Last week, nearly 200 countries unanimously adopted a landmark decision that sets the world on a path to phase out fossil fuels and transition to a zero-emissions energy future. The Global Stocktake (GST) decision at COP28 in Dubai is a baby step, but it’s a step that can’t be untaken. For the first time, all the leaders of the global community acknowledged on paper that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels must be eliminated ASAP to avoid raising global average temperatures to levels incompatible with human life.
As welcome—albeit insufficient—as the GST is, even the speediest fossil fuel phaseout won’t halt ongoing climate changes, which will become more extreme in coming decades. According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report published this year by the US Global Climate Research Program, the State of Texas will experience those changes in myriad ways: heat; winter storms; tornados; drought; and other weather impacts will upend the financial calculus for homeowners, businesses, and investors, while tracking new vector-borne diseases and mapping new invasive species will frame the careers of today’s high school students. New global trade regimes and carbon pricing will force Texas entrepreneurs to keep fossil fuels in the ground—and maybe to sequester carbon emissions there, too—while going big on solar and wind. All of these phenomena will be statewide, and they are manifesting currently.
The special sauce for South Texas will be its position as the crossroads of the world for “climate mobility,” also known as human migration. That’s already manifesting, too. Regardless of the magical thinking of elected officials, no amount of draconian policies will prevent mass displacement of people from climate impacts. Already, floods, droughts, mudslides, fires, and other catastrophes are driving people around the world to leave their communities. Climate-induced disasters are provoking or intensifying societal tension and political conflict, leading to persecution and violence.
U.S. and international law currently offer little if any protection for climate migrants. They cannot base an asylum claim on climate change, nor do they meet the definition of refugee. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) has proposed a prophetic federal Climate Displaced Persons Act, which would creating a new humanitarian framework for people displaced by environmental disasters or climate change, but Congress and the Biden Administration are poised to impose new restrictions and penalties on climate migrants as part of a deal on funding for Ukraine—the polar opposite of what Markey’s bill suggests. And this week, the governor signed a draconian "show me your papers" law designed to repel and reject asylum-seekers no matter what catastrophes they are fleeing.
The Texas Legislature will learn that no walls, be they physical or metaphorical, can isolate this state from this moment in global history. In the near term, Texas’ callous posture will not stop climate migrants from crossing the Rio Grande. In the longer term, as the climate crisis deepens and the flow of migration intensifies, “civil society”—that is, local governments, humanitarian nonprofits, the faith community, and the private sector—will spend billions of dollars remediating the state’s failure. And the grim irony in all of this is that Texas won’t just be a destination for migrants from the Global South: it also will experience internal displacement as residents of the Texas Gulf Coast make their way inland, and drought-stricken South Texas communities migrate north.
Many of the climate change challenges Texas will face are already set in motion: it’s too late to turn back the clock on our state’s fossil-fueled past, or to cancel the existential threat climate impacts pose to billions of people. In this moment, Texas should choose to be on the right side of history, not the wrong side of a wall.
Editor's Note: The above guest column was penned by Bee Moorhead, executive director of Texas Impact, the oldest and largest interfaith advocacy group in the state and the only state-level, faith-based organization in the U.S. admitted as an NGO observer to the UNFCCC. Moorhead is a chapter co-author of the Fifth National Climate Assessment. COP28 in Dubai was her seventh COP. The above column appears in The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service with the permission of the author. Moorhead can be reached by email via: bee@texasimpact.com.
