Climate and Migrant Justice
We have an extraordinary opportunity to get it right in planning ahead for climate-related migration.
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Illustration by Mikyung Lee
How are Climate Change and Migration Connected and Why Does It Matter?
Climate change is accelerating migration. Some places across the globe are already becoming unlivable, and people are on the move.
We seek to make migration a choice, rather than an option of last resort. We believe it is essential to support adaptation in place and the freedom of people to stay in their homes, where it is possible and they choose to do so. Simultaneously, we seek to create and expand equitable, safe, and regular migration routes that can bring great opportunities not just to migrants but also to the places they go to, as well as their place of origin.
We are living in an era of intersecting and immense crises– climate change, polarization, the rise of authoritarian leadership– at the same time, moments of crisis bring opportunities for transformation.
Below you will find resources to expand your understanding about climate mobility, more details about our vision and strategies, and voices from our path-breaking grantee and thought partners, who are building a sustainable, just, and equitable future for all.
What is Climate Mobility?
The umbrella term of “climate mobility” encompasses the following types of movement:
(1) Disaster displacement: The movement of people who have been forced to leave their home as a result of a disaster or to avoid an immediate disaster.
(2) Climate migration: The movement of people who, predominantly for reasons of sudden or
progressive change in the environment due to climate change, are obliged to leave their habitual place of residence, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, within a country or across an international border.
(3) Planned relocation: A planned process where people move away from their home, are settled in a new location, and provided with the conditions for rebuilding their lives.
(4) Trapped or immobile populations: A fourth category includes people who are unable or unwilling to move despite severe climate hazards.
Learn more in the full Climate Migration Explainer from IOM, Emerson Collective, and Climate Migration Council.
Expand Your Understanding
Explore further in our curated selection of resources and discover how climate mobility is interconnected with protecting our democracy, labor, racial justice, gender justice, and nearly every other aspect of our lives.
Abrahm Lustgarten
A vivid, journalistic account of how climate change will reshape American life.
on Climate Mobility
Climate Migration Council
A resource for climate activists and changemakers that will help raise awareness and advance more concerted efforts on migration in the context of the climate crisis.
This report offers an overview of civil society work at the intersection of climate change and migration in the UK, sharing opportunities and recommendations for action.
AFL-CIO
This report outlines solutions at the intersection of climate, migration and labor policy.
Abrahm Lustgarten
Abrahm Lustgarten is an award-winning journalist for ProPublica and other publications, specializing in human adaptation to climate change.
The Migration Policy Institutes offers a primer in climate-related migration, starting with whether, how, and where climate change triggers migration and displacement.
By Deepak Bhargava and Rich Stolz
Our Approach
Unbound Philanthropy’s long-term vision for climate and migrant justice is to make climate-related migration a choice, rather than an option of last resort. We believe it is essential to support adaptation in place and the freedom of people to stay in their homes, where it is possible and they choose to do so. We seek to establish safe, regular, and equitable migration pathways that can bring great opportunities not just to migrants but also to the places they go to, as well as their place of origin. When communities proactively plan to make room for their new neighbors, it enables everyone in these communities to thrive. We seek policies that protect people on the move and that harness migration’s potential as a climate adaptation strategy and contribution to a just transition.*
In addition to establishing migration pathways, our approach focuses on building bridges among people who have migrated, been displaced, or relocated, and their new neighbors. We seek to invest in communities that are welcoming new immigrants, building climate resilience, and advancing equity, so that everyone is lifted up, together.
*Our vision statement is inspired by the Migration Policy Institute’s thought-leadership and language on climate related migration, and “The Global Forum on Migration and Development 2024 Background paper, Roundtable 1: The impact of climate change on human mobility: preventive action, humanitarian action and development”
We are supporting this work across four strategy areas:
1. Policy and Legal Frameworks
Develop new and expanded policies and legal frameworks that protect both the right to stay and the right to leave. We seek to prevent climate displacement and support efforts that allow people to stay safely in their homes and communities and to create and expand equitable, safe, and regular migration routes, when it is no longer possible to stay. We also support the creation of new policies and legal frameworks that are responsive to the changing climate context and that meet the realities and challenges of our current, 21st century.
2. Climate Resilient, Equitable, and Welcoming Communities
Help catalyze and build support for ambitious, collaborative, multi-sector, community-centered, and data-powered efforts to plan ahead to build climate resilient and welcoming communities that make space for new neighbors from other parts of the US and the world and improve the quality of life for everyone. And in connection, build bridges among people who have migrated, been displaced, or relocated, and their new neighbors.
3. Narrative
Build and activate a thriving narrative system powerful enough to transform the narrative ocean around climate and migrant justice, to normalize migration as an adaptive response to climate change and dismantle fear-based narratives. Reinforce narratives that advance self-determination and that help to create the conditions necessary to establish generous humanitarian pathways for immigration and resilient, welcoming communities to receive them.
4. Relationship-building Across Movements
Support relationships and trust among immigrant justice, climate justice, racial justice, gender justice, and democracy movements. We seek to build power among immigrant and allied communities to take actions to advance a just transition from an extractive to a regenerative society, and to adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis.
Solutions & Impact
We and our partners are focusing not just on the analysis of the immense problems we face, but on the solutions.
Grantee Spotlight:
Taproot Earth
Learn how Taproot Earth is building power and solutions among frontline communities advancing climate justice and democracy.
Our Climate and Migrant Justice Grantees and Thought Partners
We are investing in an emerging ecosystem of leaders, organizations, and movements that are tackling interconnected issues in climate, migration, race, and democratic governance.
Many of our grantee partners are led by BIPOC and women leaders who have experienced climate disasters and displacement, and who know from their personal experience and professional expertise how these issues are tied together. They recognize that climate and migrant justice is about people, and that climate impacts every imaginable aspect of life, from housing, to health, to education. These leaders understand that how people experience these interconnected systems is tied to people’s layered identities— of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, and economic, educational, and professional differences. They see systemic injustices and are addressing the climate crisis by seeking to heal them, to build a sustainable, just, and equitable future.
Global South Diaspora bloc at Climate Week NYC march, September 2023 (Photographer: Koralie Barrau)
Voices of Pathbreaking Leaders
Hear directly from pathbreaking leaders, offering deeper insights into climate and migrant justice.
Climate Change Conversations with Colette Pichon Battle: Climate Justice Reparations to Save the Earth
Colette Pichon Battle describes Taproot Earth’s work to invest in frontline solutions for the global climate crisis, and how her own home in Louisiana is preparing for the impacts of climate change, and land loss.
Laura Flanders Show
Migrants Lead Recovery in Southwest Florida
Saket Soni, Executive Director of Resilience Force, describes how resilience workers, many of whom are immigrants, are helping to rebuild and recover after Hurricane Ian.
MSNBC
Ama Francis at World Economic Forum
Ama Francis, Climate Director at International Refugee Assistance Project, speaking at the World Economic Forum, on narratives related to climate-displaced people.
World Economic Forum
Case Studies
In these case studies, we offer tangible examples of organizations working at the intersections of climate and migrant justice. We see how immigrant communities are meeting the climate crisis with distinct cultural knowledge and in solidarity with other communities to create the future we all want. We learn about organizations that are creating change at a large scale to ensure pathways to safety for climate-displaced people, as well as shifting the narrative around climate-related migration and the people who help us clean up after disasters so that we can remain in our homes.
21st Century Law for 21st Century Migration
The Climate Displacement Program at the International Refugee Assistance Project
Harnessing the Power of the Immigrant Justice Movement for Climate Justice
The Climate Justice Collaborative at the National Partnership for New Americans
Centering the People at the Heart of Building Resilience
Resilience Force
Glossary
Below you will find definitions related to climate mobility, as provided by Climate Migration Council, Emerson Collective, and IOM’s Climate Migration Explainer (unless otherwise noted.)
Disaster Displacement
The movement of persons who have been forced or obliged to leave their homes or places of habitual residence as a result of a disaster or in order to avoid the impact of an immediate and foreseeable natural hazard.
Planned Relocation
In the context of disasters or environmental degradation, including the effects of climate change, a planned process in which persons or groups of persons move or are assisted to move away from their homes or place of temporary residence, are settled in a new location, and provided with the conditions for rebuilding their lives.
Trapped or Immobile Populations
“[P]opulations who do not migrate, yet are situated
in areas under threat, […] at risk of becoming
‘trapped’ [or having to stay behind], where they
will be more vulnerable to environmental shocks
and impoverishment.” This framing may apply
to poorer households that may not have the
resources to move and whose livelihoods are
affected by environmental change. Alternatively,
it may also apply to communities who do not
desire to leave ancestral lands despite the
challenges posed by climate change.
Climate Migration
The movement of a person or groups of persons who, predominantly for reasons of sudden or progressive change in the environment due to climate change, are obliged to leave their habitual place of residence, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, within a country or across an international border. Climate change is often categorized as a threat multiplier, that is, a factor that accelerates other factors that motivate the temporary or permanent movement of people from their communities of origin.
Just Transition
“Just Transition is a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy… Just Transition describes both where we are going and how we get there.” (Learn more from Climate Justice Alliance)