Displacement and Migration in the International Climate Negotiations

Existing approaches

National authorities and international organisations are working to tackle the effects of disasters and the associated displacement. In doing so, they draw on measures employed in the fields of civil protection and disaster prevention, hu­mani­tarian aid, disaster risk management and minimisation, and development co­operation. Relevant international frameworks include the Action Agenda of the Nansen Initiative, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Action Agenda on Internal Displacement. The landscape of international actors operating in this area is equally diverse. Established inter­national organisations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the World Bank address various dimensions of climate change-induced migration and displacement, as do intergovernmental bodies such as the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD) and the Migrants in Countries in Crisis Initiative (MICIC), along with regional iniatiatives like the recently founded Afri­can Climate Mobility Initiative.

The diversity of the activities and the frag­mented landscape of actors make it hard to develop coherent solutions. The IOM pro­poses a useful distinction between “solu­tions for people to move”, “solutions for people on the move” and “solutions for people to stay”. This categorisation starts from the mobility preferences of those affected, and allows for a differentiated overview of where solutions already exist and where there are still gaps. There is al­ready a broad repertoire of tried and tested measures, especially in the latter two fields. While support for people “on the move” includes preparedness (for increasingly extreme events) and anticipatory hu­mani­tarian aid, measures like early warn­ing systems and climate-resilient reconstruc­tion are designed to enable people to stay.

While promising approaches also exist in the area of “solutions for people to move”, these do not yet extend beyond individual pilot projects, for example in Fiji, or the recently announced Australian offer to gradually grant residency rights to citizens of Tuvalu. As different regions become un­inhabitable, whether due to rising sea level or extreme heat, the importance of planned relocation and legal migration options will further increase.

Funding gaps and political obstacles

There is an immense need for funding in all three areas. First and foremost because of a worsening resource shortage in the chroni­cally underfunded humanitarian aid sys­tem. Moreover, the available funds are most­ly channelled into acute crises, while long-term adaptation measures are neglected. Additionally there is a lack of specific fund­ing mechanisms and institutions that could be used to address climate change-related loss and damage, especially in the context of slow onset environmental change. These bottlenecks in (climate) funding have knock-on effects on measures dealing with human mobility in the context of climate change.

Apart from this funding shortfall there is also a lack of technical support and migra­tion policy solutions, especially when it comes to establishing safe and regular migra­tion options. So far, there is neither an effective protection regime for people who are forced to relocate because of cli­mate change nor adequate international frame­works that allow for migration as an adap­tation strategy. This is a question above all for national governments and interior min­istries, alongside international actors and funding instruments. They face the com­plex task of organising evacuations and re­lo­cations, while coping with internal and cross-border displacement caused by dis­as­ters and slow-onset environmental change.

Structure and functions of the new fund

The transitional committee’s final document, which subsequently served as the basis for the agreement reached at COP28 outlines the basic structure of the new financial mechanisms and the Loss and Damage Fund. The details reflect a series of com­promises.

One welcome development is the explicit designation of possible areas of application, which include displacement, relocation and migration, as well as the equal consideration given to economic and non-economic loss and damage. Overall the Fund is in­tended to close priority gaps in the existing financing architecture by funding both short-term emergency relief and longer-term reconstruction and support in the event of slow onset environmental changes.

In line with the preferences of the indus­trialised countries, first and foremost the United States, the Fund will operate under the auspices of the World Bank – initially for just four years and subject to numerous conditions intended to secure its independence and enhance its effectiveness. It will award grants as well as loans, and will be accessible not only to governments, but also to communities, Indigenous Peoples and vulnerable groups. This is an important aspect for supporting and protecting the marginalised. A previous proposal for the­matic sub-funds (one of which could have been dedicated to human mobility) was rejected by developing countries, which feared that such an arrangement would impinge on the autonomy of the Fund’s – as yet unappointed – board.

Access rights to the Fund are broad. Rather than focussing exclusively on the least developed countries and small island states (which are guaranteed an as yet un­defined percentage of the Fund’s volume), all “developing countries particularly vul­nerable to the adverse effects of climate change” are included. This vague formulation leaves room for different interpretations that may lead to conflicts, for example concerning the role of emerging economies as either donors or recipients.

The decisive question remains unan­swered: Who should contribute how much to the new fund? The circle of potential contributors is large. Developed countries are “urged” to contribute, others “encouraged”; contributions from private donors and innovative sources are also possible. Rejecting developing countries’ demand for an initial funding target of US$100 billion per year, the final document does not con­tain a financial target figure. Given the risk of increasing competition for funding between different climate finance instruments, it is all the more important that individual donor countries provide impetus by making their own contributions (as Ger­many, the UAE and others have already committed to) and actively soliciting the participation of others, which will help the Fund to have a practical impact.

These decisions have been criticised by civil society. Alongside the decision to place the Fund with the World Bank and the lack of a concrete financial target, the main points of criticism are the lack of a dedi­cated civil society seat on the board and the absence of a reference to human rights.

