Charting a Smart Agenda for Managing Climate Migration

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[00:00:00.03] - Lawrence Huang

Hello everyone and welcome to today's Migration Policy Institute webinar, Charting a Smart Agenda for Managing Climate Migration. My name's Lawrence Huang and I'm a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute where I lead our research on the nexus of climate change and human mobility. I'm excited to moderate today's panel with 3 superstar experts. They come with wide-ranging operational and policy experience tackling climate mobility issues. Africa, in Asia, and at the global level. Um, I'll introduce our panel soon, um, but today we're going to have a, a broad-ranging conversation exploring policy solutions on climate change and migration, and I hope a very forward-looking, practical discussion on what policymakers and practitioners can do. We're leaving plenty of time for Q&A after the panel discussion, so get ready. Uh, during the webinar, please type your questions into the Q&A box so we can start sorting through them. Today's webinar also wraps up 4 recent policy briefs we released on climate migration, which can be found on MPI's website, and the links will be put in the chat. So just to set the stage, I think we're at the point now where governments across the world have recognized that climate change and migration are interlocking global issues that need to be addressed.

 

We hear this from governments, and we hear this from local communities in the Global South who are on the front lines of climate change and who have been dealing with floods and sea level rise and extreme heat for years now. And we hear this from donor governments and high-income countries themselves. These are countries which are experiencing climate-related displacement. Look at recent floods in Spain or hurricanes here in the US where I'm based. These have led to large-scale internal displacement. And these donor governments are setting— scaling up their climate and development funding and support to partner countries who are on the front lines to tackle these issues.

When we're talking about climate migration, we have very strong evidence that climate change plays an amplifying factor in how people decide to move and can be linked to increasing levels of migration and displacement within and across borders. Now critically, most of the large-scale displacement situations that we can most directly tie to climate change, they've tended to stay within national borders and be temporary and short-term. For now, but we know that the risks are there and that governments are trying to play a more proactive role in managing climate-related migration. So in some recent MPI research co-authored with my colleagues Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan, Kate Hooper, Camille Le Coz, and Sam Davidoff-Gore, we've looked at 4 policy questions surrounding this nexus of climate change and migration. So the first brief asks what we know about public opinion on climate and migration and the effectiveness of different climate migration narratives. So we looked at the evidence and the studies from across the world which have been trying to, to assess how publics will react to climate migration, and this resulted in us questioning some of the prevailing wisdom around whether public opinion is going to be more sympathetic to climate migrants vis-à-vis other types of migrants.

And we hope that this brief helps policymakers and the media and activists to advise key stakeholders and around how they can calibrate their messaging on climate and migration. The second brief looks at the role of migrants in the green transition and as we decarbonize economies towards net-zero emissions. And we look at how can we build and leverage migrants' skills and human capital to meet needs in the green economy and foster innovation in clean energy. We assess which of the many, many different labor mobility options can best support the aspirations of the migrant workers themselves while meeting industry gaps and not undercutting or alienating existing local workers. Um, the third brief looks at creative alternatives for asylum and protection of people displaced by climate change. In most cases, these people won't have access to refugee protection, and in an era of increasing migration restrictions, we need to be looking at how do you support regular pathways to enable people to move safely, even if they aren't called climate pathways. And the fourth is on harnessing development and climate finance to enable people to stay in place and to respond to climate mobility in the Global South.

So we took a look at what works in the global landscape on development financing around making migration more of a choice. And especially, we explored how grassroots organizations and migrant-led NGOs can access finance to support their communities and how donors can really make sure that their existing funding is getting to the local level and getting to the people who need it the most. So we invite you to take a look at this policy brief series. The link is in the chat, and you can find them on MPI's website. But for now, let's dive into our panel. So we have 3 speakers today. The first, Hind Aïssaoui Bennani, is Regional Specialist for Migration, Environment, and Climate Change at the International Organization for Migration in West Africa and Central Africa. Based in Senegal, she comes with extensive experience collaborating with regional and local partners, advising policymakers, and developing concrete action and nature-based solutions that take into consideration human mobility, and the environmental rights of host communities. The second, Dennis Mombauer, is a Director of Research and Knowledge Management at the SLYCAN Trust. He comes with close to a decade of experience in the private sector and in the development field, working on ecosystem-based adaptation, sustainable development, and climate migration, both in Sri Lanka where he's based and globally.

And the third is Michelle Leighton, an independent consultant, including working for the World Bank and a non-resident fellow for the Global Center for Climate Mobility, who was recently chief of the labor migration branch at the International Labor Organization. She has decades of experience providing technical assistance on improving protection and integration of migrant workers and refugees, improving tripartite labor standards, and she served for 7 years as an expert on the UNFCCC's Task Force on Displacement. So we'll do a couple rounds of questions to the panelists and then we'll open up to questions from you. So as we go through, feel free to start dropping your questions in the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. So I think the first question I'll, I'll pose to Hind because you've been working in the field in West and Central Africa, really tackling these issues on the ground. So you've heard from your very sort of concrete perspective, What does it look like to implement programs to respond to climate mobility? And can you share specific examples of how you've approached climate migration programming concretely?

[00:07:29.16] - Hind Aïssaoui Bennani

Thank you so much, Lawrence, and thanks so much for having me. And let me congratulate you for the policy briefs you just mentioned. I took a lot of pleasure in reading them. It was very insightful. So thank you again for the for the invitation alongside also such eminent panelists. So my first point would be, I mean, it's, of course, I mean, it's important to tackle human mobility in the context of climate change, but we are talking about in a very global and conceptual terms, and the idea is also to understand what we are talking about. So context matters. So let me just, before presenting our approach and also the lessons learned, et cetera, just to set the scene. So I'm covering West and Central Africa. As you said, I'm based in Dakar, Senegal, and I'm covering a region including 23 countries with very with a lot of diversity, right, in terms of environmental events, but in terms of demographics, in terms of socioeconomic and political context. So the idea always, and what I would like also to say, it's not about a monolithic reality. It's also about taking into account the context and putting the social and the human dimension at the core of the climate discussion.

This is exactly what human mobility in the context of climate change is about. So in West and Central Africa, the region I cover, climate change is already impacting human mobility patterns. So I am sure you all know the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, IDMC. They publish a report every year, the GRID, the Global Report on Internal displacement. And according to the IDMC, to give you an example, as of the end of 2023, the region accounted for 285,000 IDPs, internally displaced persons, due to disasters such as floods, storms, or landslides, which represents approximately 3% of the total IDPs, internally displaced persons, in West and Central Africa. And in 2022, it was 12% of the total IDPs. So it fluctuates from year to year. And in 2022, globally, we had breaking records in terms of internally displaced people related to disaster. We quote also another figure, which is the figure of the Groundswell Report of the World Bank, which were probably two— there are two reports that were published in 2018 and 2021. And according to the World Bank, in 2050, if no bold climate action is undertaken with inclusive development policies, could have 32 million people moving, migrating internally due in West Africa because of slow onset events such as desertification, land degradation, coastal erosion, et cetera.

So I mean, we are addressing an important reality and I would like also to add the fact that we are in the most urbanizing region in the world. Of course, it's not due to climate change, but the resilience of cities, which keep on being territories of opportunities, but also safe havens for migrants or internally displaced persons. This, the climate security, the climate resilience of those various cities is also at stake. So local governments have to manage huge challenges challenges in terms of integration of migrants, of protection of migrants, but also in terms of climate change, in terms of resilience of climate change. We cannot talk in the region I cover, we cannot talk about climate mobility without talking about transhumance. We are in one of the most symbolic region when it comes to pastoral mobility. And then also we do also have the challenges regarding social cohesion and also, yeah, the impact of climate change on traditional mobility, which has always been used as an adaptation strategy to climate change. So we are in a very dynamic, also we are in a very dynamic region in terms of migration. Where migration has always been used as a strategy of adaptation.

Where I gave the example of pastoralism, but we can also take the example of migration in agriculture, in fisheries, now in mining. So definitely climate change interacts with all those dynamics, and it's very important to take this into account. So how, I mean, and also maybe another trend is about immobility. Of course, I mean, we talk a lot about like climate change, human mobility in the context of climate change, as climate change as a trigger of mobility. But in this context, forced immobility can also be a big issue when it comes to most vulnerable communities. Not everyone has the option to move. So that's why IOM has developed an institutional strategy on migration and climate change, which also has been completed with a climate mobility roadmap. And this strategy promotes solutions for people to stay, solutions for people to move, and solutions for people on the move. So the idea is to create the conditions that for all the people, and among them the most vulnerable, to be able to move or not to move, but voluntarily. The idea is about the agentivity, I think we say in English, or the agency of the people and community to stay or to move.

Giving also the possibility, creating the conditions for people to stay is also, is of course very important, but also giving them the possibility to move, to be able to move, to adapt and maybe to come back. Is also very important. And what we've noticed also is that, and it's like kind of common sense, but thanks to our work on the field, we've noticed also that the most vulnerable, because we are used also to work with a very vulnerable population, not only, not all migrants are vulnerable, but the vulnerable communities we work with, we've noticed that they were most vulnerable to climate impact, adverse impact. So for example, when you take the example of labor migrants in agriculture, we noticed that during the dry season, they are more vulnerable to the lack of access to water, and during the rainy season, they are more vulnerable to floods. So yeah, the idea is also to just to highlight also and document vulnerability and the climate vulnerability as an aggravating factor of vulnerabilities, but also of inequalities and also of threats when we talk about climate security, for example. How much time do I have left? I'm sorry because—

[00:15:54.16] - Lawrence Huang

No, no, this is great. Thanks. It's really important regional context. If it's okay with you, I'm going to run through the colleagues and then come back to you to give some of those examples you were talking about and some of those lessons.

[00:16:05.18] - Hind Aïssaoui Bennani

That's all the time I had.

