Good evidence, bad politics: Overcoming the noise in climate change and migration policy

Evidence matters. Yet even  before “fake news” became a political weapon, it’s been notoriously difficult to get evidence into the policymaking process. How can we keep good evidence from being overwhelmed by bad politics?

Join us as three world-renowned experts talk about their experience from the front lines of research and policymaking in contentious areas – climate change, refugees and, where the two meet, climate change- and disaster-related displacement.

Professor John Church is Australia’s most credentialled expert on sea-level rise and a long-time research scientist with the government CSIRO. He joined UNSW in 2016 as a professor in the Climate Change Research Centre, so he’s seen Australia’s approach to science and international obligations from inside and outside government.

UNSW Scientia Professor and Kaldor Centre Director Jane McAdam is a pioneer in research on climate change- and disaster-related displacement, advising governments and international organisations including UNHCR. In 2017, her work in this field was described as ‘transformative’ by the jury of the prestigious Calouste Gulbenkian Prize for Human Rights, which she was the first Australian to win.

Walter Kälin has extensive international experience as scholar and policymaker, most recently serving as Envoy of the Chair of the Platform on Disaster Displacement (and formerly of its predecessor, the Nansen Initiative on Disaster-Induced Cross-Border Displacement), providing strategic advice and leadership to this state-led process working towards better protection for people in the context of disasters and climate change. Professor Emeritus for international and constitutional law at the University of Bern (Switzerland), he has served the United Nations in various capacities, including as Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons and twice as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee.