Displacement Solutions and the United Nations Human Settlements Agency - UN Habitat - today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlining a framework for collaboration between the two organisations; globally, regionally, nationally, and at city-level. The collaboration between the Parties will be implemented with a focus on minimizing the impact of global climate change and increasing resilience of human settlements at risk. It is expected that this Agreement will lead to new urban development paradigms for ‘predictive planning’ in (primarily coastal) cities and towns affected by sea-level rise and coastal erosion. The collaboration builds on UN Habitat’s City Resilience Profiling methodology and influencing the resulting resilience action plans via DS’ “Peninsula Principles”, and Climate Displacement Land Initiative. These complimentary programmes will include increased awareness of options and solutions to access, legislate, service and commission land for populations displaced by rising sea levels, coastal erosion or shoreline breaching; Integrating research leading to best practice and up-scaling; and, through implementation of pilot initiatives in towns and cities participating in joint programming, increasing their resilience to the impacts of climate change and other risks. DS and UN Habitat will jointly carry out research, policy, advocacy and project design and implementation including joint design…...

A report just issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council gives extensive and positive coverage to the Peninsula Principles on Climate Displacement Within States. The report, prepared by UN human rights expert of the Advisory Committee to the Human Rights Council, Mr. Imeru Tamrat Yigezu of Ethiopia, describes the 2013 Principles as providing "a solid foundation for the protection of the specific needs of those internally displaced by climate change in line with a human-rights based approach and are consistent with international human rights standards and humanitarian law". The 12 August 2016 report (UN doc: A/HRC/AC/17/2) makes clear the human rights dimensions of climate displacement and specifically recommends that the Council implement two key recommendations: 1. That the Advisory Committee undertake to prepare guidelines (‘soft guidelines’) on climate displacement and human rights, based on existing frameworks such as the Guiding Principles on IDPs and the Peninsula Principles on Climate Displacement within States, which are grounded in the existing international framework. 2.  Alternatively, that the Advisory Committee could prepare a report on the question of a human rights-based planned relocation to cases of looming climate displacement. It is hoped the Human Rights Council will accept Tamrat's recommendations, and that attention to the…...

New DS Report (!) - Courtrooms and Climate Change: The Current State of Play - Global attention to the question of climate change, including climate displacement, has expanded dramatically over the 15 years since Displacement Solutions initiated our efforts to find concrete, rights-based and land-based solutions to this crisis. One area, in particular, that has seen considerable advancement in recent years is the growing scope of judicial attention to various aspects of the climate change question, spanning international, regional and national institutions. More than 1,500 cases have been filed addressing various aspects of the climate crisis over the past several years, and as a result, a rapidly growing body of case law is emerging from judicial organs that collectively give a sense of which climate change issues adjudicative bodies are willing to address, as well as the extent to which such judicial (and quasi-judicial) decisions are having a real world impact on the environmental and human impacts of global warming and all of its effects. Our new 218-page report - Courtrooms and Climate Change: The Current State of Play - explores some of the leading cases decided thus far and how judges and lawyers in countries as diverse as the Netherlands,…...

A new report on Promoting Affordable Housing in Yangon, Myanmar published by the Asian Development Bank has, among other recommendations, urged the government of Myanmar to consider establishing a National Climate Land Bank to proactively address the looming climate displacement crisis in the country. The report notes that "Myanmar’s housing sector is struggling to cope with rapid urbanization, internal migration, and new demand from recent economic growth. These challenges are most apparent in the Yangon Region, where estimates suggest there will be a housing shortage of 1.3 million units by 2030. This publication assesses the current housing market situation in Yangon. It identifies reform options and offers practical recommendations to support the Yangon Region Government’s implementation of its affordable housing agenda and related policies." With a specific recommendation to establish a climate land bank, the report continues "The central importance of land for security, stability, and economic development is already well-recognized by the present government and by all organs of civil society, which have commenced identifying state land resources for eventual distribution to landless rural poor households as part of broader land reform efforts. In this context, the establishment of the MNCLB would be a further element of broader land…...