Mitigating Loss for Persons Displaced by Climate Change through the Framework of the Warsaw Mechanism

Abstract

Despite the substantial research into the peculiar political and legal status of climate migrants, there is comparatively little exploration of the particular forms of loss such migrants might face or how efforts might mitigate such loss. This paper aims to begin filling that void by characterizing such loss, using the framework of the UNFCC’s Warsaw Mechanism, as agential harm. Using existing models for thinking about the preservation of values and links with the past, I aim to use this idea of a threat to agency to discuss how migration could occur to better preserve the agential control of displaced populations.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks for helpful feedback go to my former colleagues Peter Ross, Dale Turner, Michael Cholbi, and David Adams. I’d also like to thank students and faculty at Cal State Long Beach, participants in the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on Development Ethics and Global Justice at Michigan State University in 2015, the participants in the Buffalo Workshop on Ethics and Adaptation in 2015, as well as attendees at the 2014 meeting of the International Society for Environmental Ethics for offering feedback on this project at various stages. Extra special thanks go to Kyle P. Whyte and Peter Ross for looking over drafts of this paper and providing extremely helpful comments.

Notes

1. See Baatz (2013), Baer (2010), Bell (2004), Byravan and Rajan (2010), and Nawrotzki (2014) for discussions of who bears the responsibility for assisting displaced populations. For a discussion of the uncertain legal status of climate migrants see Hoing and Razzaque (2012), Okeowo (2013), Wyman (2013), and see McMichael, Barnett, and McMichael (2012) for the desirability of an influx of climate immigrants.

2. While I will discuss forced versus voluntary migration at various points, I will generally use migrants and displaced persons interchangeably.

3. Fundamentally, part of what it means to possess dignity is to view oneself, and be viewed by others as an agent.

4. See: Office of the President: Republic of Kiribati (2015).

5. While I cannot provide a full discussion here, this links to the existing discussion of migration as a form of adaptation. See: Betzold (2015), McLeman & Smit (2006).

6. There is some ambiguity about whether the terms loss and damage are synonymous. I will simply use the term loss to pick out harm that is likely irreversible.

7. For a nice discussion of this see Kyle P. Whyte’s work (2010) utilizing the idea of ‘environmental heritage’, which is further developed by Robert M. Figueroa (2011).

8. For more on this view of agency, see: Frankfurt (1998), Schechtman (1996).

9. Because, for example, it is part of how I think about myself or provides a deep sense of meaning for my life.

10. I’m not necessarily endorsing a thorough-going relativism, though one is not excluded. There are certainly questions about what counts as a good or justified value, but I will not discuss them here. I am however, wholeheartedly endorsing a healthy epistemic humility with respect to what matters to other persons.

11. An ‘EJ Community’ is a community that has been overly burdened with environmental hazards or other undesirable uses of land, including those communities housing toxic and other waste facilities, communities with especially poor air, soil, or water quality, and a variety of other environmental ‘bads’. In addition to being environmentally burdened, such communities are typically home to low income populations who are frequently of majority Black or Latino/a descent. So called ‘Toxic Tours’ present an opportunity for activists to share their experiences with members of the public as well as representatives of governmental agencies.

12. The difficulty we have in acknowledging alternative structures and rankings of value is reflected in the fact that many of our theories of justice deny the appropriateness of certain kinds of reasons in public discourse. For example, John Rawls explicitly relegates those concerns linked to an individual understanding of the good to the private realm (Rawls, 2005; Rawls & Kelly, 2001).

13. Like those expressed by Robert M. Figueroa and especially Kyle P. Whyte, whose work informs this paper’s argument in deep ways.

14. There is a great deal of important work on the metaphysical status of collective agents, which extends somewhat beyond the scope of my current project.

15. This is complicated by the fact that some communities and nations, and sometimes their shared values, are artefacts of colonialism or other forms of cultural domination.

16. Worries about ‘Adaptive Preferences’ seem important here. Serene Khader helpfully argues that we ought not link the fact that persons have preferences that are ‘warped’ by conditions should not lead us to believe that they suffer from deficits with respect to agency and autonomy (Khader, 2011).

17. See also Chris Cuomo’s work for a further discussion of the parameters of vulnerability (Cuomo, 2011).

18. Participatory models tend to focus on the importance of engaging individual stakeholders in deliberations and decision-making, frequently with the aim of finding some shared set of values, while recognitional models focus on the necessity for engagement with other persons by treating them as bearers of value who may have radically different subjective experiences of the world.

19. Community Supported Research also offers an important tool for thinking about community level expertise.

20. In many ways, this idea has implications for climate change adaptation more broadly.

21. Of course, there are a great many persons who, independent of the impacts of climate change, have little control over where they live. Economic and social factors play a huge role in determining not merely the kind of dwelling one may afford, but also the neighborhood or greater geographic area in which one lives.

22. Any number of acts of displacement and reservationalization of indigenous peoples in North America would fit this description.

23. See Shearer (2011) for a an extensive discussion of Kivalina.

24. See Bronen (2011) for a rights-based framework for thinking about community relocation.

25. In a recent example, the Haudenosaunee Nation’s Women’s Lacrosse Team was denied entry into the UK because they carried Haudenosaunee passports, which were not deemed legitimate for entry by immigration officials (Gadoua, 2015).

26. The Platform on Disaster Replacement works to address issues of international environmental displacement, through a set of preventative as well as responsive measures (see The Program on Disaster Displacement, 2017).

27. There is an existing literature in environmental justice regarding the better and worse ways to move communities, with some excellent examples focused on Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’. See Lerner (2005), Perry and Lindell (1997).

28. See also: Cunsolo-Willox, Harper, Edge, et al. (2013).

29. Although research indicates that existing structures are inadequate to the challenges posed by climate-induced relocation (Maldonado, Shearer, Bronen, Peterson, & Lazrus, 2013).

30. Further evidenced by the rise of nationalism and populist movements in both North America and Europe.

31. See Alessa, Kliskey, and Williams (2010), Cunsolo-Willox, Harper, Edge, et al. (2013), Cunsolo-Willox, Harper, Ford, et al. (2013), Jassol (2004).

32. Further, there should be fish, and they must be healthful to consume.

33. See Ayers (2011)) for a discussion of adaptation and deliberation.