It has been a while since my last update here and I intend to do something about it now. There have been many interesting things happening around the world on the issue of environmentally displaced persons. A side-event at the climate change conference in Poznan dealt with the issue, so did a conference hosted by the Refugees Studies Centre in Oxford in the beginning of January, the Parliamentary Assembly in the Council of Europe debated the issue and more.

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A calculation from the European Commission estimates that Norway has increased it GDP with 6-8 billion Euro’s a year as a direct consequence of their membership in the European Economic Area (EEA), which gives Norwegian business access to the internal market in the same way as EU-members. The calculation was leaked to Norwegian media today and has apparently been used as leverage to push Norway into increasing their contributions to new EU member states in the re-negotiations of the EEA-agreement.

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The EU’s Global Approach to Migration is formulated these days in the EU. The Commission released in October a Communication with proposals on how the EU can have a more comprehensive and all encompassing policy towards all forms of migration. The interesting thing, from a climate change point of view, is that the Comission for the first time is mentioning migration and climate change in an official document (at least as far as I know) and proposed that the EU should formulate a policy on the area on page 8;

Furthermore, the EU should also formulate a policy in response to recent developments such as the increasing impact of climate change on migratory movements.

And page 9 says:

Explore the relationship between climate change and migration and gain a better understanding of the number of people affected now and in the future.

Even though a communication such as this is non-binding for member states, is it at least a step towards a more firm approach to the issue of climate change and migration.

The Climate Change Summit in Poznan kicked off yesterday, with a side event on climate change and displcement hosted by the UNHCR planned for Monday 08 December. There are currently no agenda or papers online, but the description from the Poznan side event site says the following:

Climate change, migration and forced displacement: the new humanitarian frontier?
Climate change is projected to add to the scale and complexity of human mobility. What instruments/tools are available to the international community to meet this new humanitarian challenge? Will new tools and paradigms be needed to address large-scale internal displacement and cross-border flows?

I look forward receiving reports from this session and I promise to post it here as soon as I have something.

The increased interest for climate change and displacement is resulting in more and more written contributions in the area. This week I stumbled upon a few more web sites and articles related to the issue.

• The UNHCR published in October a policy paper on Climate change, natural disasters and human displacement: a UNHCR perspective. They also have a very good web site with an overview of many papers on the issue. 
• Forced Migration Review dedicated its October Issue to Climate Change and Displacement. It contains many interesting articles on the issue.
• Mikhail Gorbachev’s Green Cross Australia branch have dedicated quite a lot space on their site, publishing many interesting articles on the topic.

Other interesting things happening:

• Last week an adaptation conference was held in Netherlands. Read the outline of the conference here.
• A seminar is planned in Copenhagen on the 10th of December, by the Danish institute for International Studies, on Migration and Climate Change.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that the Government of the Maldives is planning to buy up land through an investment fund in order to pre-empt their population status as climate refugees. This is the first initiative that I have heard of where states are considering to buy up land elsewhere to house their population in the event of rising sea levels and increased extreme weather.

The only similar adaptation measure which aims at permanently relocating a population could be the Asian Pacific Category of New Zealand, as mentioned earlier in this blog, which aims to resettle 75 to 150 persons from some selected pacific islands each year.

Many states are producing and implementing climate change action plans and equivalent, but it seems as the displacement aspects often are ignored, as pointed out in several comments recently made to the `Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan` (BCCSAP ) that the forced migration aspect, or displacement aspect, is ignored.

Can anyone let me know if there are any other resettlement schemes or similar adaptation measures initiated to address the issue of climate refugees or environmentally displaced persons?