Back to School with… Lena Knappers & Bram van Ooijen #1
Session #1
THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE WOLRD
The first in a series of three evenings about climate change, environmental justice and migration, with Amara van der Elst, Elham Sabahat and IOM Climate Action Division. Taking place on Tuesday 08 October, 19:00 - 21:00 (doors open and dinner served at 18:00). Tickets for this event are sold out.
Session #1 - The Impact of Climate Change on the World
On the first evening we will discuss the impact of climate change on areas and communities around the world. As a result of global warming, environmental conditions are changing rapidly, and in some cases irreversibly. Some are already forced to move away from their homes, others are unable to escape. According to ‘Future of the Human Climate Niche, a ground-breaking interdisciplinarity study, in the coming century global heating will drive billions of people out of the ‘climate niche’ in which humanity has flourished for millennia, exposing them to unprecedented temperatures and extreme weather. In countries with large populations and already warm climates most people will be pushed outside the human climate niche, with India and Nigeria facing worst changes. Exposure outside the niche could result in increased morbidity, mortality or migration elsewhere. In the project ‘Humanity on the Move’, the starting point for this lecture series, Bram van Ooijen and Lena Knappers explore how we can address this major issue.
Climate-induced migration
The United Nations International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has cited estimates of as many as 25 million to 1 billion climate migrants in the next 30 years, while other projections point to 1.4 billion by 2060.
Climate induced migration takes place disproportionally in low-income countries and intersects with many other causes for displacement. The people most affected by climate change are those already experiencing threats to their lives and livelihoods, including degraded environments, income instability, lack of affordable healthcare, inadequate sanitation, poor governance, and a lack of personal agency or ability to change their circumstances. Nations have an obligation to offer asylum to refugees, but under the legal definitions of the refugee, still based on the 1951 Refugee Convention, this does not include those who have to leave their home because of climate change. Therefore, many people cannot find a safe and healthy place to live because they are not qualified as refugee. At the same time, the world’s wealthiest countries spend more on arming their borders to keep migrants out, than on tackling the climate crisis that forces people from their homes in the first place, even when exactly these prosperous industrial countries have caused climate change and high carbon emission based on coal, oil and gas. Migration flows come at a terrible human cost. It is therefore important to investigate in more just alternatives for the way we are dealing with climate change, migration and the organisation of space today.
About Amara van der Elst
Amara van der Elst learned at a young age to stay ‘small’. She rises above herself on stage. Spoken word helped Amara discover and feel emotions and deal with them more deeply. She learned to be vulnerable on stage, to share this with others and to gain strength and energy from it. It is the place where her words find rhythm. In 2021, Amara impressed the people of the Netherlands with her spoken word performance during the Nationale Dodenherdenking (National Remembrance Day) on May 4. In 2022 she won the title 'Talent of the Year' from the Onderwijs Innovatie Fonds NL (Education Innovation Fund NL), set up her own spoken word writers camp ‘Rhyme & Reason’ and starred on the spoken word music album 'Binnenste Buiten' by Spraakuhloos. Amara writes and speaks to pass on the lessons she learns every day. For her it is a moment of sharing, opening up to the people who listen, giving vulnerability and being open to reciprocity. Amara was too big to keep small. She takes up spaces in a way that feels good, she connects unexpected energies and sees similarities rather than differences.
With an unimaginable passion for telling personal stories, a fiery power for breaking down social taboos and openly sharing vulnerability, Amara’s whole being is inevitable.
About Elham Sabahat
Elham is a writer, researcher, and climate policy specialist focused on the social and human dimensions of climate change. She is a coauthor of Groundswell II: Acting on Internal Climate Migration, the World Bank’s seminal report on climate-induced migration. She also contributed research to the climate chapter of the World Development Report 2023: Migrants, Refugees, and Societies. In addition to her work as a climate change consultant at the World Bank, Elham is currently engaged in planning and researching clean mobility programs for urban, disadvantaged communities in New Jersey, United States. She has conducted research on human rights, migration, and conservation in India, Rwanda, South Africa, Thailand, and the United States. Elham’s narrative journalism is focused on stories that reveal connections to place, and the complexities and contradictions of being human. Her work is published by Canada’s National Observer, CBC News, Courrier International, Hakai Magazine, PBS SoCal, Mongabay, Pacific Standard, Popular Science, Sapiens Magazine, Sierra Magazine, The Tyee, and others. Elham has a master’s degree in political ecology and climate change from Yale University, and a master’s degree in global affairs and human rights from New York University.
Programme
18:00 - 19:00 Doors open and dinner served
19:00 - 19:30 Performance by Amara van der Elst
19:30 - 20:15 Opening lecture "Humanity on the Move" by Lena Knappers and Bram van Ooijen + Q&A
20:15 - 21:00 Online Lecture by Elham Sabahat and IOM Climate Action Division on climate-induced migration and its spatial consequences + conversation
21:00 Drinks at the bar
This event is the first in a series of three about climate change, environmental justice and migration, curated by Lena Knappers and Bram van Ooijen. The lecture series derives from the research and design project ‘Humanity on the move’, which was part of the open call ‘designing a climate just world’, organised and subsided by the EFL Foundation. More info here.