Should the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change recognize climate migrants?

By May 2012, with 194 countries and the European Union signatories of the UNFCCC, and the Holy See as an official observer, this intergovernmental process represents a high profile global policy forum for climate policy. The methods for negotiation and implementation are familiar to members and generally accepted. Thus, there could be less delay in taking concrete global action as compared to creating an entirely new mechanism. In a post-Kyoto context, enabling countries to choose policies that best suit their particular circumstances is preferred over a singular unilaterally imposed solution [44]. As states will be main implementers of policy, a forum that allows states to control implementation, informed by a clear set of guiding principles, is needed [5, 28, 45, 46]. The UNFCCC can fill this role: it encourages states to take action within their borders [47], and to negotiate and act with other states at the global level (e.g. Articles 3, 4, 5, 7, 15), without impinging on state sovereignty [48]. Moreover, it provides a significant voice for the most vulnerable countries and opportunities to link mitigation, development, humanitarian issues and security issues [3].

Building migration and mobility policies within existing adaptation strategies, laws, policies and institutions will increase the effectiveness of both adaptation and broader development goals [5, 22, 24], while ignoring the migration issue could undermine other adaptation efforts, render such efforts maladaptive [28], and even permit powerful actors to use forced migration for political and economic gain [25, 49]. Hence, a good fit exists between the UNFCCC's mandate to address adaptation issues and recognizing climate migrants. Moreover, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and avoiding dangerous interference with the climate system (Article 2) [41], UNFCCC member states are tackling an underlying driver and ultimately helping to reduce future migration pressures [25, 50].

Support for climate migration initiatives could be channelled through existing adaptation funding mechanisms (supplementary data 1 available at stacks.iop.org/ERL/7/045601/mmedia). The UNFCCC funds activities to build resilience to climate change through voluntary pledges, bilateral contributions and levies on carbon trading mechanisms [51, 52]. Newer funding opportunities through the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun Adaptation Framework address structural and governance problems of earlier funding mechanisms [4, 53].

Timing and broad contextual factors can make or break the acceptance of an issue and propel action [6, 21]. Given current levels of public awareness on climate change and adaptation issues and public pressure from both the developed and developing world, and climate change's positioning as a major global public policy issue, there is now sufficient momentum and political will to advance the recognition of climate migrants and end past stalemates [54, 55]. The integration of climate migration into ongoing discussions on adaptation and vulnerability within the UNFCCC will minimize duplication of efforts by working within existing processes instead of creating new spaces for dialogue [56–58]. These efforts could be more effective if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also addressed the issue of migration, which will be considered in the contexts of human security and of rural areas in the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report.

Equity and justice issues are pertinent to adaptation, and should be addressed at each of the international legal framework and national adaptation policy levels [51, 58–61]. Inequality in income, human security and development between nations and regions is among the most important factors driving migration [62]. Recognizing climate migrants under the UNFCCC would ensure a fairer cost burden, with the concept of common but differentiated responsibility foundational to the UNFCCC. The costs of climate migration will be borne by someone; without recognition they will likely be borne by the most vulnerable countries [63, 64], because most migrants do not travel far, especially if they are poor [5, 24]. It is noteworthy here that Article 4.4 commits developed countries to assist developing countries especially vulnerable to the negative effects of climatic change in meeting costs of adaptation [31, 58, 65].

Although Warner [3] notes that it is difficult to imagine the disadvantages of discussing migration in the UNFCCC process, administering recognition through it is not without risks. The original and ultimate intent of the UNFCCC is to facilitate the reduction of the causes of anthropogenic climate change (Article 2), and not to address mobility issues per se [26]. While the Convention is important insofar as it moulds climate change discourse, maintains a high profile for climate change and stimulates national policy responses, it has yielded limited results in resolving climate change issues at sub-national levels [48], primarily because its role is to catalyse and not to implement [3]. The Convention has exacted negative repercussions on global environmental governance [66], permitted a large disconnect between science and policy responses [67], and produced what some scholars consider ineffective policy instruments, notably the Kyoto Protocol [44, 67, 68]. These critiques, however, are largely levelled against the mitigation initiatives of the Convention; the effectiveness of the UNFCCC in enabling newer adaptation initiatives is largely untested but the emerging consensus on the importance of adaptation in the Copenhagen Accord and Cancun Agreement is encouraging [53, 69]. Additionally, the consensus-based decision-making used in UNFCCC processes is slow, involves significant compromises, and of late, has yielded largely political, not legal commitments [70]. Without a legal component, there is no true recognition. Indeed, the invitation for parties to undertake climate migration measures under the Cancun Adaptation Framework is voluntary [4]. Unlike other intergovernmental agencies and regional agreements, the UNFCCC cannot impose sanctions for non-compliance. Instead, it relies on international peer pressure and the good intentions of signatories, the success of which to date has been limited [28], but can, however, motivate state action on controversial issues [71].

Restrictions of UNFCCC adaptation funding mechanisms may also inhibit effective results. The current method for allocating adaptation funding is 'essentially a mixture between project level appraisal and first-come-first-serve', but could be improved by pairing adaptation funding with technical assistance in project implementation [58, p 855]. The UNFCCC targets impacts directly attributable to anthropogenic induced climate change (i.e. marginality) [54], but not activities to build resilience to climate variability [51, 52]. It funds initiatives resulting in local but not global benefits [54]. Herein, given that the majority of climate migration is expected to have very localized impacts [24, 25], the added benefits of UNFCCC funding may be limited.

Simplifying the migration problem is a necessary step in advancing a public policy agenda [6]; however, if done incorrectly, UNFCCC recognition could result in further marginalization. Increased attention to and protection of climate migrants may come at the expense of other displaced people [6]. There is also a risk that key components of climate migration will be neglected and/or that the adaptation fallacy will materialize, whereby the climate migration issue will be dismissed once adaptation measures are implemented. As climate migration is not solely an environmental issue, an exclusive focus on the environment will not solve the problem [5, 72]. Herein recognition in an environment-focused Convention could sideline relevant political, economic, cultural and social factors.

Several elements are necessary in structuring an institutional framework. A clear mandate and objectives are essential as UN agencies have limited leeway to act upon non-mandated activities [21]. The mandate for the UNFCCC with regard to climate migration should be articulated in a COP Decision, and the specific objectives developed by an Ad Hoc Working Group on Climate Migration. The working group should involve actual and potential climate migration victims in policy and programme formation, and coordinate with other UN and non-UN agencies working on relevant issues. Although it is neither cost-effective nor desirable to create an enormous but representative working group for all stages of international level decision-making, the participation of affected people at key stages, in particular during the initial development and testing stages, is more likely to achieve good policies and lasting results [13, 22, 28, 40, 59], confer legitimacy [75], and instil procedural justice [61]. Such broad-based participation could be modelled on the UNHCR-convened Dialogue on Protection Challenges meeting in December 2007 that studied gaps in the protection for non-refugees and how to fill these gaps [46]. Unlike other official UN forums in which non-party stakeholders are limited to observer status, all stakeholders at the dialogue—governments, UN organizations, NGOs, civil society representatives and individual experts—participated on equal footing.

Issues of scale and units of measurement must be agreed upon. Because climate change generally affects groups of people and not just individuals, addressing climate migration requires the collective protection of villages, cities or affected areas [15, 76]. This perspective could be conceptually difficult for states to accept because the Refugee Convention, to which they are accustomed, focuses on individuals [15]. Clarifying an appropriate scale of analysis is critical as its absence hinders an understanding of migration and an ability to generate predictions [14], and prevents research conclusions consistent among studied groups [25]. Indeed, policy mismatches at different political scales have constrained mitigation efforts of the UNFCCC [48]. Scale is also important for selecting vulnerability indicators and prioritizing vulnerable people and places [77], as discussed in section 4.2.

Securing permanent funding is the final component of the institutional framework. The UNFCCC projects that adaptation investments will cost $44–166 billion annually, including $27–67 billion for developing countries; the World Bank's estimate is higher—$75–100 billion in developing countries [58, p 844]. Neither estimate includes the costs of migration, for which no assessment exists, thus some additional monies are likely required. Parry et al [78] further contend these figures are underestimates and could jump to one trillion dollars per year if action is delayed. To be effective, adaptation funding must be adequate, accessible to developing countries and available to be used comprehensively on the ground [52], including for national level humanitarian responses [72]. Allocation of funds should be transparent, efficient and equitable, and based on empirical research [58]. The climate migration portion of adaptation funding should reduce the costs of moving money and people between sending and receiving areas, and target both migrants and host communities so that all people in the receiving areas benefit [25]. Funding could be sought from one of the UNFCCC adaptation funding mechanisms, the UN Central Emergency Response Fund and/or official development assistance [15, 25, 50].

Because climate migration will occur primarily in developing countries [18, 25], and the most vulnerable will be less able or likely to migrate [5], targeting vulnerable nations is ethically and practically justifiable [13, 59, 61]. Vulnerable populations are often exposed and must adapt to multiple stresses simultaneously, such as climatic change and globalization [49, 73, 79, 80]. They often live in marginal ecosystems and high risk locations, depend on natural resources for their livelihoods and have a limited ability to adapt to the impacts of climate change [18, 58, 81]. During displacement, these vulnerable groups may be further marginalized as pre-existing patterns of discrimination are exacerbated [22]. As such, efforts should be aimed at increasing social capital [17], ensuring acceptable, diversified livelihoods and income sources [24, 64], and avoiding involuntary resettlement [5, 25, 27]. Most importantly, adaptive capacity—defined as the ability of human systems to address, plan for, or adapt to climate change impacts and take advantage of new opportunities [82, 83]—must be enhanced [13, 16–18, 72]. Migrant networks facilitate capacity building of both sending and receiving areas through remittances, social infrastructure and informational exchange [25, 28]. More generally, adaptive capacity is improved through the availability and equitable distribution of economic resources, technology, information and skills, infrastructure, institutions and management capabilities [73, 84]. Supported by strong inter-agency coordination, capacity-building efforts should extend to vulnerable governance systems, vulnerable regional and international emergency response systems, and vulnerable decision-making processes [20, 25, 28, 58, 81].

