Environmental migration

The IKETIS project will seek to raise awareness in the UK of the need for action to address climate change induced migration and will focus on the mediation of the climate refugees’ issue. The first aim of the action is to understand the representational practices that shape media and NGOs discourse about climate refugees. The second aim is to build capacity of journalists, NGOs and policy-makers, key intermediaries in the mediation of climate change induced migration, to enhance social support for policy actions. Together, both aims contribute to the transformation of how climate change induced migration is perceived and provide new patterns of critical thinking and civic engagement. The research consists of four phases: i) identify the policy, institutional and definitional factors that may impede meaningful media discourse on the issue ii) perform critical discourse analysis (image and text) and frame analysis of the representations of climate change induced migration of UK online news media iii) using these findings, then move on to examine how UK humanitarian and environmental NGOs utilise and challenge frames identified by online news media coverage of climate displacement and iv) based on the understanding of the representational practices that formulate climate refugees mediated discourse, promote climate justice approach to frame climate change and build capacity of journalists, NGOs and policy-makers to best use climate justice approach through e-learning strategies. This training-through research scheme will provide the applicant with the necessary skills to develop competences in media theory, visual communication, critical discourse and frame analysis and digital media research and plan an academic career track for a better integration into the academic community, while the applicant will be of specific benefit to the research-informed teaching that forms the basis of the host institution’s approach to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching practice.

Against the background of climate change, the study of environmentally induced displacement has become increasingly significant. Objectives • to provide a systematic review of the legal aspects of climate related displacement. • to analyse to what extent the current EU framework for immigration and asulum in general and the specific instruments in regard to asylum in particular already offer adequate responses to climate induced displacement. • to assess how the legal framework could evolve in order to provide an improved response to the phenomenon of climate refugees. • to clarify in which way such a modified legal framework can be rooted in the Lisbon Treaty. Outcomes The analysis reviews both the status quo as well as the possible evolution of the policy framework in place in order to arrive at more comprehensive responses to environmentally induced migration, while establishing the possible legal bases of different types of responses within the Treaty of Lisbon. • The first part of the study aims to develop a typology of environmentally induced migration which serves as a basis for identifying adequate policy responses, and in particular for different forms and dimensions of this phenomenon. • The second part focuses on a revision of the global debates on policy responses to environmentally induced displacement, which embeds the analysis of the European policy context in wider global policy debates and provides the framework under which the European policy framework is analysed. • The third and core part of the study looks at the policy framework in place at the level of the European Union to identify possible policy responses under the current EU policy framework that would address environmentally induced displacement as well as gaps and possible directions how this framework can evolve.

Millions of international migrants have recently sought refuge in Europe, animating debates about the best ways to manage migration. Even more people are being displaced within their home countries every year due to natural disasters like floods and storms; and underlying these sudden events is a steady flow of people leaving their rural livelihoods behind and flocking to the cities in an ongoing trend towards urbanization. Across spatial scales, humanity is on the move. And, that much is clear, climate change plays a role in this: whether in the form of unprecedented droughts that drive people to abandon their fields (as likely happened in Syria just before the war) or through differential impacts on countries’ economies that widen the income gaps and fuel international migration. But how large are the effects of climate change - and how do they interact across spatial scales? Little to no quantitative research is available, and the numbers that have been proposed (e.g. of “environmental refugees”) are often crude estimates, and are highly contested. IMPETUS aims for a unified, quantitative modeling approach to understand the linkages between migration, urbanization, and climate change. To this end, the project combines interdisciplinary expertise from climate change, migration, and urban development. The project will not only provide a better understanding of the relevant environmental and social processes, but also provide valuable data - including projections of future migration and urbanization under climate change - to science and policymakers. This may contribute to anticipating political and humanitarian crises and improving migration policies, as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, in a rapidly changing world.

The European Union-funded “Migration, Environment and Climate Change: Evidence for Policy” (MECLEP) project was implemented between January 2014 and March 2017. The project aimed to contribute to the global knowledge base on the relationship between migration and environmental and change. More specifically, it aimed to formulate policy options on how migration, including displacement and planned relocation, can benefit adaptation strategies to environmental and climate change. It involved research (desk reviews, household surveys and qualitative interviews), capacity-building and dialogue and knowledge sharing activities.

