Category: International

01 July 2022 – by Earth Refuge Correspondent Ole ter Wey

In this interview, correspondent Ole ter Wey speaks with Lauren Grant, director of field research at Earth Refuge. Together they discussed the world’s first international school on climate migration, which was founded and is run by Lauren. In the first half of the interview, Lauren talks about how her desire to start an academic space like the school came about, and how that idea eventually became a reality. Then, in the second half of the interview, Ole and Lauren elaborate on the substantive focus of the five-week summer school. They provide an overview of each session, which focused on the causes of forced climate migration, the different vulnerabilities and strengths of different social groups that are forced to migrate, and legal protections for climate migrants, among other topics.

“There is such a limited space to address climate migration at an academic level. From the very beginning I felt quite isolated, educating myself about it on my own. […] But when I found that there was an interest in climate migration im more people than myself, it was clear to me that there was not really a shortage of interest [but of academic space for discussion]. So this led me to the idea to establish something like a research center on the topic.”

17 June 2022 – by Earth Refuge Correspondent Polly Nash

In this interview, correspondent Polly Nash speaks to Aimee-Noel Mbiyozo, a senior researcher specialising in human migration at the institute of security studies in Pretoria. The pair discusses the concept of involuntary immobility, which occurs when people wish to migrate but are not able to do so. Mbiyozo recommends how Earth Refuge and lay people globally can shine a light on this overlooked issue and talks of the challenges of advocating for greater protection for climate refugees.

“One of the biggest outcomes that we don’t talk about very much is involuntary immobility … there are people who aren’t going to be able to move even if they want to and that poses really big humanitarian development threats.”

25 November 2021 – by Earth Refuge Correspondent Laura Corrigan

What role can mitigation and adaptation play in preventing climate migration? What barriers exist to the implementation of long term strategies?

In this interview, correspondent Laura Corrigan and Hellen Dawo discuss adaptation and mitigation as responses to the climate crisis. Hellen shares her insights on the complexity of sustainable entrepreneurship, the collaboration needed to create successful businesses that protect natural areas and the importance of context when looking at climate issues.
If long term solutions to climate problems are to be reached and further displacement avoided, affected communities must not only be brought into the conversation – they must be brought into the work of finding and implementing solutions.

“When you’re dealing with global issues, or national issues or regional issues, it’s always more complex than it really seems, and the solutions really do need a lot of collaboration. And that’s where it gets messy.”

Hellen Dawo (MSc.) is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Campus Fryslân, University of Groningen. She completed an undergraduate science degree in her home country of Kenya, where, as a chemist, she held a variety of diverse roles in the industry before continuing to pursue a career in research in The Netherlands. Her research now focuses on the interaction between entrepreneurs and sensitive ecological and cultural environments.

4 June 2021 – conducted by Yumna Kamel

You can buy his book Climate Changed: Refugee Border Stories and the Business of Misery here.

Daniel Briggs is an experienced ethnographer and social researcher who has studied some of the most disturbing and challenging social realities of the 21st century. He is currently a part-time Professor of Criminology at Universidad Europea, and an award-winning author in the field of Criminology. 

In this conversation with Yumna, he discusses what ethnographic research entails, and what led him to research and write ‘Climate Changed: Refugee Border Stories and the Business of Misery’, an honest, humane account about the rapid downsizing of the world’s natural resources and the consequences this has for millions who are displaced from their home countries because of politically-instigated and economically-justified war and conflict. The book is centred upon interviews with 110 refugees who arrived into Europe from 2015-2018 and observations of refugee camps, border crossings, inner-city slums, social housing projects, NGO and related refugee associations. Briggs sets this against the geopolitical and commercial enterprise that dismantled refugees’ countries in the international chase for wilting quantities of the world’s natural resources.

“… i counted about [200 people] in [Basmane Square] … and there was a boy, probably 2 years of age at the time…playing with a [discarded] lifejacket as if it were a toy with which he didn’t know how to play… You realise that actually, these people want everything you or I want in life: a safe place for their family to live, a job, and to not be terrorised. And I just thought to myself, “My God, that kid has no idea what has happened in his home country, no idea why he is sitting on a dirty pavement playing with a lifejacket…it really brings it home”

2 April 2021 – conducted by Earth Refuge Correspondent Nikoleta Vasileva

In this podcast, Professor Martin Scheinin – former UN Human Rights Committee member and the first UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism – discusses climate change and human rights with Nikoleta Vasileva. He shares a new line of argument for indigenous peoples’ litigation based on the intergenerational dimension of the right to culture. Referring to the increase in climate change-related human rights litigation, as well as with a fresh reading of older case law, Professor Scheinin explains how once this line of argument has been established, members of non-indigenous or non-minority communities will also be able to rely on it for human rights protection.

Martin Scheinin is a Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the European University Institute, a British Academy Global Professor at the University of Oxford, and a member of the Scientific Committee of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency. He served as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee (the treaty body acting under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), and was the first UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism. He is currently working on a four-year project addressing a range of challenges to international human rights law posed by developments in the digital realm, and he retains an interest in human rights adjudication, first and foremost in issues of indigenous peoples’ rights.

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12 March 2021 – conducted by Earth Refuge Correspondent Nikoleta Vasileva

In this interview, Mr Tripathi, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Head of the UNEP New York Office, talks with Nikoleta Vasileva about the connection between climate change and COVID-19, as well as the importance of a green recovery and adaptation measures. He shares what he has learnt about development work during his career of nearly four decades, including the use of ‘private finance for public good’. Focusing on sustainable farming efforts in India, he tells the story of women farmers who should be championed and whose example should be followed elsewhere in the world.

A development economist and lawyer with over 35 years of varied experience, Satya S. Tripathi has served with the UN since 1998 in key positions in Europe, Asia and Africa in the areas of Climate Change, Human Rights, Democratic Governance and Legal Affairs.

Mr. Tripathi was instrumental in establishing the Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility (TLFF) in Indonesia in 2016 and the Sustainable India Finance Facility (SIFF) in 2017 to leverage ‘private finance for public good’ at mega-scale to achieve transformative social and environmental impact in developing countries.

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