Think about Tomorrow, Act Today: The Future of Human Mobility and Climate Change
 

Background

Climate change is having noticeable impacts in Europe and Central Asia, including rising temperatures, erratic precipitation, heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and glacial melting, which affect people's lives, livelihoods, and food and water security. The IPCC's Sixth Assessment warns of substantial agricultural production losses in Europe due to rising temperatures and challenges in adapting through irrigation methods due to decreasing water availability. Water scarcity in Central Asia ranks among the top global risks. Climate-related uncertainties, including glacier variations, affect the water cycle, particularly in headwater regions, intensifying rainfall, and increasing agricultural water stress upstream and downstream. These impacts exacerbate existing inequalities and vulnerabilities, especially for those already affected by societal inequalities, which were further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Furthermore, the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Working Group II Report highlights that climate and weather extremes are increasingly driving displacement in all regions. In 2022, disasters led to 32.6 million internal displacements, including 107,000 in Europe and Central Asia. To address the cycle of instability, vulnerability, and displacement, efforts should focus on understanding crisis risk generation and adapting disaster risk reduction, humanitarian assistance, and sustainable development to changing realities. Migration can support climate adaptation by diversifying livelihoods, increasing savings, and facilitating the adoption of climate-smart practices for families staying behind. However, not everyone has the resources to migrate, especially vulnerable and marginalized groups. Addressing the climate-migration nexus requires evidence, research, data, and partnerships and should harness the innovation of young people and engage the private sector. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has outlined "acceleration actions" linked to SDGs and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration. The upcoming COP28 offers a crucial opportunity to bridge the gap between evidence and action, with discussions on anticipatory finance, loss and damage, and durable solutions for internally displaced persons, among other topics, to address climate-induced human mobility.

Addressing human mobility within the context of the climate crisis is an urgent global imperative that demands collaborative action from diverse stakeholders, including governments, the United Nations, civil society, youth, private sector organizations, and communities. This coordinated effort involves reshaping responses to climate change impacts on human mobility, encompassing climate action, disaster risk reduction, migration governance, sustainable development, peacebuilding, human rights, health, and urbanization. The two International Dialogue on Migration (IDM) sessions, in New York and Geneva, are integral to this global process, aiming to accelerate transformative actions aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals target. Additionally, virtual regional dialogues are being established to enhance regional cooperation and knowledge sharing for effective migration governance in the face of the climate emergency, emphasizing the critical importance of immediate and collective action. 

The session will bring together a wide range of stakeholders, including States, United Nations system organizations, civil society, the private sector, youth, and migrants and their communities, to foster multi-level understanding, cooperation and trust among participants, create opportunities for collaboration on common climate change-related challenges, and identify effective solutions for climate mobility. It will contribute to building momentum on the issue of climate change and human mobility, including through the inclusion of community voices, and will help to place climate mobility high on regional agendas, accelerate momentum for action among all relevant stakeholders, increase understanding of solutions for the present and the future, and improve understanding of the value of migration governance for the development of solutions. 

• The input from this virtual regional dialogue will inform the Second Session of the International Dialogue on Migration 2023.
• To learn which solutions work, and to foster collaboration to scale up future solutions

The main topics to be addressed during the virtual regional pre-IDM dialogue 

• Solutions that can help people to stay (if still possible), help people to move and help people who are already moving. Solutions implemented by partners to meet immediate needs while contributing to sustainable development and building resilient and peaceful societies, and a brief discussion on how to replicate and scale up good practices and further innovate to achieve transformational change for societies.
• What needs to be done to better use what we already know to design the policies and solutions that help people on the ground? Is there a need for more evidence to ensure effective and anticipatory action?
• The role of young people as an immense source of energy, innovation and inspiration for future change. Empowering young people to participate fully in decision-making is crucial. What solutions work in what contexts? How can we foster collaboration to scale up and expand existing good practices and think about future solutions?
• How to ensure that the private sector, local communities, migrants and diasporas are meaningfully and systematically involved in designing and implementing solutions

Representatives from IOM Member and observer States, international and non-governmental organizations, representatives of youth, women, migrants and communities, and partners from the media, academia and the private sector