Climate action is central to tackling the Syrian refugee crisis

The latest drought stretched from 2006 to 2010 and is categorized by the UN as the worst multi-year drought in 900 years. Around 800,000 inhabitants - out of 17.5 million - lost their livelihoods, and about 85% of the country's livestock died during this period. As a result of the drought, yields fell by up to 2/3, and cereals had to be imported in large quantities, doubling grain prices quickly. Due to the deepening economic crisis, President Assad reduced water, energy, and food subsidies. At the same time, conflicts over access to water in rural areas increased between the different ethnic groups in the country. With the continuing drought and reduced livelihoods, a total of 1.5 million Syrians moved into the cities, where there was no socio-economic basis to receive and manage the sizeable rural influx, resulting in social and political unrest.

Fast forward to today, where we have a Syrian refugee crisis that has left 450,000 people dead in Syria and well over half of the Syrian population displaced, over 12 million out of 17 million inhabitants, according to UNHCR, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Either as internally displaced persons (6.7 million) or as refugees in neighboring countries (5.5 million), including Turkey (3.5 million), Lebanon (900,000), Jordan (700,000), Iraq (250,000), and Egypt (140,000). About half of the refugees are children, and among the 4 million IDPs in the Idlib province in north-western Syria alone, 80% are women and children. Asked directly, 97% of Syrian refugees in Jordan, according to UNHCR, say they do not see themselves returning to Syria within 12 months. The security is simply too bad.

I visited Lebanon and Jordan as a member of the Danish Development Policy Council to better understand the complexity of the current Syrian refugee situation in the region and, in that context, better understand the Danish response to an extraordinarily complex situation. And the need for coherence in Danish development policy efforts was made abundantly clear. Only a fully integrated approach to peace and stability, sustainable development, humanitarian aid, and climate action is truly meaningful. And the current Danish efforts in Lebanon are an excellent example of this recognition.

Lebanon - When development, humanitarian aid, and climate action merge.

The refugee crisis is placing an enormous burden on recipient countries, not least Lebanon, which (according to some estimates) hosts up to 1.5 million Syrian refugees in addition to the 500,000 Palestinian refugees already in the country - out of a total Lebanese population of 6.7 million. The situation in Lebanon is already critical, with an economy in free fall and a population that has reportedly lost all faith in their government to look after their interests in the wake of the major explosion in Beirut port. Lebanon's GDP has fallen in a few years from $55 billion to $22 billion, and general political mismanagement of the country by its many sectarian leaders since the civil war of the 1990s has led the World Bank, quite unusually, to describe developments in Lebanon as an 'intentional depression'. 

On top of this downturn, and indeed a massive health crisis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, comes the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Lebanon imports 80% of its grain from Ukraine and the rest from Russia and Moldova. The consequence of the above factors is widespread food insecurity for refugees and nationals in Lebanon, with the UN estimating that over 3.3 million inhabitants (i.e., around 50%) need immediate food and humanitarian aid. Inflation is generally around a few hundred percent, but it has reached over double that for food and energy.

The collapsing economy, coupled with rising energy prices, is now causing hospitals and pharmacies to close, as they, among others, can no longer afford to keep the electricity running and the medicines cool. Reportedly 40% of Lebanon's health workers have emigrated, as have many others, contributing to the brain drain that has characterized Lebanon's educated following the political unrest that followed the explosion at Beirut port, which itself left some 300,000 residents homeless and buildings destroyed within a 6-kilometer radius of the port.

Climate amplifies vulnerability and poverty creation

To this, we can add increasing climate change, estimated to include temperature rises, water scarcity, prolonged droughts, and a consequent decline in food production. The Lebanese government itself estimates that climate change could lead to a further reduction in GDP of 14% by 2040 and 32% by 2080, stating in its latest climate plan: "Extreme weather events continue to affect public health, human settlements, infrastructure, agricultural production, power supply, and the economy in general. Fragile biodiversity, ecosystems, and natural habitats will be threatened by increased forest fires, pest outbreaks, sea-level rise, storm intensity, and drought. In addition, a decrease in snow cover, water availability, agricultural productivity, fisheries and aquaculture, and tourism will have a high economic cost. Studies show that for parched years when total annual precipitation is low, total GDP is estimated to lose more than 60% compared to years when total precipitation reached its optimal level".

