Kinnaird College for Women

International Relations

Project Title:
Growing phenomenon of environmental refugees under securitization: a case
study of Syrian Refugees (2015-2022)

Group Members:

Ayesha Babar, Najm ul Sahar, Rubab Ali, Saadia Babar and Zainab Haseeb

Semester: BA. 6

Session: 2019-2023

Name of Instructor: Dr. Asia Mukhtar

Course Title: Global Politics of Environment

Date of Submission: 27th May 2021

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4

CAUSES OF ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES...........................................................................6

CASE STUDY OF SYRIAN ENVIRONMENT REFUGEES:......................................................9

CLIMATE CHANGE AND CIVIL WAR:...............................................................................10

CLIMATE CHANGE AND MOVING MASSES:...................................................................10

RECOMMENDATIONS...............................................................................................................12

WATER CONSERVATORY TECHNOLOGY........................................................................12

NON-CONVENTIONAL WATER RESOURCES...................................................................12

DESALINATION PRACTICES................................................................................................13

COLLABORATION WITH INTERNATIONAL SERVICES.................................................13

ANALYSIS....................................................................................................................................13

REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15
 ABSTRACT
Protracted conflicts have also caused environmental damage along under tangible damage and
have impacted the lives of the people living in the areas. The refugees of these areas who have
been impacted on an environmental scale are called environmental refugees. In other words,
environmental refugees are the people who have been compelled to leave their natural habitat
because it had been affected by environmental disruption due to physical and chemical changes
in the ecosystem which caused the land to become unsuitable to support human life. Climate
change is one the key drivers of environmental refugees as rise in sea levels, droughts, cyclones,
acid rain, forest fires and melting of polar ice caps increases temperature and creates extreme
conditions which in turn affects millions of livelihoods and loss of homes and become a reason
for people being displaced due to climate change. This project utilizes Copenhagen School’s
Securitization Theory as the theoretical grounds for explaining the securitization of
environmental refugees. In case of the case study however, states hosting the Syrian refugees can
be considered as the security actors framing the referent object i.e., Syrian environmental
refugees as posing a security threat.

Key Words: environmental refugees, climate change, securitization, environmental security, and
Syrian environmental refugees
INTRODUCTION
Refugees are a product of a conflict and conflict has been an important phenomenon of the 21 st
century. Many protracted conflicts remained a major issue in the international arena. However, a
noteworthy point is that protracted conflicts have also caused environmental damage and have
impacted the lives of the people living in the areas. The refugees of these areas who have been
impacted on an environmental scale are called environmental refugees. In other words,
environmental refugees are the people who have been compelled to leave their natural habitat
because it had been affected by environmental disruption due to physical and chemical changes
in the ecosystem which caused the land to become unsuitable to support human life.

Henceforth, environmental refugees are a product of the conflicts which has made the land
unsuitable to support their lifestyle. The pivotal point of the discussion is that these
environmental refugees are comprehended as a threat to the host states environmental resources
as they would then utilize the resources of the host states, depriving the host residents of the
environmental resources. Here the concept of securitization is imperative to discuss because the
as the environmental refugees are perceived as a threat to environmental security and the subject
of environmental refuges is securitized and conceived an environmental threat. This is often
noticed as many host states do not allow an influx of refugees to enter and even transit states
hesitate too because they fear that they would jeopardize their “environmental security” if they
allow the influx of environmental refugees.

This phenomenon of environmental refugees is interrelated to securitization which was mostly

noticeable when Syrian environmental refugees tried to settle in Lebanon and European states.
These states are the ones who are facing the environmental and refugee crisis as well which is
often presented under the context of security. Henceforth, this project will discuss the
phenomenon of environmental refugees and the causes behind the increase of environmental
refugees as compared to before. Afterwards, a detailed discussion will be done on environmental
refuges and the interconnectivity with securitization. The case study of Syrian refugees will be
discussed under the two concepts of environmental refugees and securitization followed by an
analysis.