[00:16:07.09] - Lawrence Huang

No, but that's really important sort of on-the-ground context, and I appreciate your point that it's not just how climate change drives migration, but it's that climate change disproportionately affects those most vulnerable communities, those labor migrants you were talking about. And I really liked your line around putting the human dimension at the core of the climate discussion because Dennis, our colleague, really works on the climate discussion in the UNFCCC broadly and in the sort of climate policy field. And a lot of your work, Dennis, at SLYCAN looks at global climate policy. And we'd love to ask you about where you see the key entry points for migration within climate policy and what it looks like for migration to be integrated within international climate policy and funding. So over to you, Dennis.

[00:16:56.16] - Dennis Mombauer

Yeah, thank you very much, and thank you for inviting me to this panel and giving me the opportunity to share some of our work here. And also thank you to Hind for, like, framing this and giving us, like, a So we all know what we are talking about in ground reality terms also, and not just like the policy level. So that said, maybe I focus on the policy level for a bit. So I mean, under the UNFCCC, mainly the entry point for your mobility discussion has been under the loss and damage kind of workstream. There's a task force on displacement and there's a lot of mobility-related work under the WIM, also in relation to non-economic losses. And that is something that has been gradually, I think, increased in terms of also awareness. And I think now there's also the realization that there are other areas where it's also important to look at human mobility. So not just under loss and damage, where it certainly has a role to play, but also, for example, under adaptation, because now countries are in some cases also looking at mobility as adaptation strategies, or at least as part of adaptation strategy..

And we did some analysis of the national documents under the UNFCCC that are being submitted. So for example, in the second round of nationally determined contributions, the NDCs that were submitted in 2020, 2021, there are about 40% of countries that have some reference to human mobility, which is a lot more than in the first round where it's only about 20%. And now next February, the deadline is there for the third round of NDCs. So we'll see if there's a further increase in this. But I think it kind of exemplifies that countries are aware that this is a challenge that is climate-related that they are facing, and that it's a challenge that needs to be connected to also what's happening at the global policy level. That's why they're including it in their commitments to kind of the global policy process. Similarly, in National Adaptation Plans, NAPs, It's even more visible because, I mean, these are mostly submitted by developing countries. There are now 59 submitted NAPs as of last week with the submission of Zimbabwe, and out of these, 83% mention human mobility in some form, and almost two-thirds, 64%, have some kind of concrete action that is attached to it to either address migration, displacement, or planned relocation.

And the majority of these are in the African region, but there are also many Asia-Pacific and Latin American countries who have commitments or considerations related to mobility in their national adaptation plans. And these obviously also need means of implementation. So I think that is one entry point where we can look at how mobility also connects to the finance aspect. How the operating entities under the financial mechanism and how the different available funds can also contribute to financing these either solutions or ways to kind of mitigate negative forms of mobility. In the NAPs, for example, there's a broad range of different considerations. So some are looking at discouraging mobility by enhancing in situ adaptation and building resilience and preventing, for example, rural exodus. Others look at the already happening forms of mobility and on protecting and supporting those who are already moving and also sometimes those staying behind in the host communities. And then others are focusing kind of going one step further and looking at mobility as adaptation strategy, as I mentioned. And I think now in the discussion on the Global Goal on Adaptation, it's also a good entry point to look at it because there are several targets under the GGA or the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience that would be very relevant, like looking at the infrastructure in human settlements, looking at the cultural part, looking at food security and livelihoods.

All of these targets would be closely connected to human mobility in its different forms, and also indeed human immobility, if voluntary or involuntary. So making this connection, looking at the indicators, maybe having indicators under these targets that are relevant to this would be something that can be focused on in the discussion. And now there's a process under the UAE-Belém Work Program. There's about, I think, 7,000 indicators that the different expert groups are going through that have been identified as potential indicators. So looking at how some of these can also acknowledge these realities of mobility would be very important. So I think adaptation is one area where we can look at mobility. Loss and damage obviously is there. We have done a number of case studies also from different countries on how human mobility can become a form of loss and damage or lead— or loss and damage can lead to human mobility and how, what kind of different impact this brings with it, not just like in terms of livelihoods and having to move, but also in terms of like the loss of social cohesion, the loss of sense of place, of attachment, to a certain location, to a territory, and also the cultural factors that come with it.

So many of the case studies, there are a lot of negative impacts when it comes to relocation, when it comes to people having to migrate for economic reasons or even disaster displacement indeed. And now that countries that— there are 59 countries that have a National Adaptation Plan, and many of these had them now for a couple of years, some countries even till since 2015 or 2016, we are also looking at the implementation of these NAPs. So that's also, I think, where the funding comes in again, and also other means of support like the technology transfer and capacity building and things like Action for Climate Empowerment, building like kind of this inclusive process that develops, that includes different stakeholders, whether it's a public awareness component, access to information, and also the participation of different stakeholders including those affected, but also community-based organizations working with migrants, NGOs working with migrants, local governments. So now that countries are implementing their NAPs, we have also started the research in partnership with the NAP Global Network on NAP localization and subnational implementation and how human mobility is incorporated into that. And we are currently doing 3 case studies. One is in Costa Rica, one is in Sri Lanka, and one is in Senegal.

