DS Director Scott Leckie led an online workshop hosted by the Centre for Local Prosperity entitled 'We are all Climate Displaced Persons' on 27 May, 2020 as part of the the 2020 Pandemic and Climate Crisis, and the Uncertain Future of Local Prosperity Virtual Thinkers Lodge Retreat. You can watch a short film about the workshop here: https://youtu.be/Gla-sUjxkq8 The publication on this event is available here: https://issuu.com/displacement-solutions/docs/thinkers_20lodge_20conv_20on_20uncertain_20future_. Pages 56-60 outline a series of concrete proposals for action put forward by Displacement Solutions to this important gathering.  In the spirit of previous in-depth retreats at the Thinkers Lodge, Pugwash, Nova Scotia (Canada) the Centre for Local Prosperity convenes virtual discussions with international, regional and local thought leaders on topics that include: shifting the community narrative for adaptability and future agency; climate grief and spirituality as motivation for engagement and action; restorative food, power, built environment, local governance and local economics. In this session, Thinkers discuss how we can create regional places or networks that act as refuges for climate displaced persons, coming from both within our region and internationally. Atlantic Canada could be considered a refugee area for humanity because we have natural resources, we have fresh water, we have a reasonable climate…...

Growing numbers of people are losing their homes and lands every day because of the effects of climate change. Climate displacement is happening now, and has been happening for many years. With some notable exceptions, the vast majority of governments the world over have thus far failed to protect the rights of climate displaced families and only a handful of States have policies and programmes in place to protect this new wave of displacement, which will be far, far larger than displacement associated with conflict and instability.  DS and our partners Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) in Bangladesh established The One House, One Family at a time project (OHOF) several years ago to provide quality homes to some of the most vulnerable climate displaced families in eastern Bangladesh. To date we have built four houses, with four additional houses under construction now. OHOF's third phase will commence in 2020 with the aim of constructing a further 12 homes, culminating in a total of 20 homes by the end of next year. With an average of five or six people per house, OHOF will have provided permanent new homes to more than 100 people by the end of 2020. Virtually…...

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,…...

Please have a listen to Episodes 24 and 25 of the podcast Jointly Venturing - Let's Talk World Citizenship hosted by DS Director and Founder, Scott Leckie. In Episode 24 we speak with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, Cecelia Jimenez-Damary, about her extraordinary efforts to assist the growing IDP populations scattered across the planet. In Episode 25, which has just been released, we speak with the world's leading judge responsible for some of the most important climate change cases to reach courtrooms to date, New Zealander Bruce Burson. Please tune in here to have a listen - https://open.spotify.com/show/5ltnbn1Hdy2T80ul0HNrsU - as well as iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and Apple Podcasts. Better yet, subscribe, follow and write a review - it really helps! Episode 26 will be recorded this week where we host the world renowned 'Dictator Hunter', Reed Brody. Be sure to tune in!...