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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):
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Climate Change
Environment & Migration
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13 December, 2018

COP24 addresses climate change displacement ahead of crunch migration meeting

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As hundreds of decision-makers are gathering in Marrakech to agree new standards for global migration, the United Nations climate change conference ‘COP24’ is looking at concrete ways to help countries tackle large-scale displacement caused by the impacts of climate change, including water scarcity, flooding, storms and rising sea levels. 

Biodiversity & Livelihoods
Conflict Transformation
Sub-Saharan Africa
10 December, 2018

Environmental cooperation as a pathway to resolve Nigeria’s deadly farmer-herder conflicts

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Nigeria’s central Middle Belt region is home to a diverse cultural population of semi-nomadic cattle herders and farming communities. For decades, the region has experienced increasingly violent attacks that have been partially attributed to direct competition over access and use of natural resources.

Climate Diplomacy
Global Issues
03 December, 2018

10 Twitter Accounts to follow for Climate Diplomacy news during COP24

COP24 might be in Katowice, but for the rest of the world it’s on Twitter. Navigating through this sea of news and expert profiles is not the easiest task, however. With this is mind, we’d like to share our favourite Twitter accounts with our followers so that you can be up-to-date throughout the event.

Climate Diplomacy
Global Issues
03 December, 2018

How Soon is Now? Climate Negotiations Solutions, Once More, Needed More Than Ever

Dennis Tänzler, adelphi

COP24 starts today, the IPCC has published new scientific evidence on the devastating impacts of climate change, the probability that those changes will be manageable are decreasing, and, once again, there is a stalemate in international climate negotiations. Time is running out fast - or more appropriately, as UNFCCC Executive Secretary Espinosa stressed, time is a luxury we no longer have. So, actually the question is how soon is now?