Switzerland - IOM will next week host a side event at the 18th Conference of the Parties (COP 18) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Doha entitled: "How to Integrate Migration into Adaptation Strategies and Planning."

The event, which will discuss practical ways to ensure that migration is part of climate change adaptation, will take place on 3rd December 2012, 8.15?9.30 p.m. in Room 7 at the Conference Center.  
 
Speakers will include:

• Renate Christ, Secretary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Thomas Loster, Chairman of the Munich Re Foundation
• Ancha Srinivasan, Principal Climate Change Specialist, Asian Development Bank
• Koko Warner, Head of the Environmental Migration, Social Vulnerability and Adaptation  Section UNU-EHS
• Kevin Henry, Project Coordinator, CARE
• Keith Alverson Coordinator, Climate Change Adaptation and Terrestrial Ecosystems Branch, UNEP
• Amir H. Delju, Senior Scientific Coordinator, World Meteorological Organization
• Dina Ionesco, Policy Officer, Migration, Environment and Climate Change, IOM.

The event will also feature representatives from the governments of Bangladesh and the Philippines.

Climate change is increasingly affecting population movements and slow onset environmental change is expected to cause more migration and displacement in the future. The COP held in Cancun in 2010 recognized the need to address climate change-induced displacement, migration and planned relocation in Paragraph 14(F) of the Cancun Adaptation Framework.
 
The linkages between climate change, migration and adaptation are multiple and complex. Migration related to climate change is at the intersection of areas including adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and loss and damage.

Linking these areas could help advance the issue of environmental migration on the international agenda, and provide a concrete framework to address forced or voluntary migration due to environmental change.

For further information please contact

Dina Ionesco
IOM HQ
Tel:  00 41 79 570 58 77
Email: dionesco@iom.int