Deltas are coastal Social Political Environmental Systems (SPES) characterised by the interplay between rivers, lands and oceans, influenced by a combination of riverine and oceanic processes, shaped by human interventions under strong state water control management policies. Deltas provide numerous resources such as fertile land and water for irrigated and intensive agriculture, fisheries, abundant biodiversity as well as non-farm activities. Thanks to their location at the interface of lower valleys and the sea, and their fluvial connections, trade and exchange have flourished and led to the development and expansion of some of the world’s largest metropolises. Asia is home to the largest and most populated deltas in the world. However, deltas are recognised as one of the most vulnerable coastal environments. They face a range of threats operating at multiple scales, from global climate change (CC) and sea-level rise (SLR) to various hazards (floods, erosion, salinization, subsidence), local anthropogenic activities and land use changes. Deltas are relevant sites for adaptation to CC studies, given they are dynamic systems where communities have a long record of adapting to natural hazards and are accustomed to being highly exposed to environmental risks. Local populations whose livelihoods depend on natural resources have adapted in different ways to live with floods. Objectives The MOVINDELTAS project intends to understand the challenges for deltaic populations when their livelihoods are at risk due to environmental/climatic and global economic changes, and their adaptive capacity sustainability through the current scenarios in the Ganges-Brahmapoutra-Meghna and Mekong deltas. The project approach isinterdisciplinary, multi-scale and long term(past history experiences and forecasting) from four perspectives: i) a physical and environmental assessment of risks posed by multi-hazards linked to adaptive strategies, ii) a socio-economic vulnerability assessment of the population exposed to these hazards, iii) an assessment of the population and local stakeholders’ perception of risk in the risk hotspots, and iv) a projection of how the risk is expected to evolve in the coming decades, with climate changes in the GBM and Mekong deltas. Through its various components, MOVINDELTAS aims to meet several specific objectives: Enhance the understanding of the dynamics of deltaic Social Political Environmental Systems (SPES), and the level of sustainability of deltaic population livelihoods under multi-hazard environmental change. Define the complexity of new patterns of mobility and immobility/migration and non-migration, (involuntary) displacement and translocal livelihoods (across multiple locations, gender, cultures and social classes) in delta regions defined as risk hotspots. Assess the various adaptive strategies and community responses to multi-hazards under expected environmental change in risk hotspots, through model-scenarios/CC in a new context of global CC. Conduct an in-depth and evidence-based analysis of the differentiated perceptions, sensitivity and experiences of men and women in their strategies for coping with environmental, global and climate changes. Include stakeholders in an iterative consultative process throughout the project in order to better understand their perspectives, develop informed models and maximise the potential impact of policy response. Under this specific objective, experience sharing between deltas and the use of local knowledge on adaptation strategies in vulnerable flood deltas will allow future learning, and contribute to the sustainability of the proposed methodology. In fact, the Nile delta is the perfect environmental configuration for a test case as it has several converging and divergent parameters characteristic of South-East-Asia. Partnerships : 27 partners from 4 European countries (France, UK, Germany and Netherland), 4 Asian countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Bangladesh) and Egypt.

Mit der globalen Erwärmung und dem Anstieg der Meeresspiegel hat auch ein Thema Konjunktur, das bis vor kurzem noch gar nicht auf der wissenschaftlichen Agenda stand: Klimamigration. Die Folgen des Klimawandels, so wird befürchtet, könnten die Lebensgrundlagen von Millionen von Menschen derart radikal verändern, dass ihnen kaum noch eine andere Wahl als die (Klima-) Flucht bzw. Migration bleibt. Das vom BMBF geförderte Forschungsprojekt Climates of Migration hat die aktuellen Debatten zum Anlass genommen, den Zusammenhang zwischen Umweltveränderungen und Migration aus historischer Perspektive zu analysieren, denn klimatische und andere Umweltfaktoren haben auch in der Vergangenheit eine große Rolle für Ansiedlungsentscheidungen, Anpassungsstrategien und die Mobilität von Gesellschaften gespielt. Konkret hat das gemeinsame Projekt des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts Essen (KWI) und des Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society der LMU München (RCC) den Zusammenhang zwischen Klimaschwankungen, Hungerkrisen und Migration, die Bedeutung von Klimaaspekten für die Besiedlung einer Region sowie die displacement-Effekte von Naturkatastrophen untersucht. Insgesamt haben sich sieben Forscherinnen und Forscher aus verschiedenen Disziplinen mit Themen wie Hungersnöten in Irland und den daraus resultierenden Abwanderungseffekten, Migrationsbewegungen im Norden Mexikos, die durch die großflächige Abholzung von Waldflächen verursacht wurden, oder der schwierigen Entscheidung von Bewohnern sinkender Inseln, etwa im Pazifik oder in der Cheaspeake Bay, wie mit dem drohenden Verlust der Lebensgrundlage umgegangen werden sollte, befasst.

Das interdisziplinäre Forschungsprojekt MICLE beschäftigt sich mit den Umweltwandel und Migration in Mali und Senegal. Politiker und Wissenschaftler bezeichnen den Klimawandel als eine der größten Bedrohungen für menschliche Entwicklung in Afrika und sagen massive Bevölkerungsbewegungen als Folge einer zunehmenden Zahl von Extremereignissen wie Dürren, von zunehmender Wasserknappheit, Abnahme der Nahrungsmittelproduktion und Verlust an Biodiversität voraus. Dabei ist das Konstrukt der „Umweltflucht“ aufgrund des ihm inhärenten Geodeterminismus, der konzeptionellen Unklarheiten und politischen Instrumentalisierungen höchst problematisch. Umweltveränderungen als Hauptursache für Migration zu identifizieren ist praktisch unmöglich. Daher beschäftigt sich das Forschungsprojekt mit den multiplen Ursachen von Migration im Sahel um die internen Logiken zu verstehen und Migrationsbewegungen theoretisch zu kontextualisieren.