.

Back to Overview
Climate Change
Environment & Migration
Security
Global Issues
01 February, 2017

Climate change and mass migration: a growing threat to global security

Jared Ferrie
When international leaders met in the Bangladeshi capital last month for ongoing discussions about a new global migration policy, they glossed over what experts say will soon become a massive driver of migration: climate change.
 
“The international system is in a state of denial,” said A.N.M. Muniruzzaman, a retired major-general who now heads the Bangladesh Institute for Peace and Security Studies.
 
The Global Forum on Migration and Development in Dhaka came less than two months after UN nation states committed to developing within two years a Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. Climate change figured only as a sub-theme during one roundtable at the conference, which Muniruzzaman said was typical of similar events.
 
“If we want an orderly management of the coming crisis, we need to sit down now – we should have sat down yesterday – to talk about how the management will take place,” he said in an interview in his office in Bangladesh’s crowded capital.
 
Groups like the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, and the International Organization for Migration, are well aware of the risks, and say they are working to bring climate change to the forefront of policy discussions. During the roundtable in Dhaka, Michele Cavinato, head of UNHCR’s Asylum and Migration Unit, called climate change “the defining challenge of our times”.
 
See the full article on IRINnews.org, a news agency specialised in reporting humanitarian crises.
 
 
For more info on climate change and migration in Bangdladesh also see this interview with Major General Muniruzzaman (Retd):
Related Reading 
Navigating Complexity: Climate, Migration, and Conflict in a Changing World
Jowhar
Read more
Climate Change and Migration in Bangladesh: A Gender Perspective

This publication by UN Women is part of the project 'Reducing Vulnerability of Women Affected by Climate Change through Viable Livelihood Options', which explores the impacts of migration on women caused by climate change-related phenomena.

Read more
Security
North America
01 June, 2020

COVID-19 and climate change will change the definition of national security

Stewart M. Patrick, Council on Foreign Relations

The scope of national security is expanding beyond violent threats to encompass a broader array of dangers. In an article for World Politics Review, CFR's Stewart M. Patrick assesses the implications of COVID-19 and climate change for the theory and practice of national security.

Security
Global Issues
30 May, 2020

Climate change, conflict and fragility – The basics

Manon Levrey, EPLO

Although there is no causality nor direct and automatic link between climate change and conflict, we can see that climate change can intensify conflict drivers and make it harder to find stability. The online workshop "Climate change, conflict and fragility: Increasing resilience against climate-fragility risks", organised by the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) and adelphi, looked into this complex relationship.

Adaptation & Resilience
Climate Change
Climate Diplomacy
Global Issues
15 May, 2020

Divided we stand. Together we win. Climate diplomacy and Covid-19

Dennis Tänzler (adelphi)

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous parallels have been drawn between this health crisis and the climate crisis. Science plays an important role in advising decision makers on how to ensure sustainable crisis management and a precautionary approach to avoid harmful repercussions, particularly where we do not yet know all the consequences of our actions. [...]

Sustainable Transformation
Global Issues
14 May, 2020

Fossil fuel phase-out in fast-forward

Noah Gordon, Daria Ivleva and Emily Wright, adelphi

Decarbonisation won’t come as fast as the pandemic. But if fossil fuel exporters are not prepared for it, they will face an enduring crisis. The EU can help.