A vulnerability focus requires a mechanism to identify and prioritize places and peoples vulnerable to climate migration [58, 63, 65], and dynamic pressures shaping vulnerability [77]. The mechanism could be based on the identification of eight regions of concern [25], environmental pressure points—locations that are especially susceptible to environmental migration [10], or migration hot spots and existing migration channels [36]. Models that accurately predict the underlying drivers of vulnerability, likelihood of migration, offsetting effect of adaptive capacity, and number of climate migrants would be immensely useful to policy makers [13, 16, 17, 25, 77]. Existing vulnerability indices are inadequate however, challenged by conceptual and methodological difficulties [65, 75]. In a recent article, Gemenne [32] points to promising models and methodological improvements that can yield more robust and reliable predictions on the number of people displaced by environmental changes.

The Ad Hoc Working Group on Climate Migration should prioritize strengthening an empirical understanding of climate migration and best practices for pre-emption and, when it does occur, ensuring its adaptiveness. Research into the diverse scenarios of climate migration [7, 23, 85], the spatial and temporal patterns of climate migration [5, 20, 25, 27], the humanitarian consequences of climate change [72], and the relationship between climate change and other drivers of population movements [5] is still in its infancy. Case study and analogue work can fill this gap (cf [17, 24, 86]). Better exchange of knowledge across disciplines, especially concerning institutional efforts on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, would further improve climate migration research [20].

Not all people in a position to migrate will automatically do so; therefore careful study of patterns of non-migration should be examined. Different factors underlying non-migration of various groups will necessitate different policy responses [2, 17, 87]. For example, the incidence of migration can be reduced by positive factors such as enhanced human agency and adaptation, or by negative factors including a lack of financial, informational, social and institutional support [14, 20, 24, 25, 87]. Non-migrants of the latter type may suffer livelihood erosion, deteriorating health and reduced life expectancy, and may far outnumber climate migrants, thereby precipitating a greater humanitarian problem, albeit one more spatially and temporally diffuse than those brought about by acute catastrophic events [25].

Climate migrants are entitled to rights because they are (1) human and thus protected under international human rights laws and (2) migrants and thus protected under existing treaties guaranteeing rights to migrants [7, 22, 34, 38, 45]. These protections are insufficient, and their effectiveness may be eroded by climate change. For example, prevailing refugee law will not automatically apply to people whose states cease to exist due to sea level rise, nor is there any certainty that the (transplanted) government of the submerged state can ensure rights flowing from citizenship [34, 37, 72]. This situation explains the urgency with which UN agencies, scholars and activists call for an explicit focus on the rights of climate migrants (cf [5, 40]). While many of these rights are enshrined in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement [5, 18, 88], and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Operations and Guidelines on the Protection of Persons Affected by Natural Disasters [72], the existing guidelines cannot account for all possible climate change scenarios [22]. Moreover, while the guidelines provide the normative framework for dealing with climate migration and displacement within a country, they are inadequate for overcoming operational hurdles [22]. Hence, the protection of rights is integral to the recognition of climate migrants.

For climate migrant recognition to succeed, it must be situated within a comprehensive strategy. Climate migration is expected to affect agriculture, gender equity, health, state sovereignty, human rights, human security, development and resource availability and management [17, 23, 24, 72]. Involving non-environment-oriented agencies specialized in these areas can improve policy effectiveness and help to overcome an overemphasis on environment-based solutions. Indeed, mainstreaming adaptation measures into specialized policy and decision-making areas can accelerate and improve the effectiveness of the process of adapting [89], and is endorsed by relevant UN agencies (cf [72, 81, 90]).

Recognition must be done in concert with other initiatives advancing global migration governance, or, as outlined earlier, risk further marginalizing and increasing the vulnerability of people who may not otherwise receive protection. The various initiatives should be managed within an overarching programme that coordinates the responses of UN agencies, governments and non-governmental organizations [10, 11, 25]. The current lack of an overarching framework, however, should not preclude immediate action on climate migration issues at lower levels [6]. Indeed, Betts' [36] recent edited collection, for example, examines the rich plurality and coexistence of diverse approaches to global migration governance. The collection analyzes institutional, political and normative challenges, including the duplication of efforts by UN and non-UN agencies, and offers options to avoid excessive repetition. Such a collaborative approach would adhere to the guiding principle of precaution pronounced in Article 3.3 of the UNFCCC.

A real and lasting response to climate migration must address not only the displacement itself but also its underlying causes [18, 71]. For climate migration these are often not environmental but related to the causes of vulnerability such as wider political, economic, social and demographic processes [10–14, 17, 25, 64]. Therefore, tackling the climate migration issue necessarily includes poverty alleviation [11, 12, 20, 63], improvements to sexual and reproductive health, sustainable development and full cost accounting [11–13], improved social capital and access to basic social services [17], environment-proofing development [20, 52], debt relief and increased levels of foreign aid, and enhancing the management of proximate environmental problems [12, 63]. As such, adaptation is not merely a future problem, but one concerned with addressing present day challenges within which interventions can be 'mainstreamed' or 'normalized' [20, 58, 89, 91–93].