ENVIRONMENTAL DISPLACEMENTS

The environmental disasters that generate the greatest number of displacements are those caused by humans: those caused by the extractive industry, agroindustry and factory farming, and those caused by climate change. The extractive and agro-livestock industry monopolizes huge areas of land and generates pollution that affects even larger areas, forcing many populations to abandon those territories. Climate change is exacerbating destructive torrential rains, droughts and other environmental disasters, and is also forcing many populations to displace. In both cases, most of the displacements are internal, but there are also migrations that mainly go to neighbouring countries. These migrations are treated as economic, but the countries of the global North have a political responsibility in the disasters that cause them, a responsibility that should not be eluded. That accountability implies an obligation to provide international protection to people who emigrate for these reasons.