23 - Living in a changing climate: Dynamics of forced migration and displacement

In this episode, Amali Tower, Executive Director and Founder of Climate Refugees, delivers her keynote address titled ‘Living in a changing climate: Dynamics of forced migration and displacement’ to open the NCHS Humanitarian Futures conference held in Oslo on 7 June 2023. In her address, Amali provides a landscape view of forced displacement today and the role climate change plays in driving migration and displacement. She discusses how and where climate in some of the world's poorest places intersects with underlying vulnerabilities to increase climate-driven displacement and leads to loss and damage for frontline communities. Amali provides case study examples to demonstrate why solutions require a climate justice approach to support populations disproportionately at-risk. The “Climate Change is Controlling Everything, Let Them Compensate Us”: Stories of Loss and Damage in Kenya report by Climate Refugees is based on site visits conducted by Amali in 10 distinct locations in the Great Rift Valley late last year as well as discussions with nearly 100 affected people. Prolonged drought and major flooding of lakes are causing displacement, human rights losses, and development setbacks for some of Kenya’s most marginalised and climate-vulnerable communities, who are often overlooked by existing policies, funding arrangements, and humanitarian interventions.