Eco-Migration
As global powers continue to emit greenhouse gases and our planet continues to warm, water levels will continue to rise, fires will continue to burn, crops wither in fields, and humans desperate for a place to live and food to eat will continue to be forced from their homes. Raya Salter and Dan Galpern join Paul Beckwith and Regina Valdez to discuss eco-migration.
This video was recorded at COP26, Glasgow, Scotland, in the Durdle Door press conference room on November 12th, 2021, and published on December 5th, 2021.
Topics discussed include the following:
- By 2050, upwards of a third of the earth’s population will face the decision of moving due to climate change.
- In the United States alone, an estimated 13 million coastal residents are expected to be displaced by 2100 due to sea level rise.
- Climate justice is the concept that the global north has incurred a climate debt for its historic and current contributions to climate change. There are two things that underlie this concept. One is the polluter pays principle, that is, those who have caused the harm are implicated to repatriate it. The second concept is state responsibility for trans-boundary harm.
- The idea of loss and damage, which is how those in the global north are going to make whole those who are losing their homes and lives and varying nations due to climate change when they have done the absolute least to contribute to it.
- Not just humans are undergoing migration, but so are plants and animals.
- What happened to the people who were forced to migrate from Paradise, California
- How many Syrians became eco-migrants.
- The concept that there should be a fund to be collected from the global north that would be similar, but different from other funds such as for clean energy, development, or for adaptation. This would be something specific to cover historic loss and damage.
- The COP established the Warsaw International Mechanism, or WIM, for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts (Loss and Damage Mechanism), to address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change, including extreme events and slow onset events, in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change at COP19 (November 2013) in Warsaw, Poland.
- The WIM has not been funded for nearly as much as was anticipated, which was supposed to be a hundred billion dollars a year.
- The daunting impact of Climate Change on the Small Island States such as the Maldives and the Marshall Islands due to their low elevations.
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Special Guests:
Raya Salter
- Raya Salter is an attorney, educator and clean energy law and policy expert with a focus on energy and climate justice. She has worked on energy issues from NY, Hawaii to Oceania, and is the author of the book “Energy Justice - US and International Perspectives” (2018).
Dan Galpern
- Dan Galpern is founder, executive director, and general counsel to Climate Protection & Restoration Initiative, a US nonprofit organization. He has served as legal and policy adviser to climate scientist Dr. James Hansen since 2011. Prior to the law, Dan worked for 20 years as a public interest analyst and advocate for human rights and global security.
Regular Panelists:
Paul Beckwith
- Climate Systems Scientist. Professor at the University of Ottawa in the Paleoclimatology Laboratory as well as at Carleton University
Regina Valdez
- Program Director, Climate Reality Project, NYC. GreenFaith Fellow and LEED Green Associate
Video Production:
UNFCCC
COP26 Media Crew in the Durdle Door Press Conference Room
Charles Gregoire
- Electrical Engineer, Webmaster and IT prime for FacingFuture.Earth & the Climate Emergency Forum; Climate Reality Leader
Heidi Brault
- Video production and website assistant, Organizer and convener, Metadata technician, COP26 team lead for FacingFuture.Earth and the Climate Emergency Forum; Climate Reality Leader
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