And I think you might have been at the recent workshop that we had for that case study also in Dakar. So there we are looking at how your mobility considerations are or can be included in this localization of the National Adaptation Plans, because in the end adaptation will take place at the local level, right? Because it's very context-specific and so is your mobility. So there's a need for very localized data and very localized planning., and that can be in different ways. So some countries have their, have specific local adaptation plans. Sri Lanka, for example, has provincial adaptation plans. Others have even municipal adaptation plans. But there's also different approaches to just breaking down the national adaptation plan and kind of localizing these actions that are already there, or mainstreaming this into the local planning processes. And we'll very soon publish a first scoping paper or primer on this topic, and then after COP, probably for the NAP Expo next year, a comprehensive publication that outlines these different considerations and the typology of them from the published NAPs and submitted NAPs, but also from interviews with experts and stakeholders and kind of in-depth research on how mobility can be incorporated and maybe should be incorporated into local adaptation planning and the NAP localization.

And maybe I'll stop at this point for the moment, but happy to go again.

[00:25:06.08] - Lawrence Huang

Thanks so much, Dennis. We are very much looking forward to your guidance and to those case studies. They're very exciting. For those who don't follow climate policy very closely, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UNFCCC, revolves and includes these global climate conferences, the COPs, including COP29 starting up in a couple weeks in Azerbaijan. And Dennis, I thought it was really striking that you looked at the national climate adaptation policies under the UNFCCC, and I think you said 83% of them mentioned human mobility. And I think that's a good point that we're, you know, moving into COP29. We're not starting from scratch. There is real precedent for tackling migration in climate policy, whether that's as a form of loss and damage or whether that's under adaptation. And we are expecting considerable discussion around this at COP29. In a couple weeks. Um, so Michelle, um, question for you around labor mobility and around the role of labor mobility both as a tool to help people move and as a means to source the labor that we need for the green transition. Um, what are the challenges involved? And related to this, as the green economy grows and jobs in clean energy grow, how can we balance turning to foreign workers with the proper investments we need in the domestic workforce?

[00:26:28.13] - Michelle Leighton

Well, thank you so much, Lawrence, and it's a pleasure to be here and really to see the reports that you've put out with MPI, and of course to see Dennis and Hind here as well, talking about different aspects of the topic. Well, first, let me just say that healthy labor markets are essential to build resilient communities. They create an environment to help businesses grow, expand opportunities for people to be employed in decent work,. And we know that communities that have access to decent work and social security and protection tend to be more resilient when climate impacts occur. The reality is that many economies and industries need migrant workers to fill labor shortages. Workers are aging out of the labor market. So this causes barriers to growth. We also know, and the ILO's figures are fairly clear, that the majority of people moving, I think it's now over 70%, in the world, those who are migrants, are looking for work. So we already have people in the labor force who are migrant workers who are searching for work. 
And yet we still have many labor shortages. We see this in the healthcare industry, agriculture, construction, transport, tourism.

And of course, there are skills shortages at all levels that we know about, which are important to helping the green transition. So everything from those who need to install solar panels to engineers for developing energy-efficient products. So labor mobility pathways that are regular and safe are going to continue to be needed. At the same time, labor mobility cannot be seen as the solution to the climate, to the climate crisis. It's just one tool, but one tool that can help provide humanitarian and economic safety where people are seeking to migrate or are displaced. And less developed countries hit hardest by climate impacts need investment for local businesses to survive. They need training and education for their workers so they can build robust labor markets and create green jobs, and they can themselves become more resilient to climate shocks. But some of this training could come through direct development assistance, but others of it could come through accessing legal migration pathways. And we know that when people move and work, Many gain skills that they can then take home and help their own communities. So I think on the positive side, if done well, labor mobility could help those displaced find livelihoods.

It could fill labor shortages in destination countries, and also, if done well, not displace national workers. And migrants could gain skills that they bring home. But let me say that Given how charged the migration discourse is today in so many countries, I think countries will find it difficult to achieve the goals if their policies are not carefully crafted based on rights and balancing a number of challenges. So how to provide job security and training for the national workforce, including on green jobs, so migration doesn't displace national workers, doesn't contribute to structural labor shortages in the destination country, How to guarantee that migrant labor and migrant rights and their dignity is protected, including their fair treatment in wages, freedom of association, health and safety, and social protection. And then how to become informed on what that right balance is through social dialog, which is engaging business and labor and those stakeholders on the front lines of the workplace with government to agree on what is the right balance. But right now, too few countries utilize social dialog in designing migration frameworks. Many of us, I think, recognize that existing migration systems are not sufficient. By and large, they do not guarantee a fair approach to those participating in migration.

