CARAM Asia Attends COP15 Process to Warn of Impact on Mobile Populations

Monday, January 18, 2010

In the second half of 2009, an extensive research project was launched by the Information and Communications Officer (ICO), investigating the linkages between climate change and the impact on migrants and mobile populations.

Following a serious of presentations to the secretariat, Board of Directors (BoD) and members, and the completion of a detailed paper, it was decided that the ICO would attend COP15 and sideline NGO events namely, the Peoples’ Assembly on Climate Change. Due to the research conducted, CARAM Asia was invited to attend and act as a speaker during one of the sessions at the People’s Assembly in order to address some of its research findings and to provide a summarisation of the link between migrants and refugees and the way we should aim towards in the future.

In preparation for attending the Peoples’ Assembly and to increase awareness about research findings, the paper entitled ‘Climate Change and the Impact on Migrants and Mobile Populations’ was sent out to the various international institutions and applicable civil society bodies including International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Greenpeace, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, World Bank, International Monetary fund and groups.

The paper was also sent to various governmental institutions such as the applicable bodies within ASEAN, SAARC and all of the environmental governmental bodies within national governments within the purview of CARAM Asia’s membership spectrum.

To summarise, CARAM Asia’s objective in attending COP15/People’s Assembly was to;
• Raise awareness about our network research findings and the impact on migrants and mobile populations
• Build profile of the CARAM Asia in this area
• Seek to establish links with other organisations working in the area that could have a common link in tackling climate change
• Increase capacity of ICO and in turn membership in regards to this subject arena and to map out activities that could be set in the future

ICO achieved all of the aforementioned objectives for the conference which served as an overall success. CARAM Asia’s research was well received and distributed and the network was a signatory to the declaration. Further CARAM Asia will seek to work with the group VOICE to work together on a newly launched campaign aiming at raising awareness through a variety of means of media and other activities. ICO was also interviewed in a Chicago indie paper called In These Times to discuss the implication of climate change on migrants. CARAM Asia is now included in a number of NGO mailing networks to discuss the future and how the civil society movement should move forward in tackling the issue of displacement and climate.

Climate change has been categorically and systematically proven to have a detrimental effect on populations especially in Asia leading to the forced displacement and migration of millions. As an emerging issue, CARAM Asia will seek to take the opportunity to stand at the forefront of this debate, placing the voice of migrants at the heart of the process.