Finn Myrstad » COP15

Climate Change and Migration: July update

Finn Myrstad — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:15:39 +0000

The Copenhagen summit is approaching and the amount of news articles covering the topic of climate change and migration is increasing, as the last posts on this blog can attest to. The latest news I have caught up on is as follows:

The renowned NGO Oxfam released a report on Climate Change in the Pacific this week. It is worth a read, as it highlights the changes that are already taking place in the pacific and for the people living there and what must be done. I can recommend the report itself and a short description at the towardsrecognition.org website.
The Financial Times also covered the issue summarizing some of the debate the topic of environmental migration/displacement and using illustrative examples in their weekend issue some time back.
The Economist also dedicated a few pages on the topic in an article in their last June issue, called “A new (under) class of travellers“
CARE International, UN University and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at the Earth Institute of Columbia University launched a report in May called “In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement“, and is also worth a read:

I do not have time to write summaries of each and every one of these sources, but I hope it can be useful to know about their whereabouts at least.

A new report on climate change and displacement

Finn Myrstad — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:54:44 +0000

Short update here. Yet another report was published this week on the issue of climate change and displacement. Have a read about it at the Euractiv pages.

I can also recommend this website (towardsrecognition.org) advocating recognition of environmentally displaced persons.

Climate change and forced migration discussed in Bonn next week

Finn Myrstad — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:02:00 +0000

The talks on a global climate change agreement continues this and next week in Bonn. One of the many side-event will focus only the issue of forced migration/displacement. The event is organized by the Norwegian Refugee Council and has many high level speakers such as Craig Jonstone, Deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The side event on forced migration and climate change is on the 8th of June

Furthermore, the latest negotiation text includes a reference to human mobility (para 25 e), which we can just hope will stay in the text also after the Bonn-negotiations. I have yet to find an EU position on this issue. Please feel free to let me know if you happen to sit on that information.

The think tank headed by Kofi Annan, Global Humanitarian Forum, published a report last week on the human impact of climate change, covering a wide range of issues including environmentally displaced persons. The report does not bring too much new facts on the table regarding this issue, but it has some interesting case-studies illustrating the devastating impact of climate change in Bangladesh, Ghana and and small island states. The report contributes to the growing recognition of the subject and is definitively worth a read.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) published a policy paper on climate change and displacement in May, which is also worth a read together with a New York Times article on the topic that came out last week. There finally seem to be a momentum to recognize the issue at the international level and hopefully the end-text in Copenhagen will address this issue properly.