There continues to be a lot of discrimination Hostility directed at migrants and weaponizing migration really brings instability to societies. But let's consider that small businesses employ, for example, in the United States, over 60 million people. Trade unions have over 16 million people, workers, and all of them in turn have families that they support. So bringing the business side and the labor side together to work with governments on what those appropriate conditions are for policy and designing policies really could yield a lot more trust in the system and government policy and a belief that migrants really are part of the solution to growth and not a barrier to prosperity. And of course, this may take time, but it can yield so much more in social cohesion. And the International Labor Organization has a good set of experiences that seeing this approach work in other aspects of labor market policy. There are some countries employing this in migration policy as well. So I just want to give the example of the German and Philippines agreement to bring in healthcare workers where, where there is a need to fill labor shortages, and there still is a need. But this agreement actually involved social dialog in both countries, and they created a tripartite committee to help ensure workers' protection, to ensure the pathway to bring workers from the Philippines to Germany was including dignity and protection and social protection, but also training, building and training for national workers for the long run, and also for workers, for migrant workers.

So this kind of model or approach is one that could help inform those who want to create labor migration pathways, either for climate or for green, the green transition. But every country faces a unique set of climate impacts depending on their culture, economic and social development, and climate responses. So ILO, along with others, have designed guidance in order to bring the labor components more readily into the policy design process when you're looking at migration or adaptation. And it's also informed now guidance that the global business associations have adopted through the International Organization of Employers and even the International Trade Union Confederation and global unions in their guidance. So I would say that policymakers have a lot to look at if they really want to craft these policy path— these labor mobility pathways with a view to ensuring there's more of a balance of bringing in labor to countries and helping countries that are origin countries. So that guidance is worth looking at. But let me end by highlighting 3 areas where we see loss of deficits. That warrant much more focus and attention. The first is developing better data on labor market impacts linked to climate change.

So there's been a lot, I think, as our previous speakers have said, on migration and linked to climate change, but the labor market aspects are really underserved. And that needs to be a much greater focus. The Global Center for Climate Mobility has begun modeling with other partners the links between migration and, and how certain countries are going to be affected and where people are going to move. But some of the labor aspects are not well developed, and that's really needing attention. The second area is fostering more constructive bilateral and regional dialog and agreement on what these mobility frameworks should look like and how they might fill labor shortages and create more of a win-win and what that kind of what those kinds of agreements can do. Regional mobility is something that does play well in, in helping people move when there are impacts. So that's something that countries in certain regions like the Eastern Caribbean have looked at, the Pacific, and so on. But these are things that we need to do more of. These are dialogs we need to have more of, and we need to have agreement on how to support each other.

Creating more opportunities for social dialog, and this is my last point, clearly needed so that that labor mobility can be a positive experience for everyone and bring people together rather than driving them apart. So I'll end there.

[00:35:09.21] - Lawrence Huang

Thanks. Thanks so much, Michelle. I think, love the really concrete example in the Philippines and Germany and the fact that you've highlighted we have existing guidance on decent work and migrant rights and we don't have to be reinventing the wheel every time we talk about these issues. I want to get to questions soon, so I'm going to invite the folks in the room to Put your questions in the Q&A so that we can start gathering them. And for the three panelists, I'm going to ask you to do rapid-fire, one-minute responses to this question, which is, what is one concrete success or concrete good practice from the past couple years that you can point to on climate and migration? Hind, I'm gonna go to you first because we're just cycling through. One concrete example in one minute.

[00:35:59.18] - Hind Aïssaoui Bennani

Yes, thank you so much. I will share the link to the project in the chat so that you have an idea of the approach. It's the MITSA project. It's on labor, the role of labor migration, labor migrants in urban and peri-urban agriculture in the suburbs of Dakar and Abidjan. But we also have the TAMA project in Mali. It's ongoing. And we also have a project in Sierra Leone, for example, addressing sea level rise in a remote island with fishermen communities who are completely isolated. So there are different challenges here, but definitely I would say like that the idea, and it's about being concrete in this idea is not to oppose the social and human rights of labor migrants, of the migrants in general, and the environmental rights of host communities. So having a rights-based approach, and this is the approach we've been having on this MITSA project in Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. And now, so some migrants, international and internal migrants, are trained in agroecology and agroecological techniques. And in urban and peri-urban agriculture with the proximity of markets also, it's very important. And we know that like within a thin timeline, some other neighbors have seen this experience and started to restore lands in urban settings that were known or supposed or thought to be unfertile or prone to construction rather than to agriculture.

So yeah, the idea is to work on nature-based solutions, around nature-based solutions, and to have like this integrated approach and having migrants and host communities not being in competition of other resources, but like helping each other. And also, so nature-based solution is a good approach to, yeah, to join and not to oppose also the, like the natural resources and human resources factors, but also And the idea is to develop solutions that do, yeah, fit the both, let's say, streamlines. I don't know if it's correct what I say, of rights like environmental rights and social and human rights.

[00:38:29.24] - Lawrence Huang

Thanks. Thanks, Hind. I love this example. The chat, the link to the project, it will be in the chat afterwards. Dennis, over to you. One concrete example.

