Currently, over 70 percent of people displaced worldwide are from the most climate-vulnerable countries–largely from across the Global South. Yet, protections for climate-induced displaced persons forced to cross international borders are limited, piecemeal, and not legally binding. On the other hand, in 2022, climate-vulnerable countries won the decades-long fight for a “loss and damage” fund to ensure that the costs of the climate crisis are covered by the Global North countries and corporations that gave rise to it, and to aid the just transition to climate-resilient and regenerative economies globally. Marking the release of the Othering & Belonging Institute's research brief, “Climate Refugees: Facts and Findings, and Strategies for 'Loss and Damage,'” this panel aims to strengthen and bridge movements for climate refugee protections, climate reparations, and just transitions.
This panel brings together experts to discuss the Global North’s culpability for the climate crisis, and how action on its part is essential to mitigating the crisis of climate-induced displacement by ensuring the safe resettlement of climate refugees, and fostering diversified climate-resilient economies and just transitions across the Global South and Global North alike. Speaking to the research brief and their expertise, panelists will discuss how to secure protections for climate refugees; how to fortify and expand the legal case for “loss and damage”; how to link climate-induced displacement and “loss and damage” compensation mechanisms through research and through labor and land reform, among other measures; and how to finance “loss and damage” in ways that build on the “polluter-pays principle” and counteract neocolonial debt and finance mechanisms.
Speakers:
- Amali Tower, Refugee & Migration Expert, and Director of Climate Refugees
- Hamza Hamouchene, Programme Coordinator for North Africa at the Transnational Institute
- Mizan Khan, Deputy Director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development
- Ineza Umuhoza Grace, Research Assistant at Politics of Climate Change Loss and Damage
- Hossein Ayazi, Policy Analyst, Global Justice Program at the Othering & Belonging Institute
