| Sources | Norman Myers, ‘Environmental refugees, An emergent security issue’, 13. Economic forum, Prague, OSCE, May 2005 ; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005 ; Liser, 2007. |
| Link to web-site | http://www.agassessment.org/ |
| Cartographer/
Designer |
Emmanuelle Bournay |
| Appears in | IAASTD – International assessment of agricultural science and technology for development |
| Published | 2008 |
UPDATE2: The goal posts are already being moved, now it is 2020 instead of 2010, see below.
And here’s the source of this new goal post, an announcement at the AAAS meeting in February:
Which a compliant media has bloviated all over the net, as if this new bogosity is somehow better than the old one. The professor who made that new 10 years hence claim, UCLA’s Cristina Tirado, has a public web page at UCLA here.
I’ve sent her this message tonight:
Dear Professor Tirado,
It appears that the original claim made by the UN of 50 million climate refugees by 2010 has been proven totally false by a simple census count. UNEP has already removed the claim from their website. See this story: http://wp.me/p7y4l-9T0
At AAAS in Feburary, you made a nearly identical claim, but simply 10 years into the future. On what basis did you make this claim, and in light of the failed prediction and removal by UNEP of the old claim, are you prepared to retract the new 2020 refugee claim you made here: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jnW80NlFZ259UCgMAHSd3ekHutiQ?docId=CNG.aa651167cd0af745b3cb395cf1d402e3.c41
Millions of readers await your response at WUWT. Thank you for your consideration.
Anthony Watts
UPDATE3: Reader Andrew30 provides the linkage of this farce to the main body of the UN, not just the UNEP as some have complained.
General Assembly, 8 July 2008
GA/10725
Sixty-second General Assembly
Informal Meeting on Climate Change and Most Vulnerable Countries (AM)
Statements
SRGJAN KERIM, President of the General Assembly, opened the discussion by saying that 11 of the last 12 years had ranked among the 12 warmest since the keeping of global temperature records had begun in 1850. Two points were significant: that climate change was inherently a sustainable-development challenge; and that more efforts than ever before must be exerted to enable poor countries to prepare for impacts because it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010.
Panel Discussion
The Assembly then held a panel discussion moderated by author and journalist Eugene Linden. The panellists were Reid Basher, Senior Coordinator at the Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction; Ian Noble, Senior Climate Change Specialist at the World Bank; and Veerle Vandeweerd, Director of the Environment and Energy Group at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Source: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/ga10725.doc.htm
UPDATE4: In comments, there’s a suggestion that I’m laying claim to “first discovery”. I’m not, nor did I. This path of discovery that I learned today from various bits and pieces in email and posts is helpful.
Gavin Atkins was the first to call attention to the expired UN claim, he also highlighted the Google cache issue saying “However, if you are quick, you may yet be able to download a copy via google cache here.” …which I followed and was able to find and recover the high-res map myself and made my own screen caps. I found out Monday morning that Gatkins got the cache issue from Aaron Worthing here, who got it from his commenter “Carlos” – so it is Carlos who actually deserves credit for first noticing it (the 404 error).
Worthing was upset that I didn’t mention him but did mention Atkins. I’m writing this to correct that unintentional oversight.
I didn’t notice the small link on Atkins post to Worthing’s post (much further down than the Google cache link) because I was already on my way down the rabbit hole from the UNEP link Atkins provided high up in his post, paying attention to Atkins admonition: “However, if you are quick…” to follow the link. I know from experience that sometimes Google cache can last for days, sometimes minutes. When I followed it, the map was already gone as you can see in my own screencaps above.
Today I also found out that apparently I was getting Tweets from Atkins and Worthing last Fri/Sat that I should take notice of the issue…but those got left in the bit bucket because I never follow/read Tweets. I only use Twitter as an announcement service for WUWT. So if anyone expects to reach me via Twitter, please note that it is a lost cause.
I’m always happy to point out who gets credit when I know about it, and now that I know about it, here’s the credit chain: Gavin Atkins was the one to raise the issue, Aaron Worthing was the first to blog about the 404 error here, and his commenter “Carlos” was the first to notice the 404 error. I hope that clears up any misunderstandings.
The most important thing is that the UN issue is well known now and that many many people worked independently to make it happen. – Anthony
personofinterest:
I have shown and quoted UN sources, ( 3, count em, 3) that state that climate refugees would number 50 million by 2010.
NC sea level rising faster than the rest of the east coast? Not so much. The 4 stations at NOAA show 2.57, 2.82, 2.07 and 2.08 mm/year. This is the same, or less, as the rest of the Atlantic states. If NC was seeing a larger rise than the rest of the coast, it would mean that subsidence was the factor. And, unless they built the houses 600 years ago, there won’t have been a 1.5 meter rise.
