Assessing the climate vulnerabilities of Syrian immigrants living in Istanbul from a climate justice perspective

Date

2023-9-08

Author

Güneş, Elif Bengi

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

203
views

92
downloads

Cite This

As global climate change reveals restrictions on the equal distribution of fundamental rights and emission rights, its consideration as a social and political issue has led to the emergence of the climate justice concept. The inequalities chronically deepened by climate change are becoming more visible for specific groups. Environmental risks affect marginalized groups such as low-income communities, people with disabilities, women, and migrants, although they contribute least to the crisis. Migrant groups are more susceptible to community-scale climate change risks due to intersectionality. The study’s main objective is to provide an analysis that measures the adaptive capacity and vulnerability of Syrian migrants in Istanbul, which hosts the largest migrant population in Turkey. The study primarily identified neighborhoods with excessive exposure to climate impacts with macro-scale maps. Accordingly, systematic data on migrants’ vulnerabilities were collected through interviews in selected districts. The field study found that Syrians are vulnerable to climate risks due to insufficient income, limited and indirect disaster experience, lack of social status, risk knowledge and awareness, corporate inaccessibility, and language obstacles. These disempowering factors cause them to live mostly in critical areas and unplanned settlements of Istanbul due to climatic hazards and have constrained coping skills and tools. Consistent qualitative analysis on how the gradual presence of Syrians in Istanbul can overlap with future climate risks is expected to raise the issue of social justice in addressing climate change in Turkey and stimulate necessary adaptation policies for disadvantaged groups.

Subject Keywords

Climate justice, Social justice, Climate vulnerability, Forced migration, Syrians

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/105499

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis