scholarly journals Toward a Typology of Displacements in the Context of Slow-Onset Environmental Degradation. An Analysis of Hazards, Policies, and Mobility Patterns

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 10235
Author(s):  
Raoul Kaenzig ◽  
Etienne Piguet
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Adaptation Strategy ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Comprehensive Collection ◽  
Social Vulnerabilities ◽  
Slow Onset

The aim of this paper is to develop a typology of displacement in the context of slow-onset environmental degradation linked to climate change (desertification, droughts and increasing temperatures, sea level rise (SLR), loss of biodiversity, land/forest degradation, and glacial retreat). We differentiate regions under environmental threat according to their social vulnerabilities, mobility patterns, and related policies, and identify twelve types of vulnerability/policy/mobility combinations. The paper is based on a synthesis of 321 published case studies on displacement and slow-onset environmental degradation, representing a comprehensive collection of the literature since the 1970s. We observe that vulnerability is especially critical in small island and coastal contexts, as well as in mountainous zones and desert regions. Migration processes are often not visible in areas affected by environmental degradation. When they do occur, they remain mostly internal and oriented towards cities with occasional rural-to-rural migration. Non-mobile people, as well as those who depend on natural resource industries for their livelihoods, are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Persons with lower levels of education are more likely to respond to environmental shock through short-distance migration, whereas highly educated individuals may migrate over longer distances. Policies that directly address mobility in relation to climate change—mostly through relocation—are seldom mentioned in the literature. Mobility is often perceived as a last-resort solution, whereas a growing body of research identifies mobility as an adaptation strategy.

Human Rights in the Paris Agreement: Too Little, Too Late?

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Adelman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article examines the impact of the Paris Agreement on the human rights of communities who are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of anthropogenic warming because of their geographical location, their spiritual and cultural connections with land and the wider environment, and their histories of colonialism, dispossession and other forms of exploitation. It focuses on two groups: forest dwellers, and inhabitants of small island developing states who are in danger of inundation as a result of rising sea levels. The Paris Agreement on climate change includes stand-alone articles on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), and loss and damage. The main argument in this article is that the inclusion of human rights in the Preamble to the Paris Agreement is a step forward, but is incommensurate with the scale and urgency of climate change.

scholarly journals Policies and mechanisms to address climate-induced migration and displacement in Pacific and Caribbean small island developing states

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adelle Thomas ◽  
Lisa Benjamin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Adaptation Strategy ◽  
Significant Loss ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Small Island Developing States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Displacement Potential ◽  
Development Plans

PurposeThis study aims to assess policies and mechanisms in Caribbean and Pacific small island developing states (SIDS) that address climate-induced migration and displacement. The migration of communities away from vulnerable regions is highly likely to be an adaptation strategy used in low-elevation SIDS, as the impacts of climate change are likely to result in significant loss and damage, threatening their very territorial existence. SIDS must ensure that residents relocate to less vulnerable locations and may need to consider international movement of residents.Ad hocapproaches to migration and displacement may result in increased vulnerability of residents, making the development and enforcement of comprehensive national policies that address these issues a necessity.Design/methodology/approachInterviews with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiators for SIDS as well as analysis of secondary data, including Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, are utilized to determine policies and mechanisms in place that focus on climate-induced migration and displacement.FindingsWhile climate change is acknowledged as an existential threat, few SIDS have policies or mechanisms in place to guide climate-induced migration and displacement. Potential exists for migration and displacement to be included in policies that integrate disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation along with national sustainable development plans. Regional bodies are beneficial to providing guidance to SIDS in the development of nationally appropriate frameworks to address climate-induced migration and displacement.Originality/valueExisting gaps in policies and mechanisms and challenges faced by SIDS in developing strategies to address climate-induced migration and displacement are explored. Best practices and recommendations for strategies for SIDS to address migration and displacement are provided.

scholarly journals Growing hope: Island agriculture and refusing catastrophe in climate change adaptation in Fiji

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-155
Author(s):  
Delilah Griswold
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
National Development ◽  
Adaptation Strategy ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Agricultural Modernization ◽  
Island States ◽  
Neoliberal Development ◽  
Adaptation Practices

In both media and policy, climate change is broadly framed as the promise of catastrophe for small island states such as Fiji. This framing is often used to attract adaptation investment in islands, the targets and directives of which are frequently market-based and oriented toward economic-growth development models. In Fiji, this takes the form of land tenure policy and efforts to attract investment to support agricultural modernization. Such a pattern is the source of scholarly and activist critique that climate change adaptation is nothing more than a repackaging of neoliberal development. This paper seeks to situate such critique alongside parallel attention to climate change adaptation practices emerging from alternative, hopeful frames and aimed at less national development driven efforts. In doing so, it centers adaptation as a space of unsettled struggle and asks, in what ways do climate change adaptation practices in Fiji align and conflict with dominant framing of island vulnerability and climate catastrophe, and how might they suggest alternative adaptive interventions that renegotiate these frames? Specifically, this paper focuses on efforts to promote ‘traditional’ agriculture throughout Fiji as an endogenous and hopeful form of adaptation, and one consistently opposed to efforts at agricultural modernization as an adaptation strategy.

Future climate change and its impacts over small island states

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 179-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Lal ◽  
H Harasawa ◽  
K Takahashi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Island States ◽  
Small Island States

scholarly journals Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion—Flexible Enabling Technology for Variable Renewable Energy Integration in the Caribbean

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2192
Author(s):  
Robert J. Brecha ◽  
Katherine Schoenenberger ◽  
Masaō Ashtine ◽  
Randy Koon Koon
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Conversion ◽  
Thermal Energy ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Gis Mapping ◽  
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion ◽  
Thermal Energy Conversion ◽  
Hourly Data ◽  
Ocean Thermal Energy

Many Caribbean island nations have historically been heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels for both power and transportation, while at the same time being at an enhanced risk from the impacts of climate change, although their emissions represent a very tiny fraction of the global total responsible for climate change. Small island developing states (SIDSs) are among the leaders in advocating for the ambitious 1.5 °C Paris Agreement target and the transition to 100% sustainable, renewable energy systems. In this work, three central results are presented. First, through GIS mapping of all Caribbean islands, the potential for near-coastal deep-water as a resource for ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is shown, and these results are coupled with an estimate of the countries for which OTEC would be most advantageous due to a lack of other dispatchable renewable power options. Secondly, hourly data have been utilized to explicitly show the trade-offs between battery storage needs and dispatchable renewable sources such as OTEC in 100% renewable electricity systems, both in technological and economic terms. Finally, the utility of near-shore, open-cycle OTEC with accompanying desalination is shown to enable a higher penetration of renewable energy and lead to lower system levelized costs than those of a conventional fossil fuel system.

scholarly journals Special Issue on Climate Migration

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Anda David ◽  
Frédéric Docquier
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Low Latitude ◽  
Weather Shocks ◽  
Temperature Trends ◽  
Agricultural Areas ◽  
Slow Onset

How do weather shocks influence human mobility and poverty, and how will long-term climate change affect future migration over the course of the 21st century? These questions have gained unprecedented attention in public debates as global warming is already having severe impacts around the world, and prospects for the coming decades get worse. Low-latitude countries in general, and their agricultural areas in particular, have contributed the least to climate change but are the most adversely affected. The effect on people's voluntary and forced displacements is of major concern for both developed and developing countries. On 18 October 2019, Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) organized a workshop on Climate Migration with the aim of uncovering the mechanisms through which fast-onset variables (such as weather anomalies, storms, hurricanes, torrential rains, floods, landslides, etc.) and slow-onset variables (such as temperature trends, desertification, rising sea level, coastal erosion, etc.) influence both people's incentives to move and mobility constraints. This special issue gathers five papers prepared for this workshop, which shed light on (or predict) the effect of extreme weather shocks and long-term climate change on human mobility, and stress the implications for the development community.

scholarly journals On storiation and what is washed ashore: The Anthropocene as big kahuna

2021 ◽  
pp. 204382062110174
Author(s):  
Elena Burgos Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Critical Perspective

This commentary begins by outlining current debates on the notion of the Anthropocene from a critical perspective. Subsequently, it will discuss how Pugh and Chandler (2021) directly address such a problematic and how their work contributes to pluralising contemporary academic debates on the Anthropocene. Their previous academic engagements are no stranger to questions of epistemic discrimination in the broad fields of geography, geopolitics, island studies, and social research, and, more concretely, mainstreamed anthropological thinking. This commentary will therefore focus on their call for storiation and its relevance for contemporary debates seeking more ethical, localised, fluid, and coherent approaches to environmental degradation, environmental history, island identity, geopolitics of climate change, and indigeneity. From all the shapes storiation can take, this commentary focuses on indigenous storiation as embodiment.

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