Climate Displacement

Informing Community Access to Loss and Damage Funding

From Climate Refugees and Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Washington, DC

A case study to inform the Board of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) based on consultations with communities displaced by climate change in Kenya.

The work to disperse funding under the FRLD, and indeed any efforts to implement meaningful and appropriate solutions for those affected by climate change, must be informed by impacted people. They are best positioned to identify their priorities, needs, gaps and the most impactful ways to deploy resources that facilitate inclusion, representation and compensation of all affected communities.

As such, this case study provides evidence and testimonies from communities Climate Refugees visited in Kenya that are already suffering extreme climate impacts, and who lack the support to withstand those growing climate impacts that put them at risk to grave violations of their human rights, repeated and uncompensated development setbacks, permanent displacement and forced migration. The impacts they are suffering are beyond what can be tackled with adaptation measures.

In other words: they are experiencing Loss and Damage.

President Biden’s New Border Policy Disastrous to Asylum Seekers & Climate Justice

Climate Refugees is appalled at the Biden administration’s Executive Order this week that effectively denies people the right to seek asylum when an arbitrary threshold is met. Not only is this unjust, it is also illegal. At a time when global displacement is once again expected to reach record highs of over 130 million people, these cruel border policies are not only harmful, they are unhelpful.

Climate Refugees has just returned from Central America, where we spoke to migrants, returned migrants, farmers and Indigenous communities devastated by disasters and more than a decade of drought. Everywhere we went in the Dry Corridor, a singular message was heard:

““We are forced to migrate. We don’t want to leave our homes but we have to because of climate change.” ”

There is no denying that the climate crisis and the displacement crisis are connected. Over half of today’s millions of refugees and internally displaced people are living in some of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world. These are Global South countries that are experiencing displacement as loss and damage, and where migration pathways would actually offer effective means of climate adaptation for some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.

This executive order comes just as the international community is meeting in Bonn for UN climate talks, where country after country are sharing testimonies of the migration their citizens are forced to undertake, and where refugees are at further risk to climate shocks and the effects of conflict. Instead of these border theatrics, the US should be stepping up its climate action by drastically lowering its emissions, and paying its fair share of grant-based climate finance to support adaptation that ensures one’s right to stay, and loss and damage to compensate communities and countries facing crippling setbacks.

In 2021, in response to the President’s executive order on planning for the impacts of climate change on migration, Climate Refugees provided the administration with a report that urged the President to re-focus climate-related migration as the security of people and communities, rather than the security of states, and link fragmented climate action to the human rights and protection of marginalized populations. It is deeply disappointing that these recommendations have not come to fruition.

The Biden administration has once again demonstrated that border policy is its climate policy, knowing fully well that these policies will do nothing to help migrants and asylum seekers nor stem the climate crisis. Instead, the administration should look to the Climate Displaced Persons Act that Climate Refugees was proud to support and endorse last year, as yet another logical and humane example of how the administration can better support climate displaced people.

For media inquires and further information contact info@climate-refugees.org


Planned Relocation: Submission to the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of IDPs

Climate Refugees recently provided a submission on displacement and planned relocation in the context of climate change, in response to a call for input from Ms. Paula Gaviria-Betancur, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons.

Based on our field visits and reporting from Miami and Kenya, we hope our submission will be helpful to the Special Rapporteur as she prepares her report to the forthcoming 56th session of the Human Rights Council.

Read the full submission below.

Climate Justice and Loss & Damage: Submission to the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development

In response to a call for input from the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development, Climate Refugees joined colleagues from the Loss and Damage Collaboration (L&DC) in a submission to inform the Special Rapporteur’s thematic report on climate justice and loss & damage.

Climate Refugees’ contributions to this submission are based on our field work and reporting from Kenya’s Rift Valley. We hope the submission - which can be read in its entirety below as well as on the L&DC site - will be helpful and informative to the Special Rapporteur’s important work in this area.

Submission for the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Climate Change

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently considering a request for advisory opinion on the obligations of States when it comes to climate change, a historic case that is the result of a long campaign by youth activists in Vanuatu, who convinced the Government of Vanuatu to lead a resolution at the UN General Assembly. Adopted in March 2023, the resolution formally asked the ICJ to provide clarity on the obligations of States under international law to ensure the protection of the climate and environment, as well as what consequences arise when States fail - whether by act or omission - to do so.

After multiple rounds of written submissions from States and other entities, the Court will commence oral proceedings in late 2024, with the advisory opinion expected in early 2025.

In order to bring attention to the importance of the Court considering climate displacement as part of the proceedings, Climate Refugees submitted - along with several civil society and academic experts - a brief on key issues, which we hope will be useful to Parties as they consider their own positions.

Read the brief we jointly submitted in its entirety below.