Environmental Refugees
Environmental refugees are forced to flee from their homes due to long term changes in their
local environment which end up compromising on their secure livelihood. They, however, may
migrate to another country or even internally within their own country. The term environmental
refugees are interchangeably used with environmental migrant or climate migrant. The term was
proposed in 1976 by Lester Brown and ever since the term been known to have orbited around
terms like forced environmental migrant, environmentally displaced person, disaster refuges,
environmental displace or eco refuge. All these terms reflect one important which is how
environmental drivers and human migration are interconnected. This relationship between
environmental factors and human migration are analytically useful, policy-relevant, and possible
grounds for the expansion of refugee law.

The term climate refugees also reflect that environmental factor enforced people to leave due to
sudden and gradual alterations in the natural environment related to the three levels of climate
change: sea-level rise, extreme weather events and drought and water security (Global
Governance Project 2012). Though it is imperative to notice that there not one universally
accepted definition of environmental migration or climate refugee, but the International
Organization for Migration formulated a working definition which described the complexity of
the topic as it recognizes that environmental refugees must be forced to leave only because of
deteriorating environmental conditions. There can be environmentally induced movement of
migrants taking place internally and externally covering short term and long-term aspects.

Another important factor to be covered under the phenomenon is the types of environmental
migrants. The International Organization for Migration also proposes the three types of
environmental migrants. The first is the Environmental emergency migrants who flee
temporarily due to a natural calamity for instance hurricanes or floods. The second type is
environmental forces migrants who must flee due to slowly deteriorating environmental
conditions such as deforestation, desertification, or droughts that cause famines. The third and
the last type are environmental motivated migrants who are also known as environmentally
induces economic migrants. They choose to leave so that they can avoid future economic
problems such as declining crop activity due to desertification.

However, it is important to ponder upon the various reasons that trigger the environmental
refugees to flee their tradtional habitat.
CAUSES OF ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES
Climate change is one the key drivers of environmental refugees as rise in sea levels, droughts,
cyclones, acid rain, forest fires and melting of polar ice caps increases temperature and creates
extreme conditions which in turn affects millions of livelihoods and loss of homes and become a
reason for people being displaced due to climate change. According to International
Organization for Migration, “environmental refugees are people who due to a sudden or gradual
changes in environment, which have a negative effect on their living conditions, are forced to
abandon their homes, and move to other parts of their own country or outside of it”. The above
definition also confirms two things; environmental refugees are those affected by climate change
and are those who are forced to move and migrate to different areas due to the changes in
climate. This also illustrates that the causes of environmental refugees are not just one or two but
rather an intertwined series of reasons that make certain areas unhabitable.

Primarily, the main reason for the cause of environmental refugees is climate change. This
includes a combination of human and natural environmental factors such as soil erosion,
deforestation, land degradation, land salinization, degradation of marine and coastal ecosystems
as well as urban and agricultural population to natural forces which include cyclones, hurricanes,
landslides, tsunamis, earthquake and volcanoes that exacerbate population displacement. Both of
these conditions also cause humanitarian emergencies which in turn leads to loss of livelihoods
and homes and add to as the primary factor motivating environmental refugees.

Secondly, water, either in excess or shortage, has the potential to be one of the causes of
environmental refugees. The amount of excess water comes from natural disasters, rise in sea
levels, cyclones and hurricanes. The rise in sea levels is cause due to two reasons: melting of
polar ice caps due to global warming and warming of ocean waters causing them to expand and
rise (Mann and Kump, 2008). Cyclones, hurricanes and floods are too much excess of water and
causes people to leave their lands as they are no longer suitable to living. For example, the
flooding of Mississippi River in 1993 forced the residents of the entire town of Illinois to leave
their homes and caused homelessness and displacement. Similarly, water deficit also causes
environmental refugees as the demand for water has been increased triple-fold in the past two
decades and water shortage has impacts not only on basic living condition but also on major
industries of a state such as agricultural industry leading to potential harvest issues. For example,
water shortage in Yemen and its effect of the population and harvest demand and decrease in
grain harvest has forced people to migrate where sources of food, harvest and water are readily
available.

