Climate-related Migration Estimates Flawed, Researchers Say

(IRIN) September 9, 2009 – Many recent studies have put the number of climate-change-related migrants at between 200 million and one billion by 2050, but critics say given insufficient data it is impossible to estimate the number. Some say inflated figures have spurred “fear-of-migration” rhetoric from policymakers and leaders. “It seems unlikely the alarmist predictions of […]

Finding a (Legal) Home for Climate Migrants

Kayly Ober is a new contributor to Towards Recognition. She has written this article below, which compares different proposed instruments advocating formal recognition of environmental migrants, exclusively for this blog. buy generic clomid You can read her bio here. When you lose your home due to rising sea-levels, creeping desert sands, or harsh hurricane winds; […]

UNHCR’s Perspective on Climate Displacement

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has recently updated their policy paper entitled Climate change, natural disasters and human displacement: a UNHCR perspective, which was originally released October 2008. The 14-page paper looks at the human side of climate change, particularly the status and protection needs of those who are most directly affected. […]

New Oxfam Report Warns of 75 Million Asia-Pacific Environmental Migrants

(Oxfam Australia) July 27, 2009 – An Oxfam Australia report published today highlights the urgent need for next week’s Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns to address the dramatic effects of climate change within the region. The Future is Here: Climate Change in the Pacific finds that Pacific Islanders are already feeling the effects of climate […]

Defining Environmental Migrants as "Survival Migrants"?

In a recently published report, two academics from Oxford University have come up with the term “survival migrants” to accommodate groups who do not fall within the legal refugee definition in the 1951 Refugee Convention. Dr. Alexander Betts and his co-author Esra Kaytaz say that “survival migrants” are described as “forced migrants who are not […]

EFMSV Conference Outcome Summary Now Available

In a previous post I wrote about the International Conference on Environment, Forced Migration, and Social Vulnerability (EFMSV) held in Bonn, Germany last October. It was the first ever large scale international event organized on the issue of environmental migration. The “Bonn Points”, which contains nine critical questions concerning environmentally induced migration, were posed during […]