How climate conditions have taken over the agenda of governments and society in the 21st century!

Increasingly, we have seen people migrating from one country to another or within their own country due to ideological and economic conditions, but what is new now is that they are also migrating due to climatic conditions. At the end of the 19th century, America experienced one of the largest waves of forced migrants in the world, and we can say, using the words of historians, “that it was the greatest genocide of a population because of the condition of its skin”. We have to add to all this the fact that the era of industrialization and global trade began, influential factors in arriving at the story we hear every day through the media.

There is a universal movement to bury reality or at least deny the effects of climate on the population and the economy. The interesting thing about this view is that hyperinformation has contributed to an increasing number of followers believing in this thesis, given that the principle of this methodology is to present a large amount of information, but very superficial information on the subjects. On the contrary, they are informed citizens who are aware of environmental issues and their economic, environmental and social impacts.

What have we done and how can we help all those who find themselves in this situation?

Schools, in general, have developed tasks and school activities that awaken students to how we can improve our relationship with our community. A while ago, *Jorge and *Isadora were together visiting a group of migrants, where living conditions are as decent as possible, of course evoking our introduction, the most important thing is to survive. They were developing a communication project on law: fundamental rights and migrants, i.e. explaining how the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, also known as the Pact of San José da Costa Rica, has been part of the Brazilian legal system since 1992. The focus they have given is on providing the citizen, although in exile, with a transeunt

and that there are articles and decrees in the Brazilian Constitution that support their passage through the country and offer minimum guarantees, which we all seek, to be a citizen with full rights, as protected by the Magna Carta.

In the same group, we had two cases: Haitians, people who were forced to migrate because of the earthquake tragedy of January 12, 2010, which left around 230,000 people dead and more than a million homeless, and Venezuelans, who migrated because of the political situation in their country.

The greatest effect for us, who believed we were giving a little comfort and knowledge, was to leave loaded with stories

Initially, the groups were a little suspicious, and asked what we were going to do, what information we were going to give or how we thought we could help them with their problems? The first story we heard was from a woman who had left her son in Roraima, a state in the north of Brazil, in a refugee camp, because she didn’t have all the money for transportation, nor the access documentation required by the authorities to enter exile, since on domestic flights and due to the momentary condition in Brazil, every foreigner who enters Porto Velho airport, the state capital, must present the necessary documentation to allow them to move. The tricky thing was that she asked them to help her with this, with her need, and that wasn’t the mission. Soon, more people were arriving, asking their doubts, legal conflicts and anxieties and seeking the solution that each moment demanded.

To tell this group that the Constitution clearly defines where the responsibilities of the state and governments lie in helping people in these conditions. They described how they can obtain documents, registrations with the federal police and other institutions, and public policies and programs to improve the quality of life of each of those who were at this meeting.

But where are the climate migrants we said we’d be introducing here!

In Brazil, we have three types of climate migrants: Brazilians who, due to the lack of public policies to mitigate the results of climate events, have migrated from their states and cities to other states in the Federation, foreigners who use Brazil as a transit route to other countries, and those who end up staying because they believe that this is a friendly, receptive country full of opportunities, the green-yellow dream. Brazil has become one of the new migration routes, where there are already more than 1.5 million migrants and, within this, around 650 in refugee status, according to the international organization UNHCR.

“Just because we think the system isn’t perfect, we can’t stop fighting to make it better”

I heard this phrase and I couldn’t help but put it into practice, because it’s well known that in order for my life and territory to be more comfortable, it’s necessary for the others on my side to be on an equal footing in the struggle for a dignified life.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Brazil experienced one of its largest rural exoduses, in other words, one of the largest human migratory masses in Latin America due to the drought that lasted more than 10 years in the northeast region. This climatic phenomenon has caused a “peasant diaspora”, although the term is used with a prejudiced semantic charge, here, at this moment, we use it to determine the forced advance that the climatic conditions and little or no urban infrastructure in the Brazilian northeastern semi-arid region is practiced, leading the people of these lands to abandon them and migrate to the city, to the streets, to underemployment, for many, to the favelas.

However, we have to add the Haitian migrants we mentioned at the beginning of our essay, who, in addition to being destitute due to the force of migration, also face the abuse of coyotes** and, an element that adds up to something extravagant, language, because the fact that they are in the Americas and speak Spanish, but French, makes them distant, very distant, and more vulnerable among the vulnerable.

Possible new routes for climate migrants in Brazil

Rio Grande do Sul, a Brazilian state in the south of the country, is experiencing one of the greatest climatic impacts of the modern era: never before has Brazil seen such a concentration of rainfall in a single territory. More than 90% of the state’s population of more than 11 million was affected, either directly or indirectly. Other cities have been affected by 100% of their population, infrastructure and economy, due to the history already surveyed in the country, just as many people who migrated from the northeast to the south in the past, looking for better conditions, can now reverse hands, so we should see a movement from the south to the northeast, or to the center-west of the country, because, in this continental country, the extreme territories have been going through calamity situations and with it their population. Although the government is beginning to change the implementation of adaptation policies, it will take time for the positive effects to be felt by all those directly affected. Now, Haitian, Venezuelan, Colombian and other climate migrants have continued their march, as many who had settled in the country’s southern cities are now exiled within Brazil.