New Podcasts

Again, thanks to Forced Migration Current Awareness, we learned of a series of podcasts that deal with environmentally-induced migration : Stephen Castles Speaks on Climate Refugees (BBC, May 2011) [access] “Environmental Refugee” Not Accurate for Pacific (Radio Australia, May 2011) [access] Tuvaluans Don’t Want to be Called Refugees (Radio Australia, May 2011) [access] Many thanks, […]

News: Kiribati and Tuvalu Will Drown Without Global Climate Action

(The Ecologist) November 11, 2010 – The causes of climate change are far from their shores, but these tiny Pacific nations face growing social strife and eventual annihilation unless western governments wake up and take responsibility, argue Scott Leckie and Dan Lewis. Tessie Eria Lambourne’s bright smile belies a deeper sense of unease for which […]

News: If a Country Sinks Beneath the Sea, Is It Still a Country?

(ClimateWire) August 23, 2010 – Rising ocean levels brought about by climate change have created a flood of unprecedented legal questions for small island nations and their neighbors. Among them: If a country disappears, is it still a country? Does it keep its seat at the United Nations? Who controls its offshore mineral rights? Its […]

New Publication: Climate Change and Displacement

Jane McAdam has further added to the gap in climate change and migration literature with her newest opus Climate Change and Displacement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. As her book summary outlines: 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 […]

Carteret Islands in the Movies Again: Sun Come Up

A new movie on climate change and migration arrived at the 14th annual DocuWeeks called Sun Come Up. You can watch the film between Friday, July 30 and Thursday, August 5 in New York City. Synopsis: Sun Come Up follows the relocation of some of the world’s first “environmental refugees,” the Carteret Islanders – a community […]

Refusing 'Refuge' in the Pacific: (De)Constructing Climate-Induced Displacement in International Law

Jane McAdam, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Australia; and Research Associate, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, published a paper that calls for a new international treaty for ‘climate refugees’ or ‘climate migrants’. Drawing in part on field work undertaken in Kiribati and Tuvalu, it examines some conceptual and pragmatic difficulties […]