Migration

Canada’s Next Government Must Prioritize Climate Justice

Canadians go to the polls on April 28th, with tariffs and the trade war between the United States dominating much of the conversation this election cycle. Amidst this turbulent political context, conversations around climate change have gone under the radar despite the rapid exacerbation of the global climate emergency during the past year.

At the end of 2024, the Senate and the House of Commons published reports on Canada’s role in responding to the global forced displacement crisis and Canada’s engagement with African countries, respectively. Climate Refugees provided input and shaped the recommendations for both reports to ensure climate justice is at the centre of Canada’s efforts.

In December 2024, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights published a timely report entitled Ripped From Home: The Global Crisis of Forced Displacement. The report highlights the scale of the displacement crisis, which is exacerbated as climate change negatively influences environmental, economic and physical wellbeing. 

In the recommendations presented, the Committee encourages Canada to “recognize climate displacement as an existential crisis and take an international leadership role on mitigating and adapting to climate change.” The report calls on the government to fully fund Canada’s climate finance commitments and address climate migration through international instruments such as the Convention on Statelessness. The Committee also encourages the government to consider introducing new pathways for refugees based on specific human rights considerations, such as people displaced by climate change. 

The report acknowledges the connections between climate change and displacement by asserting, “In short, climate change must no longer be thought of as a peripheral concern in the context of global displacement. It is already amplifying threats to peace and security, development and human rights, and has the potential to supercharge global displacement to unprecedented levels. Mitigating and adapting to climate change is therefore central to the nexus approach to global displacement.”

Climate Refugees contributed to the study through a joint brief with key recommendations on how Canada should respond to the global solidarity crisis for forced displacement in the context of the climate emergency. These recommendations include recognizing climate displacement, training decision-makers and officials on the intersection between refugee law and climate change, increasing humanitarian visas, developing relocation processes for internally displaced communities, and establishing long-term legislative solutions to provide a more permanent and comprehensive response to climate protection.

In November 2024, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development published a report on a New Era of Partnerships: Canada’s Engagement with Africa. The report outlines a series of recommendations, including for Canada to address the intersection between climate change and healthcare, as well as to support climate-resilient agricultural systems. Climate Refugees contributed to the report as Amali Tower testified at the House of Commons by highlighting the impact of climate change on poverty, loss and damage, development setbacks and human rights, while underlining the climate injustice in the continent as African countries have contributed less than 4% of carbon emissions. Climate Refugees called on Canada to provide equitable, grant-based climate finance, including compensation for losses and damages, as well as for the government to take action that would help communities to adapt in place to climate change and support and facilitate voluntary migration. 

In March, the government launched its “Canada’s Africa Strategy: A Partnership for Shared Prosperity and Security.” The foreign policy is centered around five strategic areas aligned with the African Union’s Agenda 2063, including supporting adaptation and addressing biodiversity loss through Canada’s climate finance envelope, as well as through bilateral agreements and initiatives, such as the Global Carbon Pricing Challenge and Powering Past Coal Alliance. These investments are critical as the World Meteorological Organization estimates that by 2030, 118 million people living in extreme poverty across the continent will be exposed to drought, floods and extreme heat if adequate response measures are not put in place. 

As the United States retreated from global climate action under the second Trump presidency, which will have detrimental impacts on global climate finance through the dissolution of USAID, Canada has an urgent role to step up and demonstrate its leadership in global climate justice. This includes advancing protection pathways for those displaced and migrating due to the effects of the climate crisis, as recommended by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, as well as developing an ambitious and justice-centered five-year international climate finance pledge between 2026-27 and 2030-31.

Canada has disproportionately contributed to the climate crisis as it is the largest polluter in terms of cumulative emissions per population and the second highest in cumulative emissions per capita historically. Such figures underline how the next government must urgently work toward rectifying its global climate destruction by advancing justice-centered solutions to the climate crisis through ambitious climate finance pledges, including compensation for losses and damages for countries disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis, as well as innovative approaches to protect those displaced and migrating due to the complex and intertwined effects of the global climate emergency. 


IPCC’s Final Warning is an Urgent Reminder to Take Action on Climate Displacement

IPCC’s Final Warning is an Urgent Reminder to Take Action on Climate Displacement

Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its Sixth Synthesis Report, summarizing the state of knowledge on climate change science with a clear message:  “if we act now, we can still secure a liveable sustainable future for all.” The report also makes clear that yes, the climate is changing and with it, patterns of migration as well. 

Agroforestry and the Case for Centering Local Needs in Climate Resiliency

Agroforestry and the Case for Centering Local Needs in Climate Resiliency

Agroforestry involves a wide range of trees that are protected, regenerated, planted or managed in agricultural landscapes so that they interact synergistically with annual crops, livestock, and wildlife. Not only is agroforestry positioned to enhance general crop yields through regenerative farming techniques, but fruit and other trees planted can themselves be used to generate food and other commercially marketable products, such as timber, fodder for livestock, fuel, and medicinal herbs. By improving both food and economic security–arguably the biggest consequences of climate disruption and the greatest drivers of climate migration globally–agroforestry embodies adaptation in the most holistic sense of the term. Not to mention, of course, the mitigation objectives that can be achieved simultaneously. In fact, when done on a sufficiently large scale, carbon credits can be tapped to provide a direct source of finance to those communities leading the change.

IPCC Warns of Climate Traps Among Refugees and Displaced Peoples

IPCC Warns of Climate Traps Among Refugees and Displaced Peoples

In Chapter 8: Poverty, Livelihoods, and Sustainable Development, the IPCC has a sub-section titled “Box 8.1: Climate Traps: A Focus on Refugees and Internally Displaced Peoples” where the authors highlight the extreme vulnerability refugees and internally displaced peoples have to climate change and how this cycle of multidimensional poverty perpetuates itself - what we might term ‘climate trap.’

The term ‘climate trap’ or ‘poverty trap’ as it is more commonly known, is a concept that is widely used by development practitioners or academics within the scope of development. ‘Poverty trap’ is the notion that poverty begets poverty. Take for example a family in a poor rural community in a developing country who grows crops for sustenance and possibly, livelihood. It is not uncommon for such families to be in dire situations economically that children aren’t able to attend school because even they must work in the fields for their families to survive. During my time in Mongolia, and now in Kyrgyzstan, I’ve seen many families forced into situations like this.

The World Cup of Climate Injustice

The World Cup of Climate Injustice

When the world’s best players take the field in November, they will be playing in stadiums that at least 6,500 migrant workers died to build. It is believed that the number could actually be much higher, Of the countries that sent a large number of migrant workers to Qatar, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are the only ones that actually kept track of how many of their citizens have died. Since 2010, an average of 12 people have died each week constructing the World Cup infrastructure from these five countries alone. Other countries with a large number of workers in Qatar, including The Philippines and Kenya, have not kept track of fatalities. On average nearly two workers have passed away daily, listed officially as ‘natural causes.

Haitian Migrant Treatment Just the Latest Sign US is Woefully Unprepared for Climate Migration

Haitian Migrant Treatment Just the Latest Sign US is Woefully Unprepared for Climate Migration

Indeed, Haiti is considered the most climate-vulnerable nation in Latin America and the Caribbean. But the far-reaching effects of climate vulnerability, such as diminished crop yields in largely agriculture-dependent societies and resultant poverty, play out in countries around the region, posing an urgent challenge to the US as it emerges from years of blatantly anti-immigrant and anti-science policies.