Overall, Lebanon faces a high degree of insecurity in its food supply, as 90% of all cereals are imported, and 70% of all food is. In an environment of hyperinflation, soaring food prices, and a collapsing economy, reliance on increased domestic production becomes crucial. Here Lebanon is challenged by the fact that only about 1/5 of the country is fertile and extensive parts of these areas are fallow. Efforts are underway - including with Danish assistance - to rehabilitate agricultural areas on mountain terraces. However, the scale is still quite inadequate, and with existing climate scenarios, Lebanon could face quite serious challenges in self-sufficiency due to, among other things, rising temperatures and dwindling rainfall and aquifers in the coming decades. As in all other countries in Denmark's immediate neighborhood, job creation, climate resilience, and food production in rural areas will be crucial for overall resilience and thus as a bulwark against increased poverty and thus against accelerated involuntary migration to cities and neighboring countries as well as to Europe.

Climate, humanitarian aid, and development must be integrated

The situation in Lebanon is in many ways unique in the 'intentional depression' that can be attributed to an irresponsible group of sectarian warlords. Still, it may also be a taste of what will come on a much larger scale in Europe's neighborhoods and the near future. Both the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, as well as Central Asia, which together constitute Europe's migration-producing neighborhoods, are on fire, marked by increasing extremism and political fragility, sectarian violence and armed conflict, drought, water scarcity, and crop failures, as well as inadequate job creation and lack of prospects for a rapidly growing young population.

All these factors contribute to the risk of a fundamental breakdown of local resilience to socio-economic and development challenges and thus contribute to the basis for poverty creation, increased vulnerability, and accelerated migration - both internally and across borders.

In this context, an ambitious effort to support a climate-resilient development pathway will be crucial in the fight against poverty and vulnerability, including exploiting the strong synergies that can lie in mitigating increased water scarcity, promoting the introduction of more climate-resilient crops, promoting increased and more efficient food production from just such crops, establishing renewable energy plants based on solar, wind and geothermal energy to accelerate the decarbonization of their economies, increase access to modern energy, ensure job creation, establish local markets and provide the supporting catalytic and risk financing. All based, of course, on a solid and uncompromising rights-based approach.  

Because ofthis recognition, there must be close coordination, if not a full integration, of regional humanitarian, development, and climate action. All this is to ensure that solutions found at the nexus of these concerns are based on synergies between them and are also sustainable in the long term. To avoid losing vulnerable populations while strengthening the overall resilience of the countries concerned.

• Humanitarian action is therefore meaningless if it is not integrated from the outset with development efforts to deliver systemic change to ensure the resilience of populations to both poverty and increasing climate change.
• Development efforts will not make sense if they do not support a sustainable and climate-smart development path from the outset and strengthen the country's resilience to any humanitarian crisis.
• Thus, climate action does not make sense if it does not contribute from the outset to accelerated decarbonization of the recipient countries' economies and support the resilience of their populations to both the effects of climate change and other poverty-inducing causes.

The economic impact: integrated aid needs to be significantly scaled up

Given the severe and growing challenges in Denmark's immediate neighborhood, our investment in global solidarity, our own security, and in our foreign policy advocacy should be significantly increased. It is not in Denmark's interest for the countries concerned to be plunged into chaos, crisis, and conflict, but instead for Denmark to step up its efforts to create peace, stability, economic livelihoods, and resilience in the face of, among other things, the severe onset of climate change. It is good that Denmark has, with its latest development policy strategy, taken the first steps by increasing its climate funding and reserving 60% of its development aid for climate action. Still, more must be done to tackle far more complex crises at the intersection of development, humanitarian aid, and climate change.

Denmark, with 0.7% of GNI, is well behind Norway and Sweden with 1.02% and 0.99% of GNI, respectively. And a large part - about DKK 2 billion of the Danish development budget of about DKK 17 billion is currently used to cover refugee-related expenditure in Denmark, which is paradoxical. Denmark's fiscal surplus in the first quarter of 2022 was a staggering DKK 116 billion, and the total surplus in 2021 reached DKK 121 billion. And this is despite fears of economic slowdown after covid pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In other words, we can afford to reflect greater global solidarity in our actions, and pursue enhanced longer term self-interest by ensuring more resilient neighborhood regions.

The government and parliament should live up to the narrative of Denmark being a green and development policy pioneer and should therefore increase the development budget to at least 1.0% of GNI with a view to a targeted strengthening of an integrated approach to development aid, humanitarian aid and climate action in our neighborhood regions. This would be timely.