Climate change: a moving story

The displacement of millions of people is the elephant in the climate change negotiating chamber, says Niko Humalisto. He navigates the path the world must take.

Planetary warming is destabilising Earth’s ecosystems and material cycles. IPCC has reported that half of the 4,000 species analysed have shifted their ranges to higher latitudes or elevations. Humans, deeply embedded in these systems, are equally impacted: as many as 216 million people may be forced to migrate by 2050.

While the world is largely underfunded and underprepared to face the brunt of changing climate, the unavoidable need to tackle mobility remains the elephant in the room of climate policy formulation. This inadequacy at COP29 climate talks in Baku (November 2024) hardly even got a mention in reporting, with the focus on failure on other fronts: mitigation and finance.

The root driver of displacement—excessive greenhouse gas accumulation—remains inadequately addressed, with key mitigation decisions postponed. Last year’s celebrated decision to transition away from fossil fuels in Dubai has remained an empty promise, and the $300 billion climate finance target for developing nations falls far short of actual needs.

Yet, amidst these apparent failures, COP29 did progress in advancing human mobility within the framework of UNFCCC negotiations, and nuanced dialogues concerning those displaced by climate change were held outside the official agenda.

To better understand what must happen for climate negotiations to deliver solutions to tackle displacement, it is essential to explore how the climate crisis fundamentally reshapes notions of space and agency.

Real impacts of changing climate — forest fires, droughts, intolerable heat—are now exposing the fragility of societal foundations based on the idea of unhinged material growth.

Philosopher-sociologist Bruno Latour provides a vital starting point for navigating the current reality. He calls for a “return to the Earth,” grounding political and social strategies in the planetary realities they inherently belong to. The 2016 Paris Agreement acknowledged this reality: it anchored development within a finite carbon budget.

The real impacts of changing climate—forest fires, droughts, intolerable heat—are now exposing the fragility of societal foundations based on the idea of unhinged material growth. Where humans once saw themselves as rooted in fixed places, they must now navigate shifting, dynamic landscapes that demand adaptability and resilienc

The recent indications that the U.S. and Argentina may potentially withdraw from the Paris Agreement exemplify Earth-denying populism.

The recent indications that the U.S. and Argentina may potentially withdraw from the Paris Agreement exemplify Earth-denying populism, disregarding the atmospheric consequences of excessive emissions and the lived realities of those defending their rights to livelihoods and safe environments.

This political strategy also overlooks the root causes driving asylum-seeking and immigration—movement that many countries in the Global North aim to control. Rejecting the need to strengthen resilience among vulnerable communities will make people more likely to take risks and seek their futures elsewhere.

Unjust Geographies of Mobility

Becoming mobile manifests in diverse forms and serves various purposes in response to the climate crisis. The most visible examples are immediate displacements caused by floods or landslides, often discussed as fast-onset events. However, long-term and long-distance mobility may become the only coping strategy when slow-onset events, such as rising sea levels or chronic droughts, render traditional livelihoods unviable.

The boundary between when to become mobile and when to stay, while enhancing localized resilience, is typically blurred. Climate change does not deterministically lead to displacement; rather, it is one of the contributors to individual decisions to become mobile. Many impacts caused by climate change can be adapted to through different means. Even for events that exceed the limits of adaptation, loss and damage (L&D) caused by climate change can be averted, minimized, or addressed with adequate technologies, planning, and finance.

The pressures to become mobile are more urgently felt in the Global South. While framing climate change as a universal issue has been politically effective, it has obscured the unequal distribution of exposure and adaptive capacities among people and countries. The sharpest criticism of the weak outcomes from COP29 came from Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries, where the gaps between the action needed to cope with the climate crisis and the resources available to do so are the widest.

Biased Politics of Displacement

Climate-induced migration is a politically charged issue. Although most climate mobility occurs within countries, global narratives often focus on cross-border movements, exacerbating xenophobia and calling for tighter Global North borders. This rhetoric reduces displaced individuals to political tools rather than recognising them as having agency.

International policy formulation on the matter is lagging. The International Court of Justice is currently evaluating states’ obligations regarding climate change, while the appetite for developing binding criteria for climate refugees is non-existent. Therefore, there are no official mechanisms for those displaced by climate change to apply for asylum.

Planning for cross-border cooperation, which is necessary to address international displacement, has been slow and fragmented.

Tackling displacement is negotiated under the UNFCCC, but even there, the needs of the Global South have been frequently sidelined. Developing policies and solutions to tackling climate mobilities is still in its early stages. Instead of having a nuanced focus on those displaced and mobility as a coping strategy, the issue is often framed at a broader level, with immigrants identified as one of the groups demanding attention alongside women, indigenous groups, and persons with disabilities in some negotiation agendas.

Planning for cross-border cooperation, which is necessary to address international displacement, has been slow and fragmented, partly due to the modality of implementing the Paris Agreement. Although it is built on collective goals, such as limiting warming to below 1.5°C, achieving these goals ultimately depends on the responsibilities of individual parties, and thus, the focus is on national approaches.

Policies Pointing Towards Returning to the Earth

Nevertheless, the slow and fragmented tackling of climate mobilities has solid points of departure under climate negotiations. A landmark decision was achieved in Dubai 2023 that called “parties and relevant institutions to improve coherence and synergies between efforts on disaster risk reduction, humanitarian assistance, rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction, and displacement, planned relocation and migration, in the context of climate change impacts”

While Baku’s major agenda items fell short, climate mobility issues were identified in negotiation outcomes spanning topics from gender to finances and measuring progress on adaptation. Table 1 highlights key areas of progress and suggests negotiation topics where mobility should be further integrated, as some decisions were postponed to future negotiations.

An issue’s recognition in official negotiation agendas also depends on what happens outside the decision-making halls. Pioneering solutions, building best practice-sharing networks, and driving global collaboration are necessary for the international community to act on emerging issues. Moreover, it is often in unofficial forums where marginalized groups can raise their voices, as they are not typically sitting around negotiation tables.

New climate-mobilities initiatives were spotlighted during high-level dialogues in Baku and the diverse side events. The Climate Mobility Pavilion alone hosted 62 of those. Additionally, the knowledge base for addressing displacement is expanding, with innovative and rigorous approaches emerging to help vulnerable nations and communities cope with the climate crisis in ways that provide alternatives to displacement.

For certain, policies aimed at “returning to Earth” must address these critical dimensions in planning climate action and the unavoidable displacement of vulnerable people.  In this effort, the Global North needs to rethink its approach to mobility, aligning it with the realities of poorer nations. The question is more about fostering elusive political will than lack of knowledge or models for action. The path forward must centre on cooperation that is not just reactive but transformative, embedding climate mobilities within broader frameworks of global justice.

Table 1