Also note that 3 of the stations have seen no significant rise in 15 years, while one at Southport, is at the same levels it was in 1980.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/
As for hurricanes being affected by warming? They may very well be influenced by warming, but in a negative direction. The Accumulated Cyclone Energy index is at near 30 year lows.
your
It took me two hours to research and write this response,
You need more research. You had zero correct statements in your post.
DER SPIEGEL’s article from Sunday now in English:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,757713,00.html
very good article
balanced journalism
yes, i would appreciate the mention.
REPLY: It has been added to the Daily Caller story. I’ll add a note to WUWT as well. – Anthony
Well I don’t know if this is a first for WUWT, or for Anthony Watts, but over the weekend, I was listening to the Coast-to-coast late evening radio program, which goes worldwide over more stations than any other program, and over the net, and a guest on the program, mentioned that Anthony Watts, on WUWT was the first to call attention to this insane prediction by the IPCC.
So Congratulations Anthony; now the whole damn world, and a lot of alien planets, soon to know about WUWT.
REPLY: Actually Gavin Atkins was the first to call attention to the expired UN claim, he also highlighted the Google cache issue which I followed the UNEP URL from his website and was able to find and recover the high-res map. I found today that Gatkins got the cache issue from Aaron Worthing, who got it from his commenter “Carlos” – so it is Carlos who actually deserves credit for first noticing it. Of course with Gatkins putting the link on his website to the UNEP website map, it could have been anybody, it was only a matter of time before somebody noticed the 404 was not a malformed URL but an indication of removal.
I just happened to have a large enough web profile for it to get noticed even higher up the media food chain. I’ve made a note on the Daily Caller article and also on WUWT to highlight the path of discovery. – Anthony
So somebody who runs to their neighbor’s house because of a Tornado warning, to take shelter in the neighbor’s basement, is a “Climate refugee” ? Well isn’t that more like a “weather refugee” ? The thousands of Banglese who were left homeless by the Indonesian Tsunami, were neither climate nor weather refugees.
Incidently; the family who ran for safety to their neighbor’s basement, actually made the wrong move. The neighbor’s house got demolished by that tornado; but as luck would have it, the basement did protect everybody. Oh, I almost forgot. The “climate refugee” family actually left a perfectly good house that came through the storm totally unscathed by the tornado; so now they have taken their basement enhanced neighbors into their home; since there’s is no more. So now who is the “climate refugee” in that situation; or is there any, since the neighbors are just being neighborly ?
Hurricanes are not “climate” at least not on earth; maybe on Jupiter; but on earth they don’t last for a full 30 year climate interval. So Katrina was not “climate; so no “Climate refugees” there.
Hey the ancestral Americans, who came across the Bering Land bridge, do not even qualify as “Climate refugees”. Hell, they didn’t even know they were going anywhere. They simply followed their food source; pretty much like the wildebeeste and the Zebras do today; they never gnu they were going anywhere either; just eating there way to some other watering hole.
There have been more central Asians (XXXistanis) who have come to America since Barack Hussein Obama became President of the United States; than ever came to America during the last ice age. Nobody from Tajikistan ever came to America during the last ice age; even though their descendants did, long after they left Tajikistan. So no “climate refugees” there.
If you move your tent out of a dry river bed, because it rained somewhere, and water is coming into the tent; you are NOT a climate refugee. You most certainly ARE an idiot, for ever pitching a tent in any sort of river bed; and people who are idiots will always need to be saved from their own stupidity; and that doesn’t make them refugees of any kind.
Les Johnson: “I have given the reference here, and at Gavin’s. I give it again, with the money quote. Note that the UNEP source cites “climate change” several times.”
Only the last link works for me, but let’s look at that –
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27094&Cr=refugee&Cr1
Quote: “Conflict and poverty, the most common reasons people are compelled to leave their homes, are now amplified by the effects of climate change, increasing scarcity of resources and food shortages – factors which may lead to greater insecurity in the future,” he stressed.”
I don’t disagree that climate is *mentioned* – as I said, it’s even mentioned in the original 1995 report. But as Ban says here, it’s to point out its potential for amplifying the effects on *environmental* refugees – affected by the whole list of factors I gave above. To compare, if we wanted to talk about the displacement effects and interaction of war and drought, we have to be able to distinguish “war” from “drought”. The point’s as basic as that.
We can go on to talk about the problematic issues of defining what an environmental refugee is – of which there are many (and of course if you read the 1995 report, that is acknowledged). But we can’t do that unless we can agree on the basics of what we’re talking about.
Les Johnson again: another quote from that –
“In a related development, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a statement today that a new kind of casualty was being created by climate change: the environmental refugee.”
