The report “In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement”, by Dr. Koko Warner (UNU-EHS) and Dr. Charles Ehrhart (CARE International), highlights that climate change is already contributing to migration and displacement and predicts that there will be tens of millions of migrants within the next few years.

These findings were presented to delegates and the international media at the Bonn Climate Change Talks. At an official side event on 2 June 2009, co-organized by UNU-EHS, Dr. Warner and Dr. Ehrhart shared their alarming findings and underlined the importance for the issue of environmental migration to be included in the successive Kyoto Protocol.

The report is published by UNU-EHS, CARE International, Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), UNHCR and the World Bank’s Social Dimension of Climate Change Team.

The report highlights that the impacts of climate change are already causing migration and displacement. “The choice the international community has at this point is not whether to act, but when to act,” said Dr. Warner. Dr Ehrhart further explained that people in least developed countries and island states would be affected first and worst by these changes. “The sad irony of the climate-induced migration issue,” he said, “is that those least responsible for climate change are the most affected.”

The  large audience for the presentation included delegates in charge of the negotiations at the 15th Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen (COP 15) where the environmental international treaty dealing with climate change, the next Kyoto Protocol, is produced.The side-event was the last chance the partners had to present the topic of “environmentally induced migration” and get their message across to the delegates in order to be recognised in the international environmental negotiations this year.

UNU-EHS, CARE International and CIESIN also used the Bonn Climate Change Talks as an opportunity to introduce the report to the international media. At a second side event on 10 June, jointly organised by UNU-EHS and CARE, Dr. Warner and Dr. Ehrhart again stressed that in the light of increasing climate change, the international community must learn about effective adaptation.

In the past, the issue of environmental migration has been put aside by governments and institutions due to its complexity. The report provides information for decision-making. It offers a combination of empirical evidence (based on 23 case studies and interviews with 1,000 migrants and nearly as many non-migrants),  eight original maps, and policy recommendations to clarify the subject. By presenting examples of people’s experiences with climate-induced displacement in particularly affected areas, the report gives a human face to the emerging issue of climate-induced migration.