Presented at International Alert's STRENGTHENING RESPONSES TO CLIMATE VARIABILITY IN SOUTH ASIA Conference, Kathmandu, 08 July 2013

1. Environmental Change, Protection and
Displacement: Knowledge, Politics and
Voices of the Victims
Md. Nadiruzzaman
ICCCAD

2. History of Name-Calling
Year Term used
1958 primitive migrant
1984 environmental refugee
1986 famine refugee
1991 ecomigrants
1994 ecological refugee
1995 distress migrant
1996 environmental migrant
1997 ecological migrant
2002 environmentally displaced person
2002 eco-refugee
2006 climate-change exile
2006 climate refugee
2007 environmental displacee, development displacee

3. Few Definitions
 ‘primitive migration’ – one “resulting from an ecological push: a
movement related to man's inability to cope with natural forces”
(Petersen, 1958)
 (climate) changes could initiate large migrations of people (IPCC
WGII, 1990)
 an environmental signal in their reason for migration (IOM,
2007, 2008)
 displacement because of a marked environmental disruption
(natural and/or triggered by people) (El-Hinnawi 1985)
 United Nations does not formally recognise climate/
environmental refugees

4. What do I want to know?
how the political interests of different
institutions and states are constructing
contrasting meanings of climate change,
how these meanings are justifying their offered
solutions and
how, contrarily, the solutions proposed by
governments often conflict with the reality for
ordinary people’s lives on the ground.

5. Reflections from my PhD
People are susceptible to sea level rise,
increased salinity, arsenic contamination, tidal
surges, floods, and water logging
Higher population growth, resource scarcity,
and changed land use together force local
people into subsistence livelihoods
Income earning opportunities shrunk further
with prohibitions on access to the adjacent
forest, the Sundarbans

6. International Negotiation Table
Bangladesh demands the costs from the Global
North hiding her own responsibility for
inappropriate resource distribution;
India accuses Bangladesh of affecting India’s
security through an inflow of ‘climate
migrants’ from Bangladesh
Global North finds a way to maintain
emissions by virtue of the REDD+.

7. International Negotiation Table
Bangladesh demands the costs from the Global
North hiding her own responsibility for
inappropriate resource distribution;
India accuses Bangladesh of affecting India’s
security through an inflow of ‘climate
migrants’ from Bangladesh
Global North finds a way to maintain
emissions by virtue of the REDD+.