Taking a human rights approach to climate change, grounded in the principle of the inherent dignity of the human person, implies that it is not only the total numbers of those displaced that matter. Every single person who is forced…
Islanders from Vanuatu and the Bay of Bengal have already been forced to move as a result of sea-level rise while many island communities in Alaska – in the face of fierce storms and rapid coastal erosion – are contemplating…
Seeking single agent causality tends to hide the fact that environmental resources and impacts are channelled through social, economic and political factors which in turn play a significant role in population migration. Environmental stress is only one factor generating migration;…
Tribes and other groups have been in conflict in Darfur for as long as history records. These conflicts have largely been a function of resource competition, relative deprivation and dwindling subsistence opportunities in the face of rapid population growth. Perhaps…
In 2008 the theme of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII[1]) was ‘Climate Change, Bio-cultural Diversity and Livelihoods: the stewardship role of indigenous peoples and new challenges’. Although climate change and the related issue of bio-cultural diversity have…
Water is undoubtedly at the heart of the climate change debate. The principal associated effects are all water-related: sea temperature and sea level rise, increased frequency and intensity of precipitation and flooding, more severe heat-waves and droughts, and increased intensity…
Discussion of the potential for environmental change to drive migration has often assumed migration to be an inevitable outcome of adverse environmental change. While this may be true in the case of permanent inundation due to a rise in sea…
In Alaska, climate change is evident.Temperatures across the state have increased by between 2 and 3.5 degrees Celsius since 1974, arctic sea ice is decreasing in extent and thickness, wildfires are increasing in size and extent, and permafrost is thawing.…
Among the obvious diseases that will plague health planners, health care workers and policymakers in an era of climate change related migration, some of the most likely diseases are mosquito-borne. Malaria and dengue have always moved with people, and in…
In the past 100 years, Kenya recorded 28 major droughts, four of which occurred in the last ten years. These droughts have had a devastating impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. For the three million pastoralists of northern Kenya, climate…