Colombian President Warns of Migration 'Explosion' Driven by Climate Change Decades Ahead

LOS ANGELES, (Sputnik) - Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez warned during a panel discussion about the Venezuelan refugee crisis that there will be an explosion of migration around the world in the coming decades that will be driven by climate change.

The panel discussion took place on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas that kicked off in Los Angeles on Monday at the same time as a 10,000-strong US-bound migrant caravan left the town of Tapachula on the Mexico-Guatemala border. Most of the migrants in the caravan are reportedly from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua - the three countries the United States did not invite to the summit.

"The world migration problem is not going to start diminishing," Duque said on Tuesday. "I think we're going to see in the course of the next decades more and more migration, and there's some phenomenon that I think we all have to consider, and it's that we're going to see an explosion of climate driven migrants around the world."

Floods, transmittable diseases, rising sea levels and coastal erosion are commonly reoccurring events in today's world that are leading to poverty, illness and despair in certain countries, leading to increased migration, Duque said.

The Colombian president pointed out that another challenge will be addressing refugees' needs while at the same time trying to reduce the xenophobia that exists against migrants in host countries.

USAID Assistant Administrator for the Bureau of Latina America and the Caribbean Marcela Escobari said during the event that there is a very short window of opportunity for the international community to take a really bold response to resolve the immigration crisis in Latin America.

Escobari added that the crisis can be turned into an economic boom if countries coordinate and share the burden. However, the potential for collectively resolving the situation will become untenable if only a few countries participate.

US Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration Julieta Valls Noyes said  the global community has to get creative and look for new solutions like the World Bank's new global concessional financing facility in order to provide substantial support to countries that are hosting migrants in Latin America.