Climate Refugees
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Thank you for downloading the More or Less podcast from the BBC. You can find out more about our programme on our website, bbc.co.uk slash radio4. But before you do that, here's Tim Harford.
Hello and welcome to More or Less. Always willing to enter the ring and go 12 rounds against lazy or deceitful number crunching. The voice of the electorate knocked us off air on Friday, but we don't stay down for long.
And Clay is down! Cooper has found him! Oh, a beautiful punch there!
Sir Henry Cooper's most famous moment. More of that later. We'll also be asking what statistics about child poverty really tell us. We'll revisit the curious case of John Charles. And the geographer Danny Dorling will be dipping into his database to challenge our preconceptions about Britain. But first, a few weeks ago, the blogosphere was awash with accusations of a grand climate change conspiracy. The UN, so they claimed, had tried to cover up a prediction made about climate refugees. By 2010, it's been forecast, climate change or other environmental changes will force millions of people to flee their homes. You will have noticed that this no longer counts as a prediction, but as a historical claim.
So where are these migrants? Hannah Barnes has been looking into this for us. Hannah, what's the story?
Well, this controversy is all about the prediction that there were supposed to be 50 million climate refugees by the year 2010 and a corresponding map that appeared on the United Nations Environment Programme's website. The map attempted to show where those refugees would come from. Now, an Australian blogger called Gavin Atkins had been wondering about this map.
I produce five blogs every week. One of them was a blog about climate refugees and I recalled seeing a map that was produced by the United Nations Environment Programme which purported to show where 50 million climate refugees would come from by the year 2010. So I had a look at the census data for 2010 and lo and behold found that around the world the areas that they'd suggested would be the sources of millions of climate refugees were in fact areas that were increasing in population.
Now, once Gavin Atkins called attention to the map, something interesting happened.
After a few days I got an email saying that the United Nations Environment Programme had taken the map down. I put out another blog post mentioning this fact and from that point it took off. Within about five days I had the most popular environment story on the internet.
And did the UN have an explanation for what was going on?
Well, initially, no. When you tried to go to the page where the map once was held, it gave a rather bizarre error message.
Dear visitor, it seems like the map you're navigating by is maybe not fully up to date, or that it might have an error in it. Or is it that your GPS is not loaded with the correct data? We're just taking the scenic route, darling. See, honey, we're not lost. I know where we are. This way, I think.
Hmm. Are you seriously trying to tell me this was the message on a UN website?
Yeah, it was. I saw it with my own eyes.
Obviously not the scenic route thing, though.
Even the message about the scenic route. And we have the screenshot on the More or Less website as well for other people to see it. I should say it's changed to something a little more sober now. I asked the spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme, or UNEP, why the map was removed. He told me that he had asked for it to be removed because it was wrong. He was also keen to stress that just because something's hosted on their website, it doesn't imply that they agree or disagree with it.
So they've distanced themselves from the whole thing?
What was the controversy over the UN's '50 million climate refugees by 2010' map?
Yeah, completely. But there are two problems with that. So first of all, UNEP actually helped fund the original study that came up with the data contained in the map. And second, this figure, the 50 million, and others from that same study have been widely quoted by other UN agencies. the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and by governments around the world.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:47
2
What was the controversy over the UN's '50 million climate refugees by 2010' map?
3:47–7:24
3
How did blogger Gavin Atkins and UNEP respond to the removed climate refugees map?
7:24–22:59
4
Where did the '50 million' climate refugees figure originate and is it credible?
22:59–25:22
5
What do migration experts say about the evidence for climate-driven mass migration?
25:22–27:55