[00:38:42.03] - Dennis Mombauer

One concrete example. There's a lot of things happening. I think if I have to say really one thing, I think it would be that there's really like now a much greater awareness of the complexity of this climate mobility nexus, and not just among the climate stakeholders, but also on other stakeholders who are working on mobility-related topics from the migration side, the labor side, the disaster management side. That climate change is a key factor in this and that there are many different ways in which it influences it. I think maybe going away from the policy level and looking a bit more towards the ground, I think in our work what has really come out is also the need to support the agency of the migrants and those who are moving due to climate change. So we do a lot of work on entrepreneurship and building things like financial literacy of migrants happens, which is often identified by them as like one of the key things that they want to do, to be able to kind of have a greater autonomy and ability to see if they want to migrate and how it is beneficial for them.

And I think that is a quite concrete example of how individual like migrant communities or even households can get support by giving them the tools to either set up a business or to manage their finances more effectively. And then also make more use if they're migrating out of the remittances that they are sending back and out of the skills that they might acquire to set up a business afterwards when they're coming back, or to set up a business that prevents them from having to go somewhere, depending on their individual priorities and needs. And to have these voices also reflected in the policy process again, so not to just have migrants as a group that is kind of to be addressed as a vulnerable group, but to give them the ability to actually express what they need and give them these tools to kind of have agency in their decision-making.

[00:40:43.07] - Lawrence Huang

Thank you. Thank you so much, Dennis. I think really important point around remittances and entrepreneurship, something that I think we as a field have a lot more to do on because it's very much underdeveloped. Michelle, we have many questions rolling in, so I am going to hold you to 1 minute if that's okay. But one other concrete example in 1 minute of a good practice, Michelle.

[00:41:01.09] - Michelle Leighton

We've talked a lot about the global guidance that is out there, the global discussions at the UNFCCC, the Task Force on Displacement, and then of course, things happening on the ground in a localized situation. I'm actually excited to see that the regional frameworks are developing, some of them, that include climate and climate mobility and for work as well. And the IGAD, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in East Africa, is one example. But the regional framework, Pacific Regional Framework on Labor Migration, Labor Mobility is really important. It's really climate mobility. So that Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility among the countries in the Pacific is really an important milestone. But there's also the Eastern Caribbean Agreement that had, has allowed people to move during hurricanes and also to move for work, which has helped rebuild some of the countries in the region. I think more of that regional dialog and bilateral dialog in the spirit of solidarity and cooperation, which looks for areas that people can move in, is going to be really important in the future. And I think we have some models to look at now. So I'll stop there.

[00:42:15.24] - Lawrence Huang

Thanks so much, Michelle. All right, everyone, the questions are coming in. They are fantastic. They are many. I will do my best to get through them and ask the panelists to keep answers short so that we can get through as many as possible. I'm going to take moderator's privilege, however, to answer one of the early questions that came in around one of the policy briefs we haven't discussed here on international protection and displacement and the Refugee Convention, wherein in that policy brief, some colleagues and I looked at sort of the prospects for amending the 1951 Refugee Convention to provide legal protections to people displaced by climate change. And I think what we've argued there is not just that it's going to be incredibly politically difficult to do that in this current era of migration policy and protection policy, but also that it would be hard to do on a practical, technical level because it is so difficult for us to delineate who is moving because of climate change, who, who is this magical population of climate displaced people who would be— who would warrant refugee protection under a revised Refugee Convention, whereas others wouldn't. Um, so I think we have been trying to, in that work, really think about like what can policymakers do now rather than waiting for a moment where we can or would want to sort of reopen global international refugee law.

Okay, we have a bunch of questions coming in. I'm going to pull out one which talks about the sort of late ecological overshoot unraveling climate catastrophe and ask, I wanna ask maybe Dennis or Hind around, um, do we think climate change is going to overwhelm migration services? That's part of the question. Like, is— are we at the point where climate catastrophe is going in such, such a sort of bad direction that we are— we should be concerned about that?

[[FOR THE Q&A PORTION OF THE TRANSCRIPT, SPEAKERS ARE NOT IDENTIFIED BY NAME. PLEASE SEE THE RECORDING TO IDENTIFY SPEAKERS.]]

[00:44:12.04] - Speaker 2

But I can try. Here is that migration is part of the adaptation strategy to climate change. Climate, I mean, this is what says the Groundswell Report. What says the Groundswell Report is that there is an emergency, an urgency for climate action, that climate is aggravating vulnerabilities and inequalities and threats. And then if we do not address this, we will have more serious issues. And the idea is to put the human dimension into the climate, into the climate, like not discussions but actions. So yes, I mean, of course there are huge challenges ahead of us, but the idea is to see how do we tackle them. And we cannot tackle them if we do exclude the most vulnerable from the solution. That would be my answer.

