News & Resources
The following is an overview of a series of five ministry-focused briefs setting out rights-based, country-agnostic recommendations on climate mobility that governments can act on now. Individual briefs are linked below.
What is Climate Mobility?
The effects of rapid onset and slow onset climate events are reshaping human mobility. This presents a climate mobility policy challenge for all Governments. Climate mobility encompasses the full range of mobility and immobility caused or influenced by both rapid onset and slow onset climate events. This includes temporary and permanent migration, forced displacement, planned relocation, as well as immobility.
Methodology
This policy series intends to answer the central question of how national Government ministries can effectively anticipate and respond to climate mobility. The following briefs were developed from in-depth research by subject matter experts during a one-year project generously funded by the Quadrature Charitable Foundation. The most effective national climate mobility practice and policy recommendations were surfaced from an extensive desk-based landscape mapping, focused desk research on existing policy interventions, and over 100 interviews with practitioners spanning six of the seven continents of the world. These findings were then pressure-tested and peer-reviewed. These final briefs distil the research findings into actionable, rights-based policy recommendations that are country agnostic and ministry focused. The remit of this series is limited to national level responses; recognition must be given for the need for regional and local level responses in order to holistically address climate mobility.
Overview – Climate Mobility Policy Responses For:
- National security advisors – Intelligence, foresight and anticipatory investment.
- Development aid ministries – Anticipatory actions, urban resilience and diaspora finance.
- Internal climate displacement – Cross-ministerial: environment, finance, housing, emergency response.
- Home affairs ministries – Eligibility, labour pathways and humanitarian routes.
- Foreign affairs ministries – Engaging with free movement blocs.
Definitions
The Law does not yet provide clear definitions for the rights, responsibilities and needs of individuals impacted by climate events. Given this legal vacuum, the accurate use of terminology is crucially important. This project employs the following terms and definitions:
“Climate migrants”: While people on the move due to climate change or environmental hazards are often referred to as “climate migrants”, this term lacks any basis in law. This term fails to capture the nature of movement, such as whether it is internal or cross-border. It also fails to address its temporality, such as whether it is permanent, temporary and/or circular, and it fails to denote whether the movement is voluntary or forced. Due to these ambiguities, these briefs do not use this term.
“Climate events”: This refers both to rapid onset climate events (such as storms and floods) and slow onset climate events (such as sea-level rise and desertification). This term includes environmental changes that are not necessarily attributable to climate change, such as land degradation, deforestation, biodiversity loss and resource depletion.
“Climate-related displacement” is used to describe a particular form of climate mobility, i.e. situations in which people are forced or compelled to leave their place of habitual residence because of rapid onset or slow onset climate events. Where this displacement occurs within a country, we refer to this as “internal climate displacement.”
“Climate vulnerability” is used to describe the extent to which individuals, communities, livelihoods, territories or ecosystems are exposed and susceptible to the adverse impacts of rapid onset and slow onset climate events. This term considers exposure to climate events alongside the community’s capacity to anticipate, cope with, adapt to, and recover from such events. Social, economic, political and structural factors such as inequalities in accessing resources, services, rights and decision-making, play into climate vulnerability assessments.
In the context of human mobility, “adaptation”, often referred to as “climate adaptation” can include both measures that enable people to remain safely in place and mobility related measures such as temporary or permanent relocation, planned resettlement, migration or other forms of movement undertaken to manage or mitigate climate-related risks and impacts.
“Climate change” is a term referring to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, including changes in the frequency, intensity and duration of climate-related hazards, that is driven primarily by human activities which increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
