Europe is failing Asia-Pacific climate refugees by building bigger walls

There is an opportunity for Europe to lead the world in humanitarian responses and approaches to a crisis that is only going to grow
By choosing to hide behind political walls, the region is not only enacting economically counterproductive measures, it is pretending its obligations don’t exist

Perry Q. WoodandOlivia Harms

Published: 1:00am, 24 Aug 2023

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The coming decades are likely to see the real cost of climate change on populations around the world, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Yet, as another migration season in Europe peaks, solutions from the region are not forthcoming.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that an exponential increase in mass human displacement is imminent, with particularly devastating effects in Asia. The evidence supports this prediction.

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which is part of the Norwegian Refugee Council, more than 225 million people across the Asia-Pacific region were displaced because of natural disasters between 2010 and 2021. The centre says that “weather-related hazards such as monsoon rains and tropical storms were responsible for 95 per cent of all disaster displacements” across the region.

The World Bank estimates there will be a further 89 million climate refugees from East Asia and the Pacific and Southeast Asia by 2050. While many will remain displaced within their home country, many others will make the perilous journey to Europe in search of a safe haven.

In the visa-free Schengen Area of the European Union, which incorporates 27 countries, the number of formal asylum seekers rose by 64 per cent in 2022. More than 880,000 people made first-time applications seeking protection in the EU last year, and that followed another sharp spike in applications in 2021.

Eurostat, the EU’s data agency, said almost half – 46 per cent – of the first-time asylum seekers in 2022 had Asian citizenship. That was by far the highest percentage of applicants among regions, with Africa the second-highest at 22 per cent.

The reaction in Europe has been to tighten borders. At a Special European Council summit in Brussels in February, delegates chose to double down on already-strict measures to deter and resist humanitarian migration. This included enhancing cooperation with countries of origin – also known as making deals to keep people at home – and cooperation on return and readmission, or turning away as many asylum seekers as possible.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the EU agreed to “ensure effective control of its external land and sea borders”. This can be interpreted simply as “build bigger walls”.

Ironically, this hardline attitude emerged from a moment of great humanitarian purpose. German Chancellor Angela Merkel spent more than €20 billion (US$21.7 billion) on refugees in 2016 as more than 1 million asylum seekers entered the country between 2015 and 2016. Enthusiastic German citizens welcomed refugees who poured in from struggling, war-torn countries.

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Warm welcome for migrants in Germany

The political reaction was the rise of the far-right parties such as Alternative for Germany. This not only ended Merkel’s moment of kindness and largely prompted the end of her political career but set off similar growth in far-right politics and anti-immigration policies across Europe.

Those same parties are now setting national agendas on immigration, even if they are not in power. This hardline attitude towards immigrants is of great concern to those living in Asia and the Indo-Pacific, of course. With climate change already having a major impact in this region, the unwillingness of rich countries such as those in the EU to be part of a humane solution is troubling.

On one level, this refusal is counterproductive. The EU’s 27 members accept less than 10 per cent of all the world’s refugees and only a small proportion of internally displaced people. This has only significantly increased of late, largely because of the influx of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion. Refugees make up just 1.5 per cent of the EU’s total population.

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Asian migrants abandon hope of reaching Europe after series of deadly shipwrecks

On another level, the EU’s colonial past in places like Asia and the Pacific should generate a sense of moral responsibility. As it currently stands, the refugee regime in Europe is not set up to withstand the pressures of climate migration and has too many loopholes for the evasion of state responsibility.

There is an opportunity for Europe to lead the world in humanitarian responses and approaches to a crisis that is only going to get bigger. By choosing to hide behind political walls, however, the region is not only enacting economically counterproductive measures, it is pretending its obligations don’t exist.

The people of Asia and the Indo-Pacific have long looked to Europe as the model of democracy and freedom. As climate change takes hold across the region, that faith is fast eroding.

Perry Q. Wood is a director of Australian Migration Lawyers and one of Australia’s leading administrative and migration lawyers

Olivia Harms is a lawyer at Australian Migration Lawyers