Well, that supports what you’re saying. Someone at the UN thinks they’re the same thing too! That’s not something Myers ever said in his original work, in my reading of his stuff so far.
But my bad: I completely see how you’d conclude the two were the same from sentences like that. It looks like a lot of people have to define their terms better, including whoever wrote that article!
danolner: I agree that Myers work is not well represented by UNEP.
I can still get to that other site. This is from UNEP, and has a name at the bottom of a man, who claimed that UNEP never made these claims. Ouch.
The International Federation of Red Cross says climate change disasters are currently a bigger cause of population displacement than war and persecution.
The global impact of the environment on human livelihoods is creating a new kind of casualty-the environmental refugee. Rising sea levels, increasing desertification, weather-induced flooding, and more frequent natural disasters have, and will increasingly become a major cause of population displacement in several parts of the world.
According to a report published by the United Nations University, there are now about 19.2 million people officially recognized as “persons of concern”-that is, people likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters. This figure is predicted to grow to about 50 million by the end of the year 2010.
These forecasts are not inevitable and will hinge on whether the international community can pull together and deliver a decisive and meaningful agreement on climate change at the UN climate convention meeting in Copenhagen in 2009, alongside more intelligent management of the planet’s nature-based assets.
[Addendum : Please provide a link when quoting. I think the link for this quote is http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=538&ArticleID=5842&l=en (?)- mj]
That’s interesting: very nearly the same text –
“a new kind of casualty was being created by *climate change*: the environmental refugee.”
vs
“The global impact of the *environment* on human livelihoods is creating a new kind of casualty – the environmental refugee.”
One’s pinning it all on climate change, the other uses the term environment. All rather a muddle.
Moderator: Yes, that is the correct link. I usually paste the link under the quote. My mistake.
I will check that in the future.
Google Cache now states
“Your search – cache:5OWrvQs5P5YJ:maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees-by-2010 http … – did not match any documents. ” so I guess they pulled it too
They’re in Iraq. The Lancet will surely find them.
If we see climate refugees, it will be from reversion toward the mean, not warming. If we hopefully get warming, we’ll see prosperity.
““……when people are not living in sustainable conditions, they migrate….”
According to every liberal I talk to, the entire United States is not living in sustainable conditions. I haven’t seen any mass migrations of Americans to more sustainable economies like…um…I don’t know…Sweden, I guess. They’ve got, like, socialized medicine and stuff. That’s like sustainable, right?
“UPDATE3: Reader Andrew30 provides the linkage of this farce to the main body of the UN, not just the UNEP as some have complained.”
The highlighted quote: “because it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010.”
Anthony: it would be helpful if you could respond to the repeatedly-made point that *environmental* refugees are not the same as *climate* refugees. That quote says “environmental”. We can go on to discuss problems with the definition or whatever, but until we can agree on terms – and the fact that an “environmental refugee” is not a “climate refugee” (see previous comments, with a definition for environmental refugees, from the source you cite) – it’s going to be hard to have a sensible discussion about this.
I wonder why the people in and around Japan haven’t left already. Typhoons have been around for centuries, have killed lots of people. Same for earthquakes and tsunamis. Strange how today’s climate change can have an effect in the past that sunk the mongolian invasion fleet.
AK says:
Strange how today’s climate change can have an effect in the past that sunk the mongolian invasion fleet.
“Climate disruption may cause of temporal distortion”
– where do I apply for funding?
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees-by-2010
We have decided to withdraw the product and accompanying text. It follows some media reports suggesting the findings presented were those of UNEP and the UN which they are not.
We hope this clarifies the situation.
That’s a laugh. Media reports “suggesting the findings presented were those of UNEP and the UN.” Jeez, the point is the UN jumped all over the findings and used the findings as part of their propaganda. And now they think they can just disown it as easily as that? Nothing to see here?
Good job documenting all of this…
Hey,
The author of the original article, Gavin Atkins at AsianCorrespondent, has done an excellent job following up on the story. I’ve included his follow up stories below in chronological order. Interesting stuff indeed…
April 22 –
What a ridiculous thesis. Uh, Haiti!? New Orleans!? Surely there are more. The point is not the specifics of this migration. The point is that many die and are displaced. Sure you say, these natural disasters are not conclusively climate related. Well, by 2020 there may be a trend. Anyway there already is one with more common more extreme weather events on a regular basis.
Your article entirely misses the point. Playing dumb like that doesn’t make you look smart but I suppose the internet age allows you your loyal followers who already accept that looking at Google cache is going to give you mucho insight on the UN.
Please don’t use the term “disappears” so flippantly. Some dumb online statistic shouting match is not a respectful way to treat a historical term originating in Latin America to describe some really brutal crimes. The Mothers of the Disappeared would not be impressed with your use of the term but Pinochet would love how you trivialise his crimes.