Back to School with… Lena Knappers & Bram van Ooijen #3
Session #3
Strategies for climate-induced displacement and migration
The second in a series of three evenings about climate change, environmental justice and migration. Taking place on Tuesday 03 December, 19:00 - 21:00 (doors open and dinner served at 18:00). Tickets for this separate event costs 17,50 euro and include a simple dinner. An entrance package for all three evenings is available for 45 euro. Get them here
Tickets for the separate events are 17,50 euro and include a simple dinner. An entrance package for all three evenings is available for 45 euro.
Session #3 - Strategies for climate-induced displacement and migration
While climate induced displacement and migration is already happening and will increase, international law currently gives no protection to those affected by the undesirable effects of climate change. Not only does a global fixation on borders as a solution to migration cause unnecessary suffering on people, it also obscures ways that seek and identify and begin to find solution to a future of more displacement and migration, a future that invites more generosity and responsibility. In the third event we will look at strategies to deal with displacement and migration in the context of a changing climate. We will examine how to address regional displacement and migration, but will also look at areas near the planet’s cooler poles that might become potential places to build new villages and cities.
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.
Programme 03 December
18:00 - 19:00 Doors open and dinner served
19:00 - 19:30 Introduction by Lena Knappers and Bram van Ooijen
19:30 - 20:30 Online lecture by Malkit Shoshan on humanitarian responses to climate-induced migration, focussing on the Sahel region + Q&A
20:30 - 21:00 Lecture by Esther Kokmeijer on the project ‘Terra Nullius – Ownership and Pioneering on Ice’
21:00 Drinks at the bar
This event is the third 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.