Irecently had occasion to chair an interesting forum on climate change and migration during an International Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in London on 'Global to Local: Climate Change post-Copenhagen'.

The keynote speakers were Koko Warner, head of environmental migration, social vulnerability and adaptation at the UN Institute for Environment and Human Security, and Cecilia Tacoli, senior researcher, human settlements group at the International Institute for Environment and Development.

I have always believed that climate change and migration need to be studied and analysed more carefully. When recent estimates suggested that between 200 million and one billion people could be displaced by climate change during the next four decades, they fuelled the perception that climate change is likely to be associated with a new era of mass migration. To date, climate refugees do not have any legal definition or status.

This had been confirmed to me by a high-ranking International Organisation for Migration official during a climate conference in Helsingor organised by Wilton Park in conjunction with the Danish authorities in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit.

Although several experts have dismissed such figures as at best, guesswork, these estimates have helped focus policymakers' attention on the subject of migration and climate change, and have led to calls for better data and research on the issue.

Even though when I had suggested in Parliament, at the end of the Prime Minister's statement on a recent EU Summit, that climate refugee status should be defined even at a UN level, my proposal had received a cool reception.

I still strongly believe that not only do the broader environmental hazards and migration need to be studied more carefully, but also to determine to what extent it has been possible to measure the scale of environmental migration so far. Unless this is done scientifically it will be much harder to predict and plan for the future.

I appreciate that it might be difficult to disaggregate the role of climate change from other economic, social and political factors driving migration. But apart from the fact that migration data is often lacking where it is needed most and where vulnerability to climate change is strongest, the lack of data remains mainly attributable to one determining factor: the absence of an adequate definition under international law to cover migrants affected by environmental factors.

The best definition coined so far by the IOM dates back three years and runs something like this:

"Environmental migrants are persons or groups of persons who, for reasons of sudden or progressive change in the environment that adversely affects their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad."

The only instance when measurable data is at hand is when environmental migration results from the number of people that may be displaced as a result of natural disasters.

The Tsunami which hit Asia six years ago claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 people, and displaced another 400,000 others. Yet the vast majority of those who were forced to move relocated to nearby areas.

Some make the point that even where there is a recognition that some form of migration related to environmental change is likely to occur, addressing these movements is hampered by the paucity of policy responses deemed appropriate to this form of migration.

In our deliberations in London the main conclusions where that:

• Pilot projects were not enough and that synergy at various ministerial levels and on an international front was needed;

• There was an urgent need for policy packages rather than a streamlined, tailor-made solution;

• This was an irreversible process and thus policy should focus on expanding adaptation options;

• There should be participatory planning and proactive responses and approaches.

Apart from the need for a strong international information network to be built up progressively, technology and market-driven responses to such climate change phenomena hardly provided any benefits for the most vulnerable.

Recent studies have shown that climate change-induced migration runs across continents, with Sudan arguably the country closest to home for us, while other countries that instantly come to mind are Bangladesh, Mexico and Senegal.

One reason why it is so difficult to define the range of climate change-induced migration is because of the institutional and governance implications of doing so compounded with the lack of will to get down to it and act.

Mr Brincat is Labour spokesman for the Environment, Sustainable Development and Climate Change.

brincat.leo@gmail.com

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