'Environmental Change and Migration: Assessing the Evidence and Developing Norms for Response'

The Refugee Studies Centre organised on 8 and 9 January 2009 the workshop on 'Environmental Change and Migration'. The workshops was convened by Simon Addison (Senior Research Officer & Policy Programme Manager), Professor Roger Zetter (RSC Director) and the International Migration Institute.

The report and papers of the workshop can be downloaded below.

Many recent reports on the likely impact of climate change have highlighted the potential for large-scale ‘environmentally-induced’ migrations in developing regions of the world over the next twenty to fifty years. Environmental transformations resulting from increases in global atmospheric temperatures have prompted many experts to predict the collapse of traditional livelihoods systems, increased conflict over natural resources, regional ‘water wars’, and a resulting population of ‘environmental refugees’ that some have predicted will be hundreds of millions strong.

As yet, there is little concrete evidence to justify such predictions. There is a significant lacuna in both conceptual and empirical research on the relationship between environmental change and the patterns and process of migration. For example, it remains unclear how one can differentiate between ‘environmentally-induced displacement’ and other forms of displacement, given the complex mix of factors which underlie people’s decisions to move.

This workshop seeked to address this lacuna by bringing together academics, activists, policy makers and development practitioners to share research, experience and analysis on the subject. In particular, the workshop addressed the following questions:

• How can we conceptualise the relationship between environmental change and migration, particularly ‘forced’ and ‘economic’ migration? What do the concepts of resilience, adaptation and transformation bring to our understanding of this relationship?
• What empirical evidence is available to underpin existing analyses of the links between environmental change and migration? What are the gaps and how are they being filled?
• To what extent does migration related to environmental change give rise to new challenges for humanitarian response or notions of sustainable development? Should those who migrate as a result of environmental change be afforded specific forms of legal and social protection?
• How important are questions of political economy in determining the relationship between environmental changes and migration locally, regionally and internationally?
• How is environmental change likely to influence migration patterns in the 21st century at the local, regional and international level?

The report and papers of the workshop are available by downloading the PDF files:

A Political Demographic Frame work of Environmental (Climatic) Change(s) and Population Displacement by Parameswara Krishnan (University of Botswana and University of Alberta).

Background Paper: 'Environmental Change and Forced Migration: A State of the Art Review' by James Morrissey (QEH, University of Oxford).

Climate Change & Internal Displacement: The Legal Perspective by Michèle Morel PhD Candidate (Ghent University)

Climate change, migration and responsibility by Karin Boschert, PhD (WBGU).

Environmental Change and Migration: A case study of the Ethiopian Highlands by James Morrissey (QEH, University of Oxford).

Environment and Migration: A Methodological Challenge by Etienne Piguet (University of Neuchatel).

Environmental Change and Emigration in Ecuador by Oscar Alvarez Gila, Virginia Lopez de Maturana and Ana Ugalde Zaratiegui (UPV-EHU).

Global Footprint: Analysis & Micro-Simulation by Lezlie Moriniere, Richard Taylor and Mohammed Hamza (University of Arizona & SEI, Transformation in Risk).

Household Resilience, Tipping Points, and Pathological Homes: Who Migrates and Who Stays Behind? by Petra Tschakert (Pennsylvania State University).

Institutional Barriers to the Recognition and Assistance of Environmentally Induced Migrantsby Chloe Vlassopoulos (University of Picardie, CURAPP/CNRS Network TERRA).

Migration and Environment: Early Empirical Findings and a Global Research Agenda by Frank Laczko (Head of Research, IOM) and Koko Warner (Head of Environmental Migration Section, UNU-EHS).

Migration as an Adaptation Strategy to Environmental Change: Insights from the EACH-FOR project in Asia-Pacific and Central Asia by François Gemenne (University of Liège and Sciences Po Paris).

Report of the Workshop, summarised by Merit Hietanen (St Cross College, University of Oxford).

Supporting People to Adapt Socio-Ecological Systems to Environmental Change by Dr Douglas Bardsley (Adelaide University).

Transformations in Risk by SEI Oxford.

For more information, please contact Simon Addison.