MAG: ‘Somali Immigrants Fled Climate Change’ – ‘Fled climate catastrophes that the U.S. has helped create’
By Admin
March 9, 2026
1:20 pm
https://newrepublic.com/article/207231/somali-immigrants-climate-trumpBy Elham Shirin – The New Repubic
Somali immigrants in the U.S. haven’t just fled violence—they’ve fled climate catastrophes that the U.S. has helped create.
Excerpt:
But what Trump—and the political discourse focused on conflict-driven migration out of Somalia—misses is the pervasive role of climate change in people’s decisions to move both in and out of Somalia. Persistent drought—made a hundred times more likely due to warming caused by fossil fuel emissions—is affecting Somali people’s decisions to either relocate internally or migrate across international borders.
Somalia’s contribution to climate change is almost nonexistent—estimates say it accounts for about 0.08 percent of global emissions. But the country faces devastating consequences of climate change, with average temperatures rising by 1.7 degrees Celsius (over three degrees Fahrenheit) since 1970. From 2020 to 2023, the East Africa region had five failed rainy seasons, an unprecedented drought and climatic episode not seen in 40 years, which led to 70 percent crop loss, three million livestock deaths, and the displacement of about 2.9 million people in Somalia, according to some estimates. Even today, Somalia is in the midst of a drought emergency; there has been no rain since last year, and hundreds of families have moved to find food and water in the Bari region of northern Somalia.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2026/03/09/mag-somali-immigrants-fled-climate-change-fled-climate-catastrophes-that-the-u-s-has-helped-create/
