HUMAN MOBILITY AT COP 28

COP28 is the 28th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and it is hosted by the Government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Conference is scheduled to take place from November 30 until December 12, 2023, at the Expo City, Dubai. COP28 brings the world together at a critical moment for global transformative climate action. 

The COP28 Presidency has announced a two-week thematic program, which incorporates four cross-cutting themes that underpin effective, interconnected delivery: Technology & Innovation, Inclusion, Frontline Communities and Finance. This thematic program can be found here. 

Climate Migration at COP28

As outlined in the 2023 Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “increasing adaptive capacity minimizes risk associated with involuntary migration and immobility and improves the degree of choice under which migration decisions are made.” IOM works to support the recognition of human mobility linked to climate change in policy and programmatic action at international, regional, national, and local levels, in line with the implementation of the Paris Agreement, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

Disasters alone led to  a record number of 32.6 million new internal displacements in 2022, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s 2023 Global Report on Internal Displacement:

• 10.1 million disaster displacements in East Asia and the Pacific in 2022
• 12.5 million disaster displacements in South Asia in 2022
• 7.5 million disaster displacements in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2022
• 2.1 million disaster displacements in the Americas in 2022
• 107,000 disaster displacements in Europe and Central Asia in 2022
• 305,000 disaster displacements in the Middle East and North Africa in 2022. 

Ahead of COP28, IOM reaffirms its commitment to deliver solutions, and urges on all UNFCCC parties to:

1. Scale up climate adaptation to enable empowered and informed decisions on human mobility by individuals, communities, and governments.

   • Strengthen people’s resilience through prevention and risk reduction action, including preparedness and early warning measures that enhance climate resilient development and offer people the choice to stay in dignity and safety in their areas of origin. These efforts should be financed and implemented by diverse range of actors, including the private sector.

   • Facilitate people’s movement out of harm’s way when faced with irreversible climate impacts, either through safe and regular migration pathways, including labor mobility, should be facilitated to offer opportunities to communities of origin and destination, harvest the potential of migration for the benefit of all. 

2. Strengthen solidarity with countries and people most vulnerable to climate impacts, including people already on the move, by significantly scaling up adequate, predictable, debt-free climate finance, including the new funding arrangements and loss and damage fund. Efforts should address human mobility and the impacts of both sudden-onset events and slow-onset events and processes, and strengthen integrated approaches to anticipatory action, humanitarian assistance, and climate resilient development. 

3. Accelerate the just transition to achieve robust and equitable mitigation outcomes as key step to avert the adverse impacts of climate change on human mobility. Efforts should focus on investing in solutions towards economic diversification and the creation of descent work, including in the green and blue sectors, with focus on youth employment, displaced and migrant workers.

4. Enhance the inclusive mobilization of the whole of society, bringing together public actors and private partners, civil society, women, youth, indigenous peoples, migrants, displaced persons and affected communities as part f decision-making processes related to climate change and human mobility. This action should promote integrated human rights, child-sensitive and gender-responsive approaches to migration governance and climate action.  

Migration, Environment, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Events at COP28

Please check back here as the list of events will be updated in the upcoming days. 

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