[00:45:20.10] - Speaker 1

That is, that is a good answer to a hard question. You mentioned Groundswell, that modeling. My answer to that question is that if you look at that modeling, it tells us that if we prepare with smart policy development, smart development funding, smart migration pathways, their modeling is that 80% of internal climate migration would be reduced because of proactive choices. So it is possible. We have the modeling that shows us this. So it's not, necessarily catastrophe. Um, Michelle, there are many questions following up around both sort of tripartite social dialog and sort of polarization, as well as specific sectors. So let me just pull a couple out. Um, are there specific geographies, sectors, or types of jobs where you think that we're most promising to look at labor migration and green jobs? Um, someone pointed out that In the US, solar panel installers have to pass a technical exam in English, and that population of migrants who have that technical English ability might not want to take those types of generally low-paid, poor working condition jobs. And there's sort of related questions around how you— how would we look at labor migration in this era of intense political polarization, and what's the role of social dialog in doing so?

[00:46:44.13] - Speaker 4

Well, thanks so much. That's a lot, a lot of different aspects of it. But just on the green jobs issue, there's a need for jobs at all skills levels. So, yes, some of the requirements require migrants to pass tests or require anyone working in the field to pass tests for installation of solar panels if it's quite sophisticated. But there's a lot that goes on on construction sites readying places for for transition to the green, to green buildings or green landscapes that need assistance. And those skills don't have to be engineers or people who have to pass exams. In tourism, in transportation, there's all kinds of jobs that companies are looking to, to make that transition, which don't require necessarily high-skilled workers. And right now, most of the businesses in many countries, in Europe, the US and Asia are saying they don't have the training, the trained skills they need, even in the low-skilled areas. They don't have people who can fill those jobs. So, um, there's a lot of need if we're going to make that transition. Um, in terms of social dialog, uh, really this is about bringing the right stakeholders together to help inform policy.

[00:47:56.12] - Speaker 4

And too often we see that migration policy and migration systems may be based on many other factors, but they're not constructed really with the engagement of the stakeholders who are going to be implementing them and implementing them on the front lines of the workplace. And we have seen successes in bringing business and labor together. They don't always agree, but when they do, it's a really powerful statement with the government that this is something that society really believes in as a, as a course forward. So I would say that we need to do much more of that and engage the right stakeholders in all of these discussions, depending on what aspect we're looking at. But yeah, I think that's quite needed.

[00:48:39.17] - Speaker 1

Thanks, Michelle. I would also, just in response to some of those questions, point out that we have really good data that migrant workers are already in green jobs. So in my country of Australia, we have like about a quarter of workers in clean energy jobs are are foreign-born workers. These are electricians, engineers. The jobs are ranging across skill levels. These are scientists and STEM professionals and semiconductor workers, as well as some of the lower-paid jobs. I think there's similar data in Canada that shows this. I don't know the numbers, but Germany's really prioritizing this as well. Like, we are— we— I think we should start from a position of recognizing that migrant workers are working in the green economy already and supporting the green transition. So we need to better understand that in order to identify which are the types of jobs where we need to be targeting for labor migration, if that's appropriate. Um, okay, Dennis, there's a question around the national adaptation plans, um, in the— under the UNFCCC, and how many of the sort of two-thirds of developing countries who haven't yet submitted national adaptation plans do we think will do so in the next round, and how many of those will have mobility integrated And what can stakeholders do to influence and support this?

[00:49:59.23] - Speaker 3

Thank you. That's a great question. And I mean, obviously I can't predict the future for sure, but there are many countries at the moment who are working on their national adaptation plans and many who have received NAP readiness funding as well, who have not yet submitted their NAP. There are also some countries who already have more or less a NAP or a NAP-like framework who have not submitted it to the UNFCCC or who are having an approach where they're starting with sectoral plans. For example, Ghana is a country that's quite ahead in the NAP process but has not submitted a NAP yet, except a sectoral NAP. And I think there will be a great number of countries submitting their NAPs in the near future. So I think the actual question following up on this is how many of these countries will be able to properly implement the NAP, and how will these countries be able to mobilize funding to— will they utilize their NAP to mobilize the necessary funding to actually implement the actions that are in the NAP? Because even of the countries who already have a NAP, I think many have struggled to properly operationalize it because it is a difficult challenge, and it needs to be, as I mentioned earlier, also brought down to the local level, which requires a lot of vertical integration, but also horizontal integration between the different sectors and line ministries and different entities that are involved in this process.

[00:51:25.13] - Speaker 3

So I think now looking not just at the countries who are in the process of formulating the NAP, but also looking at those who have formulated one and are trying to implement it as part of this iterative process, also where they can again update it, I think is something we need to address as a challenge. I think so now. I think there are 155 non-Annex countries or developing countries, like in a wide definition. So 59 have submitted already. I think there was some target to have 100 by end of the year. This might be very optimistic, but I think we might reach 100 perhaps in the near future, in the next few years. But then again, these need to be actually from documents turned into like actual practical impactful actions. And how to be part of this process, I mean, this is highly country-specific. Ideally, in that process, by design, should have the opportunity for different stakeholders to be engaged. This is the case to varying degrees in different countries. So it's also, I think, sometimes there's a need to build momentum from like the civil society community, NGO research side who actively try to create these spaces in the NAP process and engage with the government and the other stakeholders to make sure that these voices are incorporated and heard, and that also those who are actually kind of either the beneficiaries of the actions in the NAP or the, like, those who have to implement them are kind of having the sense of ownership and that their voices are being included in the process of designing these actions.