Social factors are thus the third key driver for environmental refugees. Social factors which force
people to migrate to other areas include: loss of quality of living conditions, pollution, health
impacts and degradation of livelihoods, food shortage, water excess or shortage and educational
opportunities. These conditions worsen the basic living conditions for inhabitants and force them
to look for areas where resources are available and quality of life is assured.

Likewise, economic and political factors also influence and motivate environmental refugees as
employment opportunities, income and job security are the key reasons why people migrate
towards an area and if the extreme weather conditions lead to depletion of these factors, people
are forced to migrate and add to growing number of environmental refugees. Scarcity of
resources such as food or water can lead to conflicts and tensed situations. Similarly, if
discrimination or persecution is practiced such as change in land ownership policy, it is likely
that inhabitants of that area move to other places and thus get potentially affected by the climate
change.

It is vital to note here that all of the factors that motivate environmental refugees are intertwined
and none of these factor work in isolation. For example, water shortage can lead up to social
conditions such as loss of quality of life and health and population density coupled with natural
disasters such as flood can cause economic factors such as loss of employment and income and
massive property damage. Climate change is thus now found to be one of the main drivers of
displacement and loss of livelihoods, adding to environmental refugees around the globe.

ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES AND SECURITIZATION

The term “environmental refugee” evoke a concerning imagery of people forced to migrate
internally within their borders or externally to other countries due to alarming environmental
conditions such as climate change and environmental degradation. From a legal standpoint,
which offers an official definition of the term, environmental refugees to be protected
internationally should fall under the definitional scope of the United Nations Convention on
Relating to the Status of Refugees or the Refugees Convention 1951 which is given below:
 A person who owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of
race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political
opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such
fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not
having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual
residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is
unwilling to return to it. (UNHCR, 1951)
The definition has largely been criticized for being uninclusive, and representing only a subset of
the practical number of environmental refugees which exist in the status quo who are only to be
protected by UNHCR if their protective attributes mentioned in the definition are harmed due to
environmental change. Therefore, many environmental refugees have been failed to be
recognized under UNHCR definition because of three reasons. Firstly, environmental refugees
can be internally displaced as opposed to fleeing due to a ‘well founded fear’. Secondly, ‘well
founded fear’ of persecution does not sync with the reality physical environmental harm. Finally,
due to the non-existence of a ‘well founded fear’ many environmental refugees are routinely
refused state and international protection.
In order to broaden the definition and scope of protection from a policy standpoint, global
migration scholars such as Susan Martin have created a typology marking distinction between
migration, displacement and planned relocation. Additionally, Susan listed ‘severe harms’
relating to environmental degradation which are equally important to consider and include:
i. long-term trends like drought (where the land is so degraded it ceases to be livable) and
rising sea levels (where the land ceases to be available at all);
ii. more frequent and intense natural disasters, which might lead to both temporary and
permanent decisions to migrate; and
iii. political upheavals connected to the environment. (Susan, 2017)
Ole Waever, Barry Buzan, and Jaap de Wilde collectively represent the ‘Copenhagen School’
which became a key school of thought in IR theory contributing in the field of nontraditional
security vis-à-vis theories such as the Securitization Theory, Regional Security Complex Theory
(RSCT) and their concept of security constellations. This project, however, utilizes Copenhagen
School’s Securitization Theory as the theoretical grounds for explaining the securitization of
environmental refugees.
According to the theory, securitization refers to “an actor’s agenda to frame security status
through speech act and other means for a particular issue in order to gain power to endorse
emergency measures going beyond regular politics” (Buzan et. al, 1998). The theory focuses on
four units of analysis for its explanation: the presence of a securitizing actor, referent object, the
securitizing move, and functional actors. A securitizing actor is the actor framing a referent
object as a security threat, while a referent object is anything that the securitizing actor may
perceive to be a security issue and worth saving. To frame the referent object as a security issue
the securitizing actor presents it as an existential threat which is then called a securitizing move.
A security actor and referent object can be any entity beyond the state and the securitizing move
constitutes more mediums than speech acts alone. Additionally, Securitization Theory offers a
sectoral analysis outlining five non-traditional threats i.e., economic, political, military, societal,
and environmental (Waever, 2017).
With respect to the case of environmental refugees and their securitization, the referent object
can be considered as the climate whose further degradation is intrinsically linked with human
security concerns such as environmental refugeeism. Securitizing actors can be considered as
NGOs, lobbyists, pressure groups, scholars who are pushing for the securitization of
environmental refugeeism as a security concern. In case of the case study however, states hosting
the Syrian refugees can be considered as the security actors framing the referent object i.e.,
Syrian environmental refugees as posing a security threat. Finally, with respect to certain
‘facilitating conditions’ such as the securitization move, and the presence of an audience as
functional actors can be gauged through the popular narratives which the media created for
Syrian refugees with environment. Leading publication like the TIME’s “Syria’s 10-Year War
Has Left A Toxic Environmental Legacy” is a testament of framing environmental degradation
as a significant human security threat for Syrian refugees.