In addition to its core purpose, the Fund is also intended to fulfil an important co­ordinating function within the broader financial architecture for loss and damage, and to strengthen complementarity and coherence. This includes the Global Shield against Climate Risk (with the World Bank-based Global Shield Financing Facility), the Bridgetown Initiative’s proposals for reform­ing lending rules in the context of climate change-related loss and damage, and the proposals contained in the UN Secre­tary-General’s discussion paper Financing for Action on Internal Displacement.

How to integrate human mobility?

Displacement, relocation and migration are to play a central role in the new Fund and in the overarching financing structure. This means that finally, this long-lamented gap in climate financing will receive more atten­tion. In view of the complex and frag­mented institutional landscape in the field of climate and migration, the Fund’s co­ordinating function holds additional poten­tial: it can help to ensure that climate change-induced human mobility is more systematically taken into account when addressing loss and damage.

Many open questions remain with regard to operationalisation however. There is no generally agreed and internationally recog­nised terminology and no shared understanding of the different forms of human mobility in the context of climate change, both of which would be imperative for assessing loss and damage. Moreover, quan­tifying the loss and damage caused by dis­placement and relocation is a complex matter. To date, there are neither generally recognised benchmarks for defining regions as uninhabitable nor systematic data col­lec­tion on the costs associated with human mobility (especially for slow onset scenarios). Beyond that, non-economic loss and dam­age in particular often remains un­docu­mented and is hard to quantify. Yet it is vital to ascertain the real costs of displacement: Doing so has the potential to invig­orate the debate about expanding legal migration pathways for people affected by climate change – especially against the back­ground of growing objections to im­migration in many industrialised countries.

Substantiate migration-related funding needs

Integrating the aspect of human mobility in climate financing creates opportunities to back existing efforts with financial resources on a new scale. Putting this into practice, however, will require the specifi­cation of suitable fields of application in all phases of climate change-related mobilit­y, including prevention, protection and du­rable solutions. Significant and continuously increasing funding needs exist in three areas in particular.

Firstly the need for evacuations and planned relocations is growing. Socially acceptable perspectives that are consistent with human rights and developed in col­laboration with those affected need to be offered to residents of regions that are gradually being made uninhabitable by environmental degradation. The Climate Relocation of Communities Trust Fund in Fiji is an exemplary case – but underfunded. A contribution from the new Loss and Damage Fund could make a significant dif­fer­ence here. In the long term the design and funding of voluntary relocation will become increasingly important for devel­op­ment policy in the field of climate mobility.

The second area where there is strong pressure to act is climate change-induced internal displacement. In addition to the need for durable solutions such as local integration, IDPs need to be systematically included in disaster risk reduction and in climate adaptation and development planning.

Finally, the third area of application is support for cities. Long-standing urbanisation trends are intensifying due to climate change. Basic services are frequently lim­ited or non-existent in the informal settle­ments that emerge in this process, safety and dignity are not ensured. Proactive planning is needed for adequate housing and for quantitative expansion and climate-adapted conversion of urban infrastructure and services like water and public trans­port.

Strengthen technical support structures

Alongside financing, technical support is crucial for enabling effective implementation of resources. Regional, national and sub-national institutional capacities need to be supported, for example in disaster risk reduction. The countries and communities that are most in need of support usually have little capacity to access international funds and ensure that the funds raised are used in a timely and compliant manner. Providing funding directly to affected com­munities offers potential for targeted and needs-based use of resources. At the same time, the great importance of technical support through the entire project cycle, from application to implementation becomes apparent.

The Santiago Network on Loss and Dam­age, which was founded in 2019, plays a key role here. Its purpose is to facilitate access to technical expertise and resources for particularly vulnerable countries to avert climate change-related loss and damage or at least minimise the impacts. The Network needs adequate funding to contribute meaningfully to capacity-build­ing, rather than merely providing case-by-case support. In order to make its support measures more sustainable, the Network should draw on participatory methods from development cooperation. That would in­clude integrating indigenous expertise in decision-making processes and systematically addressing the different risks, needs and vulnerabilities of women and girls, marginalised and indigenous groups, LGBTQIA+, and people with disabilities.

Provide migration policy solutions

Including human mobility in the new Loss and Damage Fund expands the financial leeway both to create the preconditions for people to stay in safety and to support those who are on the move. But that alone is not sufficient to enable largely independent mobility decisions and to support migration as an adaptation and risk-minimisation strat­egy. In line with the objectives of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regu­lar Migration, legal migration pathways must be expanded for people particularly affected by climate change.

The following fields of action stand out: For those in need of protection, safe routes to countries in the Global North are a prior­ity, for example in form of the widely dis­cussed climate passport. Promoting regional freedom of movement can also help to pro­vide safe and regular mobility options to people at risk. In addition, climate change vulnerability should be a significant selec­tion criterion when recruiting labour from abroad.

Given the polarised debate over refugee protection and the resistance to immigration in Germany and other EU member states, such initiatives are politically chal­leng­ing. But in a situation of growing migra­tion pressure they are essential if immigration is to be shaped proactively. The policy of deterring migrants currently pursued by many governments is not a viable long-term alternative. Aside from its high economic and human rights costs, it is ultimately doomed to fail in view of the inevitability of climate change.