[00:53:10.11] - Speaker 3

And ideally, that these actions are also designed in a way that is realistic, that has maybe a costing, that has a structure for implementation, where there's a clear mandate for entities doing this, and also clear M&E or M&A process to be able then to also evaluate this impact, which is not trivial for adaptation also, because a lot of these actions are perhaps If you're looking at nature-based solutions, they're long-term actions. If you're looking at building capacities, they're all long-term things, and it's important to understand how to do it. Sorry.

[00:53:47.24] - Speaker 1

No, that's great. Thank you, Dennis. I'm trying to get through 2 more questions before we wrap up, but those points are really important. I will say, for those going to COP or involved at COP29, it's worth flagging that the Global Goal on Adaptation, the indicators there, Um, there are multiple proposed indicators on mobility, um, across different, um, indicators, um, including some proposed by the Africa Group of Negotiators. So I would highly recommend taking a look at those because I think that will be an important moment, not just under loss and damage but under adaptation at COP. Um, okay, we're going to do 2 questions. We're going to do them in 4 minutes. Um, Hind, there's a question around what do we do on involuntary immobility? Um, how do we help people who, who can't move Thank you so much.

[00:54:34.15] - Speaker 2

Well, it's about addressing the vulnerabilities, right? For example, if I take the example of my region, we see that like in the Sahel region, when in fragile context or in the context of conflicts, people who were used to move cannot move as they used to move. And so like conflict comes immobilizing in the context of climate change. So then they are even more vulnerable to climate change. So the idea is to keep on advocating for the right of the freedom of movement of people and addressing the vulnerabilities and creating regular pathways. I mean, it's not a new science that we are creating here. We are just like strengthening the approach to protection when it's needed and to resilience when it's needed. And yeah, I mean, it's about, it's about, yes, strengthening the resilience and mitigating the vulnerabilities.

[00:55:43.04] - Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, I don't know,

[00:55:44.18] - Speaker 1

Yeah it's exactly that.

[00:55:46.02] - Speaker 1

No, it's addressing the vulnerabilities in that context. Michelle, were you trying to come in?

[00:55:51.20] - Speaker 4

Yes, I just wanted to, sorry, I saw in the chat and some of the questions someone had asked about what sectors are going to be most affected by, or areas in which people or policymakers can focus on. And I mean, clearly agriculture, I think Hind mentioned this in some of her work in West Africa, Dennis mentioned this, but agriculture is key. It's, you know, immediately affected, it's affected now. And I think, and you mentioned fisheries in that area, but these industries are already suffering great amounts of impact, but also construction and heat stress, but construction in terms of those areas that are going to be needed in most areas to focus on. Tourism and transport. These are the four sectors. I mean, if you were going to look at industries and try to drill down into what kind of work could be done, what kind of labor mobility might be useful, how to help companies and industries stay in place in countries, but also how to help help those people move to industries that are growing in other countries. These are sectors that are going to be really key. And the last point someone asked, and I think it's really important when we talk about avoiding structural labor shortages in destination countries, which create a lot of division, um, migration policy is so temporary and precarious that most migrant workers are not getting the biggest benefits out of them.

[00:57:14.16] - Speaker 4

In fact, their experiences have by and large not been And if we're going to look at migration as part of climate adaptation, migration policy really needs to look at the future and to say some of these jobs really are going to be over decades. And that means that people need a pathway to citizenship. And I think there's a lot of people calling for that revamping of migration policy to be a little more realistic and not put everybody in this temporary box and send them back home and so on. There's many people who've worked 30 years in the same job. So, We need to be attentive to that. So those are the points I wanted to make.

[00:57:47.15] - Speaker 1

Thank you. That was fantastic. I love 4 specific sectors: agriculture, construction, tourism, and transport. Really helpful. Last point before we wrap up. There are multiple questions around today's political climate, sort of the rise of far-right governments and how to counter sort of securitization narratives that dominate discussions on climate and migration. I will say that's such an important point. I would invite you to take a look at that brief. We have been at times quite pleasantly surprised, honestly, by how governments have been when they come to us to advise them on how to message and talk about these issues. There's a real appetite for balanced, pragmatic, often positive narratives on climate and migration. So I think there's a lot more work to be done there. I'm going to wrap us up. So thank you so much, everybody, for joining. I apologize for those who submitted their many questions which we couldn't get to. I'll invite you to take a look at the policy briefs on MPI's website. Massive thanks to the Rockefeller Foundation, who supported the development of these policy briefs, to our panelists who've all been part of our advisory board supporting this research. This topic is a real priority for MPI moving forward, so please get in touch with us if you're working on this, and, uh, and we can, we can collaborate and support.

[00:59:02.17] - Speaker 1

An audio recording of this and a video recording of this webinar will be available on the MPI website. Reporters on the call can contact Michelle Mittelstadt. Her email is on the slide. It was so lovely to have all of you. Thank you so much and have a wonderful rest of your day.