Knowledge Platform on People on the Move in a Changing Climate
The Pacific Climate Change and Migration (PCCM) project has two overarching goals:
- To increase protection of individuals and communities that are vulnerable to climate change displacement and migration through targeted national and regional policies and
- To increase labour mobility opportunities for Pacific Islanders, through well-managed labour migration schemes.
Most Australians today know the hot, rocky island of Nauru as a Pacific country to which Australia sends asylum seekers who have come by boat. Far fewer recall proposals 50 years ago to resettle the population of Nauru on an island off the Queensland coast. Extensive and lucrative phosphate mining on Nauru by Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand throughout the 20th century devastated much of the 21 square kilometre island, and scientists believed it would be rendered uninhabitable by the mid-1990s.
The overall goal of the project is to increase the protection of Pacific Islanders who are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change displacement. The project purpose (specific goal) is to improve the capacity of PIC’s to better plan and manage the impacts of climate change on migration.