How do we begin to handle the greatest crisis affecting humanity today? Climate change is already causing droughts, flooding, and famine that are forcing people to leave their livelihoods and communities. In the years to come, millions will find their local areas uninhabitable, as mass displacement of people reaches disastrous levels. Handling Climate Displacement explains how climate change has become recognized as a human rights concern, and how human rights are key to managing the crisis. Local authorities and populations increasingly call for guidance in the absence of an internationally recognized framework. Drafted in 2013 by a committee of experts and practitioners, Hassine uses the Peninsula Principles on Climate Displacement within States to offer concrete solutions to the impending emergency. Enriched by the author's experience working with the victims of climate displacement, this book offers an effective framework to deal with the challenges presented by mass displacement while protecting human rights.

This book focuses on one critical challenge: climate change. Climate change is predicted to lead to an increased intensity and frequency of natural disasters. An increase in extreme weather events, global temperatures and higher sea levels may lead to displacement and migration, and will affect many dimensions of the economy and society. Although scholars are examining the complexity and fragmentation of the climate change regime, they have not examined how our existing international development, migration and humanitarian organizations are dealing with climate change. Focusing on three institutions: the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Development Programme, the book asks: how have these inter-governmental organizations responded to climate change? And are they moving beyond their original mandates, given none were established with a mandate for climate change? It traces their responses to climate change in their rhetoric, policy, structure, operations and overall mandate change. Hall argues that international bureaucrats can play an important role in mandate expansion, often deciding whether and how to expand into a new issue-area and then lobbying states to endorse this expansion. They make changes in rhetoric, policy, structure and operations on the ground, and therefore forge, frame and internalize new issue-linkages. This book helps us to understand how institutions established in the 20th century are adapting to a 21st century world. It will be of great interest to scholars and students of International Relations, Development Studies, Environmental Politics, International Organizations and Global Governance, as well as international officials.

The untold story of climate migration--the personal stories of those experiencing displacement, the portraits of communities being torn apart by disaster, and the implications for all of us as we confront a changing future. When the subject of migration that will be caused by global climate change comes up in the media or in conversation, we often think of international refugees--those from foreign countries who will emigrate to the United States to escape disasters like rising shorelines and famine. What many people don't realize though, is that climate migration is happening now--and within the borders of the United States. A human-centered narrative with national scope, The Great Displacement is the first book to report on climate migration in the US. From half-drowned Louisiana to fire-scorched California, from the dried-up cotton fields of Arizona to the soaked watersheds of inland North Carolina, people are moving. In the last decade alone, the federal government has sponsored the relocation of tens of thousands of families away from flood zones, and tens of thousands more have moved of their own accord in the aftermath of natural disasters. Insurance and mortgage markets are already shifting to reflect mounting climate risk, pushing more people away from their homes. Rising seas have already begun to sink eastern coastal cities, while extreme heat, unprecedented drought, and unstoppable wildfires plague the west. Over the next fifty years, millions of Americans will be caught up in this churn of displacement created by climate change, forced inland and northward in what will be the largest national migration we've yet to experience. The Great Displacement compassionately tells the stories of those who are already experiencing life on the move, while detailing just how radically climate change will transform our lives--forcing us out of the country's hardest-hit areas, uprooting countless communities, and prompting a massive migration that will fundamentally reshape the United States.

This timely text examines the causes and consequences of population displacement related to climate change in the recent past, the present, and the near future. First and foremost, this book includes an examination of patterns of population displacement that have occurred or are currently underway. Second, the book introduces a three-tier framework for both understanding and responding to the public health impacts of climate-related population displacement. It illustrates the interrelations between impacts on the larger physical and social environment that precipitates and results from population displacement and the social and health impacts of climate-related migration. Third, the book contains first-hand accounts of climate-related population displacement and its consequences, in addition to reviews of demographic data and reviews of existing literature on the subject. Topics explored among the chapters include: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico The California Wildfires Fleeing Drought: The Great Migration to Europe Fleeing Flooding: Asia and the Pacific Fleeing Coastal Erosion: Kivalina and Isle de Jean Charles Although the book is largely written from the perspective of a researcher, it reflects the perspectives of practitioners and policymakers on the need for developing policies, programs, and interventions to address the growing numbers of individuals, families, and communities that have been displaced as a result of short- and long-term environmental disasters. Global Climate Change, Population Displacement, and Public Health is a vital resource for an international audience of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers representing a variety of disciplines, including public health, public policy, social work, urban development, climate and environmental science, engineering, and medicine.