CASE STUDY OF SYRIAN ENVIRONMENT REFUGEES:

Syrian people have benefited from relatively fertile land as well as promotion of staple crop
production from 1970 to 1990. However, since 1980’s the country has been hit by three
droughts, the recent one stretching from 2006 to 2010 being recorded as the worst multilayer
drought in around 900 years of Syrian History. According to former UN special envoy for Syria
between 2014 and 2018; Staffan de Mistura, ‘Climate disruption was an amplifier and multiplier
of the political crisis that was building up in Syria. Rising temperature along with the decreased
precipitation have resulted in devastation and desertification of agricultural land. With this
800,000 people lost their resource of income and 85% of the country’s livestock died. Climate
change may not be alone responsible for the outbreak of war in Syria, but it cannot be ignored
for the once blooming country has become a war torn place.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND CIVIL WAR:

The exceptionally severe drought of Syria started before the civil war erupted. Further fueled by
tightened restrictions on land sales, extensive loss of land rights, increased price of key
agriculture input, spiking price of petrol and diesel and reducing fuel and fertilizer subsidies.
This highlighted the fact that the neighboring countries were experiencing the equivalent climate
change and precipitation decline during the drought years with Iraq being the most vulnerable
but no comparable migration crisis occurred there suggesting that Syrian refugee crisis was more
of a result of these Syria specific factors combined with the effects of Climate Change. By 2011,
the water scarsity of the country pushed those frustrations to the limit. Crackdowns escalated,
protests grew and people erupted with fury.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND MOVING MASSES:

Generally people don’t decide to leave their place due to rising temperature and their responses
are not instant as the circumstances change. However Syrians of northern region have been
leaving their homeland or internally displacing over the past 20 years or so, with the number of
emigrants rising since the last drought of 2006. Other than that Syrian farmers mainly rely on
rain and not on irrigation making them vulnerable to climate change.

According to UN Refugee Agency the severe drought forced a total of 4,087,139 rural residents
and people of jam packed Syrian cities to perform climate induced migration. Most of the
refugees fleeing neighboring countries or European countries that came from Northern and
northeastern part of country i.e. from province of Aleppo, Ar Raqqa, Al Haqsa and Dayr Az
Zawr complained that the major reason of their migration was climate change (Wendle, 2015).

