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Climate Change and Migration

Dates: Tuesday 25^th – Wednesday 26^th August 2009
WWW: www.anu.edu.au/NEC/conferences_workshops/2009_other/broacher.pdf
Location: Canberra, Australia
Organisation: The Australian National University

description

In 1990 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that the greatest impact of climate change would be on human migration. Climate change-induced migration is already responsible for instability in the periphery of Australia and Europe yet the policy implications and possible response strategies to this challenge remain under-researched. As the international community of states is approaching the pivotal Copenhagen Summit, climate change-induced migration may, however, not receive the critical attention by policy-makers and academics it so clearly merits. The May 2009 Report by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s think tank Global Humanitarian Forum highlights that more than 95 percent of negative ramifications of climate change will be experienced by poorer countries, precipitating spill-over effects in terms of migration dynamics.
The very term “climate change refugee” is still not beyond dispute within academia and urgently requires clarification, as internal migration due to adverse environmental phenomena is certainly not a new phenomenon. However, transnational environmentally-induced migration is an empirically new, under-explored and addressing issue. It is already apparent in the South Pacific and South Asia.

This workshop aims to provide a forum for the presentation of current research on the climate change-migration nexus in both Australia and Europe. This is an opportunity to examine different scenarios for climate change suggested by the IPCC report and the attendant consequences for migration. The workshop aims to be not just interdisciplinary — drawing in academic experts from natural and social sciences — but also comparative, examining current regional regulatory approaches in the Australia-Pacific region and the EU and its neighbourhood. It provides a forum for frank discussion about the nature and dimension of the challenge and the policy implications for the Australian and European governments.

This workshop also aims to facilitate interaction between scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, policy makers and civil society with a view to exploring opportunities for joint policy-relevant research. The aim is to produce a conference report and discuss strategies for further joint research ventures, policy reports and publications.