Environmental migration is not new. Nevertheless, the events and processes accompanying global climate change threaten to increase human movement both within states and across international borders. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted an increased frequency and severity of climate events such as storms, cyclones and hurricanes, as well as longer-term sea level rise and desertification, which will impact upon people's ability to survive in certain parts of the world. This book brings together a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement. With chapters by leading scholars in their field, it collects in one place a rigorous, holistic analysis of the phenomenon, which can better inform academic understanding and policy development alike. Governments have not been prepared to take a leading role in developing responses to the issue, in large part due to the absence of strong theoretical frameworks from which sound policy can be constructed. The specialist expertise of the authors in this book means that each chapter identifies key issues that need to be considered in shaping domestic, regional and international responses, including the complex causes of movement, the conceptualisation of migration responses to climate change, the terminology that should be used to describe those who move, and attitudes to migration that may affect decisions to stay or leave. The book will help to facilitate the creation of principled, research-based responses, and establish climate-induced displacement as an important aspect of both the climate change and global migration debates.

Climate change, sometimes thought of as a problem for the future, is already impacting people’s lives around the world: families are losing their homes, lands and livelihoods as a result of sea level rise, increased frequency and intensity of storms, drought and other phenomena. Following several years of preparatory work across the globe, legal scholars, judges, UN officials and climate change experts from 11 countries came together to finalise a new normative framework aiming to strengthen the right of climate-displaced persons, households and communities. This resulted in the approval of the Peninsula Principles on Climate Displacement within States in August 2013. This book provides detailed explanations and interpretations of the Peninsula Principles and includes in-depth discussion of the legal, policy and programmatic efforts needed to uphold the standards and norms embedded in the Principles. The book provides policy-makers with the conceptual understanding necessary to ensure that national-level policies are in place to respond to the climate displacement challenge, as well as a firm sense of the programme-level approaches that can be taken to anticipate, reduce and manage climate displacement. It also provides students and policy advocates with the necessary information to debate and critique responses to climate displacement at different levels. Drawing together key thinkers in the field, this volume will be of great relevance to scholars, lawyers, legal advisors and policy-makers with an interest in climate change, environmental policy, disaster management and human rights law and policy.

The last twenty years have seen a rapid increase in scholarly activity and publications dedicated to environmental migration and displacement, and the field has now reached a point in terms of profile, complexity, and sheer volume of reporting that a general review and assessment of existing knowledge and future research priorities is warranted. So far, such a product does not exist. The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Displacement and Migration provides a state-of-the-science review of research on how environmental variability and change influence current and future global migration patterns and, in some instances, trigger large-scale population displacements. Drawing together contributions from leading researchers in the field, this compendium will become a go-to guide for established and newly interested scholars, for government and policymaking entities, and for students and their instructors. It explains theoretical, conceptual, and empirical developments that have been made in recent years; describes their origins and connections to broader topics including migration research, development studies, and international public policy and law; and highlights emerging areas where new and/or additional research and reflection are warranted. The structure and the nature of the book allow the reader to quickly find a concise review relevant to conducting research or developing policy on particular topics, and to obtain a broad, reliable survey of what is presently known about the subject.

The threat of climate displacement looms large over a growing number of countries. Based on the more than six years of work by Displacement Solutions in ten climate-affected countries, academic work on displacement and climate adaptation, and the country-level efforts of civil society groups in several frontline countries, this report explores the key contention that land will be at the core of any major strategy aimed at preventing and resolving climate displacement. This innovative and timely volume coordinated and edited by the Founder of Displacement Solutions, Scott Leckie, examines a range of legal, policy and practical issues relating to the role of land in actively addressing the displacement consequences of climate change. It reveals the inevitable truth that climate displacement is already underway and being tackled in countries such as Bangladesh, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and the United States, and proposes a series of possible land solution tools that can be employed to protect the rights of people and communities everywhere should they be forced to flee the places they call home.

A discussion of cutting-edge developments in policy on climate change and forced displacement from leading academics and practitioners.

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.