WATER SECURITIZATION BY HOSTING STATES:

Lebanon:
Lebanon hosts 947,063 registered and 500,000 unregistered Syrian Refugees, making almost
1/4th of the Lebanese population. Lebanon as compared to Jordan, Israel and Syria is a water rich
country however but its renewable water level has dramatically dropped from 1000 cubic meters
to 700 cubic meter, making it go below the threshold of water poverty since the arrival of
refugees. According to Lebanon Environment Assessment of Syrian Conflict and Priority
interventions (EASC), public reservoirs, water networks and wells are main source of water for
refuges, increasing the stress on water resources of the country. As a result Lebanese
administration have minimize the access to water for refugee community and on a wide scale a
political narrative have established that frames refugees as a cause of resource depletion,
pollution, population increase and instability. According to UNHRC reports, soon after the 2018
elections, Lebanese have started forcing refugees to return to Syria. While many local
municipalities along with have started tightening restrictions on refugee communities (Hussam
Hussein, 2020).

Jordan:

Jordan hosts 655,000 refugees registered with UNHCR while 1.4 million are those that are not
registered to UNHCR. Jordanian government has estimated that since the Syrian refugee crisis,
water tables have been dropping shrinking the ground water resources. The political discourse of
Jordan also started expressing their regret to host such a humungous mass of Syrians, with the
Jordanian Minister of Water and Irrigation made a statement, ‘The Syrian exodus has fatigued us
Despite all efforts to explore new water resources the gap between supply and demand remains
substantial’ (Hussam Hussein, 2020). Other than that Jordanians due to defective water system
use privatized wells which leads to privatization of costumers and with the nationawide Anti-
refugee discourse it gets hard for Syrian Refugees to get water (haan, 2018).

The Syrian Water Conundrum serves as a major debate in the international community. That is
because the issue serves as a direct catalyst for inflaming war in the country. Usually, a
population bases itself along the water bodies, which remains the basic deduction of human
survival approach. With a state like Syria where water remains a scarce and valuable resource
and the majority of population which used to base itself around the water bodies is now suffering
heavily. The state is in constant state of war which itself is a cause of accelerated depletion of
resources. And now the Syrian people have one more enemy to face that is climate change
leading to large scale and continued droughts in the region catalyzing large scale migrations.
These migrations are not only causing poor life standards, identity crisis and displacement for the
Syrians but are also leading towards the generation of a wave of xenophobic trends in the Middle
Eastern neighboring states that also have scarcity of water resources. A recipe for disaster,
migration doesn’t remain the long-term solution to the Syrian water crisis. However, the crisis
can overcome with a few methods which include the following recommendations:

RECOMMENDATIONS
In order to solve the Syrian water crisis, there could be a few leading solutions that can improve
freshwater supplies:

Water Conservatory Technology

The first and foremost recommendation remains that of acknowledgment. The first thing that
needs to be done is educating the Syrian public regarding the fast-depleting resources of the
world. The population should be taught water preservation practices as to improve the water
levels of the state (Ganter, n.d.). An important water conservatory technology includes water
regulatory measures such as shower regulators, leak detection systems to prevent any seepage of
clean water for waste prevention, outdoor irrigation control systems, rain sensors etc. With these
technologies, the Syrian government can effectively call for acute water saving measures and
regulate the amount of water that people conserve. And though these efforts require micro efforts
for inculcation, they will serve in the long-term perspective of developing sustainable practices.

Non-Conventional Water Resources

The second recommendation remains the establishment of non-conventional water resources for
the Syrian people. That means that water needs to be obtained from the non-natural means that
would improve the quality of water tables. These non-conventional resources include treated
wastewater resources. These resources are obtained through wastewater treatment plans or
WWTP’s. Right now, in Syria there are twenty-six WWTPs which means that the people are
already familiar with the technological effort. However, there is a need to increase this effort by
adding more WWTPs in the state and putting them instantly into operations. Another speculation
is that even though these plants are available only four of them are centralized in Hama,
Damascus, Homs and Aleppo and the rest of the 22 remain decentralized and not working at
their full capacities (ALahmad, 2019).
Desalination Practices
The third recommendation is introducing desalination practices in the country. In Syria the total
desalination capacity is 8.18 cubic meter per day. The key reason that stands in the way of
authorities from installing more plants like this is because of the high costs of water desalination
plants. The state needs to add to its capacities and make this water available not only to
industries, which is the status, but to the population too. That is because sea remains a resource
that is not to suffer from water deficit tendencies therefore utilizing it serves in the best interest
of the population.

