Climate Change: Conference & Resources

The UN Climate Change Conference is meeting in Cancun, Mexico from 29 November to 10 December 2010. The Towards Recognition blog has posted a listing of some of the migration/displacement-related side events due to take place. In addition, IRIN has compiled a guide on How to Sound Knowledgeable in Cancun: Selected Articles on the Humanitarian Implications of Climate Change.

Elsewhere, Jane McAdam has posted a preprint of her forthcoming International Journal of Refugee Law article in SSRN. It's entitled "Swimming Against the Tide: Why a Climate Change Displacement Treaty is Not the Answer." Here's the abstract:

Drawing on field work in Tuvalu, Kiribati and Bangladesh, this article argues that advocacy for a new treaty to address climate-related movement is presently misplaced for a number of reasons. The article does not deny the real impacts that climate change is already having on communities, or that migration is a normal adaptive response to such change. Rather, it queries the utility – and, importantly, the policy consequences – of pinning ‘solutions’ to climate change-related displacement on a multilateral instrument, in light of the likely nature of movement, the desires of communities affected by it, and the fact that a treaty will not, without wide ratification and implementation, ‘solve’ the humanitarian issue. The argument is developed by examining some conceptual and pragmatic difficulties in attempting to construct a refugee-like instrument for people fleeing the effects of climate change, and by critiquing whether there are legal benefits, as opposed to political benefits, to be gained by advocating for such an instrument.

Finally, Susan Martin's background paper for the World Migration Report on "Climate Change and International Migration" is now available on IOM's web site. The aim of the paper is to discuss "the potential impact of climate change on migration patterns, examine the existing capacities to address these forms of movement and the areas where capacity‐building is required, and make recommendations for addressing climate change-induced migration" (p. 6).

Tagged Publications and Events & Opportunities.