Creating New Norms on Climate Change, Natural Disasters and Displacement: International Developments 2010 – 2013

Creating New Norms on Climate Change, Natural Disasters and Displacement: International Developments

5 March 2014, Refuge, Vol 29, No 2 – Jane McAdam

This article provides an account of attempts at the international level to develop a normative framework relating to climate change and migration from late 2010 to mid-2013. It traces the “catalytic effect” of paragraph 14(f) of the Cancún Adaptation Framework (adopted in December 2010), through to the concerted, but ultimately unsuccessful effort of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 2011 to get states to agree to the formulation of a “global guiding framework” on displacement relating to climate change and natural disasters. Finally, the article discusses the creation of the state-led Nansen Initiative in late 2012—a tentative “first step” towards international policy-making in this field—and the outcomes of its first sub-regional consultation in the Pacific in May 2013.