Category: International

12 April 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz

Nature Communications, a scientific journal published by Nature Research, is a peer-reviewed, open access journal covering natural sciences. In a new study, published on the 6^th April ’21, researchers, using machine-learning analysis, identify predictors of migration into the European Union.

Calculating numbers of climate migrants is inherently challenging because of the difficulty in defining causality; people often migrate for a multitude of reasons.

Studies show for example, a strong correlation between migration caused by climate change and higher levels of violence leading to an increase in migrant flow.

The study identified violence and insecurity as the strongest predictors of asylum migration to the EU, such as during the migration crisis of 2015-16. Economic and climate conditions, to a lesser extent, are predictors of migrant flow, and more so in non-conflict areas. Other studies however, have predicted that global warming may triple the number of asylum seekers to Europe in this century. A report published in 2019, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, directs policy makers to consider that climate change can further exasperate stresses for conflict and disrupt food chains hence threatening livelihoods.

Whilst the stated confidence for climate change as a predictor for migration is low across recent studies, system research into the extent climate change can influence political violence, (or other superior factors identified as good predictors of migration) indicates a priority for future research.

6 April 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women Gender and Disaster Network, and, the Arab Water Council, organised a webinar: ‘Gender, Climate Change, and Migration: Promising Policy and Programmatic Practice in addressing Linkages from a Gender Equality and a Women’s Leadership Perspective.’

The event took place on March 23, 2021, gathering NGOs, CSOs and CBOs, think tanks, academic bodies, the private sector as well as regional and national stakeholders.  At the event, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) directed participants to the Sendai Framework Voluntary Commitments platform to submit their gender-related commitments and promote their work.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, adopted at the Third UN World Conference in Sendai, Japan, on March 18, 2015 – with a roadmap to reduce disaster losses by 2030, holds a particular focus on women’s capacity development, gender-disaggregated data and gender equality across policy and planning initiatives. It ‘is the first major agreement of the post-2015 development agenda, with seven targets and four priorities for action.’

One of four priorities (Priority 4) in the current Sendai Framework: ‘Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response, and to «Build Back Better» in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.’, points to women and persons with disabilities to be public leaders in reconstruction and response phases to climate disasters. This follows from findings so far that women, children and people in vulnerable situations are disproportionately affected by climate disasters. Hence it is vital that women participate in implementing gender-sensitive disaster risk reduction policies and initiatives.

In practice, the Sendai Framework recommends investment into capacity development and maintenance into grassroots organisations and women’s groups that are knowledgeable of local needs and function as important community mobilizers. The Sendai Framework remains open to submissions of commitments for Disaster Risk Reduction.

4 April 2021 – by Hazal Yilmaz

The SDG Global Festival of Action was held for the fifth time from the 25-26 March 2021 with the aim of accelerating the process towards achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

For two days, at what was this time a virtual event, the UN brought together individuals and organizations in dynamic and interactive sessions under the objectives of SDG Action Campaign. Emphasizing the importance of individual actions, solidarity and cooperation in achieving sustainable development goals, participants were encouraged to think on how we can achieve transformative change, both socially and economically.

UN Climate Change, which gives wing to innovative projects in the direction of the climate action and bring stakeholders together, is considering increasing the innovation potential with “The UN Climate Change Innovation Hub”. The Hub aims to create an opportunity of cooperation for climate actors, who will try to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5C with various innovations. We will be able to follow the Hub’s work closely after it goes into operation together with the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in November 2021.