Author: Sanjeev Dasgupta

I was very intrigued heading into COP23 to see how the issue of climate change-induced displacement would be treated. Since the issue had been given very little attention in most past COPs, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot, perhaps one or two side events. But there were some aspects to this COP that made it a little more likely that climate change-induced displacement would be a big topic.

Number one was the Fijian Presidency. Labeled as the ‘Pacific COP,’ there would probably never be a better chance to raise the issue at a COP. The Pacific islands were most immediately threatened by sea level rise, with some countries like Kiribati buying land in other countries to prepare for what some consider an inevitable need to relocate their population. Others, including Fiji, had already been forced to relocate some villages to higher land. The second reason was the impact that natural disasters had had on a number of countries around the world in the past year. Hurricanes had ravaged the Caribbean, forcing a number of people to move. For example, the entire population of the island of Barbuda had been forced to temporarily relocate to its sister island of Antigua after the hurricane season destroyed everything on the island. On the other hand, widespread flooding had forced thousands to migrate in South Asia, particularly in India and Bangladesh. Surely, there would have to be some discussion on the issue. And there definitely was, at least among the side events.

Former President of Kiribati, Anote Tong, speaking on a panel about climate change-induced displacement. Tong came up with the concept of “migration with dignity” in the context of climate change-induced displacement to put forward a more proactive measure to deal with the issue.

I alone attended nine side events during the week that focused on climate change-induced displacement. I had been told that there were seventeen scheduled during the entire COP, an unprecedented number in many ways. And this was just the number of events focusing explicitly on displacement. There were a number of other events on loss and damage (L&D) more broadly, and issue that included displacement. So I have no doubt in saying that it must have come up in multiple other forums. Having been unable to attend the actual negotiations themselves, I cannot say how much state interest there was on the issue. But it was clear to me that civil society most definitely recognized the urgency and need to talk about big questions and challenges – displacement will only increase as sea levels continue rising and natural disasters become more intense and frequent with continued climate change.

I had a few key takeaways on the issue based on the events I attended. The first one was about the placing of displacement under the UNFCCC architecture. Human mobility had been first mentioned in an official document in the Cancun Adaptation Framework. Since then, displacement had found a home under the issue of L&D after the Paris COP; the Paris decision asked for the establishment of a Task Force on Displacement under the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage, the official body under the UNFCCC framework working on L&D.

The second major takeaway was regarding one major debate around the issue – the terminology to be used to characterize those who had been forced to move due to climate change. Many in mass media refer to such an individuals as “climate refugees.” However, a number of different actors disagree with this terminology for a variety of reasons. Institutional actors such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD) do not agree with this terminology, as the phrase “climate refugee” has no standing in international law. While a refugee is entitled to specific protections under the 1951 Refugee Convention, these do not apply to someone who has been displaced because of climate change. Unlike certain actors who are calling for an expansion of the refugee definition to include these people, UNHCR and PDD argue that there is no political will to reopen the 1951 Convention, meaning that efforts on those ends will only be a waste of time. Instead, there are ongoing discussions as to what other general principles can be agreed for the international protection of such individuals.

Others disagreeing with the use of the “climate refugee” term are people from the Pacific Islands. As the former President of Kiribati, Anote Tong, mentioned in multiple events I attended, they do no want to be called refugees because they do not want to be seen as victims. Instead, he proposes the idea of “migration with dignity,” a proactive measure to relocate where people prepare for the move much in advance instead of a reactive move so that people who are forced to migrate do not lost their dignity. And yet there are others I spoke to who disagree with this approach, saying that if you romanticize the notion of migration, it might have adverse impacts on mitigation efforts. No longer will states feel the urgency and need to undertake more ambitious mitigation efforts to prevent temperatures from rising further.

Many of the debates are still at a nascent stage as the issue is only starting to get prominence at the COPs. But it is inevitable for the issue to become more and more salient every successive year – and it will be interesting to see how the COP approaches things in the years to come.

If there is one global initiative that currently captures the attention of most countries in the world, it is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Agreed upon as a follow-up to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015, the SDGs set 17 goals to be achieved by the year 2030 (the 2030 Agenda). These goals include a diverse array, ranging from Goal 1 on No Poverty to Goal 11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Goal 5 on Gender Equality to Goal 16 on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. When I was working with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) earlier this year, I had realized just how much states were interested in the 2030 Agenda. If we had to convince a state to do something, the easiest way would be to argue that the particular thing fit into the 2030 Agenda. So, for example, when we were advocating for a resolution of cases of statelessness, it was particularly effective to supplement our regular arguments by saying that target 16.9 of the SDGs required states to provide legal identity for all, including birth registration by 2030.

When it comes climate change, there are some SDGs that automatically stand out as being clearly linked to the issue. The primary one is goal 13, which is focused on climate action. But there are other goals, such as Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), Goal 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), Goal 14 (Life Under Water) and Goal 15 (Life on Land) that also have clear linkages to climate change. So when I saw that there were a couple of side events on my first day at the COP on SDGs and climate change, I was not entirely surprised. When I attended the first event, however, I realized just how linked the two were. The speakers had not just connected the five goals I mentioned above to climate change but also others that I had not really thought that much about in relation to the issue. These include Goal 2 (Zero Hunger), Goal 5 (Gender Equality), Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). In fact, a speaker from the World Resources Institute (WRI) at another side event I went to noted that in their research into the linkages between climate action and the SDGs, they had found that every single goal – and the vast majority of targets under the seventeen goals – had some link to climate action.

An exhibit outside the COP on the Sustainable Development Goals

For me, this is reason for hope. I have seen how much buy-in states have to the SDGs framework. If an argument can be made effectively that pursuing climate action is in line with state interests under the 2030 Agenda, I feel that most states will be far more likely to take action. The sheer number of events during first week of the COP focused on this linkage – not to mention a massive exhibit outside on the SDGs and climate action – suggest that many actors have already started to explore this potential.

To be entirely honest, I didn’t know what to expect from COP23 coming in. We had discussed a lot about the Trump Administration’s desire to withdraw from the Paris Agreement in class but that was one of the primary reasons why there was so much uncertainty coming in. What would happen without one of the primary players in global climate change policy taking any initiative? The second big uncertainty for me was the role that Fiji would play as COP President. This was the first time that a member of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) would take the Presidency. AOSIS, despite its small size and almost inconsequential presence in other matters of global policy, carries a lot of weight in global climate change negotiations because of its members’ incredibly high vulnerability to the issue. But how would that leverage in political negotiations translate into a COP Presidency? In many previous COPs, the Presidency has played a crucial role. It can make or break a COP, as can be seen from the vast difference in the efficacy of the Danish Presidency in COP15 in Copenhagen and the French Presidency in COP21 in Paris.

Having spent a day here at the COP now, I don’t entirely think I can answer those two questions for sure. I do have a few tentative insights though. Firstly, even though it is too early to say this definitively, a few other countries, particularly large developing countries like China might be trying to take the initiative. While the plenary sessions might be far too early of a forum to judge this, it seems that countries like China were a lot more forceful about their viewpoints than they might have been if the US were a serious participant in the negotiations. Many delegations also took sly digs at the lack of US participation and the Trump Administration’s stance on climate change. For example, the French country pavilion had a number of large signs that said #MakeOurPlanetGreatAgain, a not-so-subtle dig at President Trump. It will be very interesting to see how these dynamics shape up over the next few days.

The efficacy and impact of the Fijian Presidency has also seen some interesting turns over the day. From a procedural side, there were multiple complaints on the floor about how long some of the sessions ran. Many delegates were angry about the fact that the COP President, Frank Bainimarama, left the plenary sessions after they ran late (along with most support staff including the translators). There are also some very interesting ways that their Presidency seems to have impacted the content of the COP (although it is slightly hard to say definitely whether it is because of the Fijian Presidency or because this was just the direction that global climate negotiations have been headed since Paris). There is a huge emphasis on loss and damage, particularly on financing loss and damage, including through measures like risk insurance. One other aspect that has been particularly interesting for me is that while there is no indication that climate change-caused displacement will be taken up in the main negotiations, there are a bunch of side events scheduled on the issue over this first week. This is an issue that has more or less been overlooked at past COPs but it is interesting to see it become a part of the conversation under the Presidency of a country that is particularly vulnerable to it.

It is still early days to say anything conclusively but there have definitely already been some interesting turns that the COP seems to have taken. I am excited to see what happens over the next few days, particularly on the issue of climate change-related displacement since it’s a somewhat new but incredibly important issue area for global climate policy at the UNFCCC.