Collaboration With International Services

The last recommendation remains the acceptance of international services from the UNICEF to
enter the state and add to the water conservation infrastructure and practices of the state. A
particular step has been taken by WASH of UNICEF. The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
program is to initiate efforts in Syria that focus on bridging the gap between the water treatment
efforts and people of Syria that are multiple humanitarian crisis at the moment. This includes the
creation of wetlands and wastewater treatment facilities. Apart from that, these efforts of WASH
have been fruitful. In 2020, around 27000 Syrians were known to be benefited by the WASH
efforts. Moreover, WASH was successful in seeking approval from the state for three new
projects on water conservation. In Northeastern Syria Stabilization Program Filling the Void
continues to make impact for the Syrian people. The program called for installation of water
tanks that called for short term fulfillment of water supply that also prevented water borne
disease spread in the region (SRTF, 2021). Hence, efforts by international organizations and
water conservation authorities can really help the Syrian refugees from becoming the victims of
environment.

ANALYSIS
With each day the water crisis begins to creep in Syrian land as a much more silent but much
more deadly enemy. The water scarcity plunges the region into further conflict as tension and
mass hysteria comes to play. And these water issues are resolvable by the state government.
However, the state must adopt a sustainable approach first and at some given point even make
the effort of realizing that the war alone is one of the direct causes of plunging the state into the
water crisis. Until that acknowledgment takes place on the part of state, there can be possibilities
of short-term solutions to the water conundrum, but for the state to really facilitate its people,
long term practices including a halt in conflict are the way to go.

The most imperative point is that how environmental resources are the ones which are being
securitized and being used against states’ refugees. The mater of environmental security reflects
how our resources are significantly depleting and states cash upon the degradation of resources.
However, this matter is also politicized to such an extent which reflects how the climate change
and climate refugees have become the topic of discussion and reflects how environment has
become an imperative part of lives. This reflects another ambit of the discussion how
environment is lieu with global politics and how it can easily become the matter of global or
state level security as well.
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Activesustainability.com. 2022. The tragedy of migrations due to climate change.

https://www.activesustainability.com/climate-change/the-tragedy-of-migrations-due-to-climate-
change/

Buzan, B., Wilde, J., and Waever, O., 1998. Security: A New Framework for Analysis.

Climate Refugees. 2022. The Problem — Climate Refugees

https://www.climate-refugees.org/why

haan, L. d. (2018). The Securitization of Water Sector. Rijksuniversiteitgroningen, 31-44.

Hincks, J., 2021. How Syria's Decade-Long War Has Left a Toxic Environmental Legacy. TIME,
[online] Available at: <https://time.com/5946800/syrian-war-environmental-impact/> [Accessed
23 May 2022].

haan, L. d. (2018). The Securitization of Water Sector. Rijksuniversiteitgroningen, 31-44.

Hussam Hussein, A. N. (2020). Syrian Refugees, Water Scarcity, and Dynamic Policies: How

Do the New Refugee Discourses Impact Water Governance Debates in Lebanon and Jordan?
MDPI, 1-15.

L. Peters, K., 2011. Environmental Refugees. Undergraduate. California Polytechnic State

University.

Mann, M. and Kump, L., 2009. Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming. 2nd ed. DK.

Martin, S., 2017. Environmental Change and Human Mobility: Trends, Law and Policy.