First Fed Program To Resettle Climate Change Refugees

One of the first of the new federal “climate resilience” grants went to resettle the native residents of an increasingly flooded out island that is part of Louisiana, a state that is said to have has lost land area the size of Delaware since the 1930s. Some stark numbers suggest the scale of the looming problem. A UN agency estimates that between 50 million and 200 million people could be displaced by 2050, while the number who would be moved from Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana, through a grant of $48 million, is 60. “The divisions the effort has exposed and the logistical and moral dilemmas it has presented point up in microcosm the massive problems the world could face in the coming decades as it confronts a new category of displaced people who have become known as climate refugees,” says a feature article about the Louisiana project in the New York Times. The $48 million grant is part of a $1 billion dollar Department of Housing and Urban Development program that is supposed to help communities in 13 states adapt to climate change. The Louisiana project is the first that tries to address the issue by moving an entire community.