.

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
Climate Change
Climate Diplomacy
Security
Global Issues
07 June, 2019

Speech by Foreign Minister Heiko Maas at the opening of the Berlin Climate and Security Conference 2019

Heiko Maas, German Federal Foreign Office

On Tuesday, 4 June, seven foreign ministers, 19 ambassadors, several ministers and more than 200 experts met in Berlin to act on climate security risks at the Berlin Climate and Security Conference. "Achieving the international climate targets is the new imperative of our foreign policy”, the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, said in his opening speech. This is the aim of the Berlin Call for Action which was presented at the conference.

Climate Change
Climate Diplomacy
Conflict Transformation
Environment & Migration
Security
Global Issues
06 June, 2019

Climate change an ‘unconscionable’ threat to peace: German foreign office

Megan Darby, Climate Home News

Governments must invest new effort and money to prevent climate change from driving new conflicts, according to a diplomatic statement drafted by the German foreign office.

Development
Water
Asia
05 June, 2019

Can South Asian rivers be ‘regional public goods’?

Omair Ahmad, The Third Pole

A multi-sectoral and multilateral approach to South Asia's rivers could provide sustainable development, but it needs to include those already marginalised by a narrow development path.

Adaptation & Resilience
Climate Change
Gender
Global Issues
Asia
31 May, 2019

South Asia Needs to Adopt a Gender Mainstreaming Approach in Climate Policy

Dr. Dhanasree Jayaram

Women are vital for effective climate policy making and implementation. In South Asia, more needs to be done on systematically integrating women into policy processes - as active stakeholders and not merely as victims of climate risks.