As the UN's Climate Change Conference in the Mexican city of Cancun
reaches a critical point, questions on what concrete steps can be
taken and by whom to address the many challenges of climate and
environment induced-migration will be tackled by IOM and partners
of the Climate Change, Environment and Migration Alliance (CCEMA)
on Wednesday 8 December.

IOM Director General William Lacy Swing will moderate an event
taking place on the sidelines of the Climate Conference. Dr. Hasan
Mahmud, Bangladesh Minster for Environment and Forests will deliver
a keynote speech with other speakers including Professor Konrad
Osterwalder, Rector of the UN University (UNU), Dr. Thomas Loster,
Chairman of the Munich Re Foundation and Jose-Miguel Guzman, Chief
of the Population and Development Branch of the UN Population Fund
(UNFPA).

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target="" title="">IOM at UNFCCC Conference 16, Cancun

Although there are no reliable estimates on climate and
environment-induced migration, it is clear that this type of human
movement will increase significantly in the foreseeable future as
the effects of climate change bite more deeply, according to IOM's
recently published World Migration Report 2010. Less developed
countries are already bearing the brunt of climate and
environmental migration and will experience more of it in the next
decades, mostly within their own borders.

Demographics could also play a role in this type of migration.
An example, the report cites, is the Middle East and North Africa
where environmental degradation will reduce the amount of fertile
arable land, compounding a shortage of employment among a rapidly
expanding youthful population. As a result, people may have to
leave to look for work in a world where there are few legal
opportunities to migrate.

Key to tackling the complex and unpredictable impacts of
environmental migration could be a range of steps including the
establishment of a global database on this type of movement. It
would provide a better evidence base on which governments could
formulate policies and responses.

Reducing the risks from natural disasters, drawing up evacuation
plans, for more countries to develop and implement national
adaption plans that lessen their vulnerability to climate change as
well as strengthening national laws and policies on internal
displacement are other measures that could also mitigate the more
negative impacts of climate change on migration. They would also
make an immediate difference to affected populations, including the
most vulnerable groups.

The event in Cancun organised by IOM and UNU in association with
Munich Re Foundation and UNFPA, is part of CCEMA efforts to bring
migration into the climate change, environment and development
agendas. CCEMA was set up in the acknowledgement that the
unprecedented challenges that environmental migration poses
requires an innovative partnership. CCEMA members so far include
IOM, UNEP, UNU, Munich Re Foundation, UNOCHA, the Stockholm
Environment Institute (SEI), the University of Sussex, the World
Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International and the Global Climate
Adaptation Partnership (GCAP).

For further information, please contact:

Niurka Pineiro in Cancun

Tel: +1 212 684 0559

E-mail: "mailto:npineiro@iom.int">npineiro@iom.int