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.

The interdisciplinary research project MICLE focuses on the linkages between environmental change and migration in Mali and Senegal. Politicians and scientists increasingly emphasise climate change as one of the major threats to sustainable human livelihoods in Africa and predict massive population movements as a response to a growing number of extreme events such as droughts, increasing water scarcity, a detrimental decrease of food production, changing disease patterns and loss of biodiversity. However, the environmental refugee concept is highly problematic due to geodeterministic stereotyping, terminological ambiguity and political instrumentalisation. Identifying environmental change as the primary cause of these movements is extremely difficult. Therefore, the project faces the challenge to balance the multiple factors causing migration in order to understand its internal logics and contextualise it theoretically. Furthermore, it aims at providing a basis for the formulation of appropriate analyses enabling us to predict future migrations in an interdisciplinary approach bringing together political scientists, sociologists, demographers, geographers and natural scientists.

Impact investing is a major emerging phenomenon in global finance that promises to reconcile capitalism with sustainability. It is increasingly embraced by governments, civil society and the private sector in the Global North and South to solve social and environmental problems. The combined crises of climate change, inequality and mass migration in a context of economic austerity have spurred cross-sectoral impact investing partnerships in areas such as green infrastructure, women’s entrepreneurship, agroecology, refugee support and disease prevention. This burgeoning $200bn market promises flexible, holistic and profitable paths to sustainability, attracting major philanthropic organisations and institutional investors boasting fresh ethical and responsible mandates. Is impact investing merely a new frontier for capitalism, or does it represent a revolutionary chapter in global history? Will it benefit communities better than conventional development programmes? The time to answer these questions is now, as impact investing is still in its infancy and the first green and social stock exchanges are opening around the world. IMPACT HAU is an innovative, critical and comparative anthropological study of the moral and political dimensions of impact investing. Inspired by Marcel Mauss’s classic use of the Maori concept of hau, the ‘spirit of the gift’, it focuses on the designers, traders and beneficiaries of impact bonds to produce an empirically driven analysis of the multiple moral orders within contemporary capitalism. Six ethnographic case studies will provide grounded, detailed accounts of the design and implementation of impact investing in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. These will support a critical appraisal of the current consensus among global policymakers and business leaders giving markets a determining role in the ecological transition, testing the theories of sustainability that underpin hopes for a socially inclusive green economy.

Climate change is driving many species to migrate along the altitudinal gradient of mountainous landscapes. While the impacts of temperature shifts on range expansion are well established, the effects of altitude-related hypoxia on the ability of organisms to colonize and adapt to higher altitudes during warming have, to our knowledge, not received scientific interest. Specifically, the short, medium and long term effects of acute and chronic hypoxia on the growth, survival, reproductive biology and colonization dynamics of animals reaching higher altitude refuges remain unknown. PODARCIS will generate such knowledge, via a detailed study of physiological responses to hypoxia across an altitudinal gradient in a species that undergoes upward range expansion, the wall lizard Podarcis muralis. PODARCIS will (1) assess multivariate acclimation responses in embryos and adult lizards from low to high altitude using common garden and reciprocal transplant experiments (i.e. to assess the effectiveness for plastic responses to enable colonization and detect changes in the degree of plasticity across the altitudinal gradient) and (2) predict the dynamics of colonization by integrating data on physiological plasticity, reproductive output and dispersal. Taken together, this project will combine hard-to-obtain empirical data with theoretical modeling approaches to provide valuable insights into the ecological and evolutionary processes that determine a species' response to climate change. PODARCIS requires a multidisciplinary approach, drawing from the fields of physiology, quantitative genetics, evolutionary theory, and computer modeling. The synergistic skill sets brought to this project by the fellow and the mentor scientist will allow an important cross-continental exchange of ideas and approaches. Furthermore, this project will offer the fellow a unique opportunity to develop new talents that will significantly enhance his career trajectory as an independent researcher.

MECLEP aims to develop a migrant centered and policy oriented programme of work based on three main components/orientations: 1) produce new empirical research on environmentally induced migration through 6 targeted case studies in different regions of the world, and the preparation of an international report 2) build the capacity of policy makers to formulate related policies through training and 3) facilitate policy coherence among the selected countries based on national level consultations.