Climate Change and Displacement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Description

Environmental migration is not new. Nevertheless, the events and processes accompanying global climate change threaten to increase human movement both within states and across international borders. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted an increased frequency and severity of climate events such as storms, cyclones and hurricanes, as well as longer-term sea level rise and desertification, which will impact upon people's ability to survive in certain parts of the world. This book brings together a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement. With chapters by leading scholars in their field, it collects in one place a rigorous, holistic analysis of the phenomenon, which can better inform academic understanding and policy development alike. Governments have not been prepared to take a leading role in developing responses to the issue, in large part due to the absence of strong theoretical frameworks from which sound policy can be constructed. The specialist expertise of the authors in this book means that each chapter identifies key issues that need to be considered in shaping domestic, regional and international responses, including the complex causes of movement, the conceptualisation of migration responses to climate change, the terminology that should be used to describe those who move, and attitudes to migration that may affect decisions to stay or leave. The book will help to facilitate the creation of principled, research-based responses, and establish climate-induced displacement as an important aspect of both the climate change and global migration debates.

Jane McAdam is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law University of New South Wales and Research Associate, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford.

... the book's main strength is its contextualisation and historicisation of migration and environmental change in the pacific islands. The diversity of perspectives and the disagreements between contributors help to ensure that the book does fulfil its aim of providing 'considered, well-informed research' that does not 'oversimplify the cases of movement' (p. 4). Given the multi-disciplinary nature of this book it will be of relevance to a wide audience of students and scholars of politics, geography, development studies, anthropology, law, psychology and public health. It will also be compelling reading for policy-makers, non-governmental organisations and activists who are seeking to understand the impact of climate change on people. Nina Hall Environmental Politics April 2011 McAdam's multidisciplinary collection of essays on climate change and displacement is a welcome addition to a corpus of literature largely dominated by studies on the scientific underpinnings of climate change and on proposed mitigation strategies. The chapters are concise, yet dense and engaging; the topics covered are wide-ranging and build upon one another to provide a fluid read; and finally, it provides a 'one-stop shop' for an overview of the important but still nascent subject of climate-induced displacement. David Adam Suzenski New Global Studies Volume 5, Issue 1 Climate Change and Displacement...brings together a wide assortment of disciplinary perspectives on climate-induced displacement...the splendid breadth of ethical, political, legal, economic and scientific perspectives offered is unusual for a law publication. Climate Change and Displacement generally succeeds because of the freshness and ambition of the contributors' approach, the clarity of their ideas, and their stimulation of informed thinking about this increasingly important subject. Although it is a relatively short book, at just 258 pages, it is dense it detail. It is also exceptionally well edited and referenced, and reads easily. As with many books in the Hart Publishing stable, this one should appeal to a wide array of readers, including seasoned scholars, students, policy-makers and others who are interested in the plight of people displaced by climate change. Benjamin J Richardson Transnational Legal Theory Volume 1, Issue 4