It’s Time for a Climate Displacement Levy!

6 January 2022

Article

Whether we like it or not, the truth is that the money needed to prevent and resolve climate displacement has not been forthcoming and is unlikely to be for a very long time, if ever. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that 1.6-3.8 trillion (1.6T-3.8T) will be needed each year to avoid warming of more than 1.5C.]In 2021, global GDP is just shy of 93T. In 2009 the world's wealthy nations committed to channel USD 100 billion (100B) to less wealthy countries annually to tackling climate change, but to date have fallen far short from this target. Some have alleged that the estimates of the funds that have been raised thus far are wildly exaggerated, and that even if 100B were provided each year that this would come nowhere near solving the climate crisis. While calculations vary widely from only slightly more than 10B in total to just short of 100B, the prevailing understanding is simply that "Trillions of dollars will be needed each year to meet the 2015 Paris agreement goal of restricting global warming to well-below 2C, if not 1.5C, above pre-industrial temperatures.  A Climate Displacement Levy on the world's 2,800 billionaires at 1% of their respective fortunes…...

DS & YPSA Launch Phase 3 of One House, One Family at a time in Bangladesh

1 June 2021

Article

DS and YPSA are delighted to announce the launch of Phase 3 of our One House, One Family at a time project in Bangladesh where we raise funds and build permanent homes for some of this country's most vulnerable climate displaced families.  If you have you ever wanted to do something directly about climate change, now you can. During the first two phases of OHOF we built nine (9) high quality, safe houses providing permanent, lifelong housing solutions for more than 50 people who through no fault of their own have been displaced because of the ravages of climate change Once Phase 3 is completed, OHOF will have built 20 homes and provided much needed housing to some 120 Bangladeshi citizens With your help we are planning to build eleven (11) more homes and assist up to 70 more climate displaced people. As is well-known, Bangladesh is one of the countries hardest hit by climate change. Every year tens of thousands of people across the country permanently lose their homes to rising sea levels, violent tropical cyclones, devastating floods and other effects of climate change. Most have nowhere else to go. Solving this problem starts with land. Displacement Solutions has worked on…...

After Us The Deluge by Kadir van Lohuizen

3 May 2021

Article, Media Release

Longtime DS collaborator and photojournalist extraordinaire Kadir van Lohuizen of NOOR Images has just released his latest beautiful photo collection, After Us The Deluge. This incredible book captures the uniquely presented images of climate change the world over using Kadir's insightful eyes as a frontline guide to the horrors of climate change already devastating ever growing portions of our vulnerable planet. DS has had the great honour of working with Kadir in climate devastated parts of Bangladesh, along the eastern coastlines of Panama where the Guna people are already moving to new homes because of climate change, in Kiribati and beyond. After Us The Deluge contains chapters by a series of authors accompanied by Kadir's award winning pictures from Greenland, the United States, Bangladesh, Panama, the Carteret Islands, Fiji, his home country of the Netherlands and many other parts of the globe that are very much living through the beginnings of the ravages of ever-worsening climate change, something hinted at in the title of this masterpiece. DS invites everyone who cares about climate change and those who wish to learn more get a copy of Kadir's book and then as our initials say - Do Something - to become part of…...

New DS Report (!) – Courtrooms and Climate Change

14 December 2020

Article, Media Release

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,…...

We Are All Climate Displaced Persons

13 August 2020

Media Release

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…...

Two Amazing Guests on Two New Podcasts – Listen Now!

7 July 2020

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!...

Podcast on the Climate Crisis in the Marshall Islands

1 June 2020

  The most recent episode of the podcast Jointly Venturing - Let's Talk World Citizenship, hosted by DS Director and Founder in his capacity as Founder of Oneness World Foundation, explores the climate crisis in the Marshall Islands. In a wide-ranging conversation with Guillaume Charron of Independent Diplomat, Episode 22 covers the history of the Marshall Islands, the present challenges facing this large ocean nation, and what the future holds for one of the main frontline states in the battle against rising seas and global warming. You can listen (and subscribe) here: https://soundcloud.com/user-893508577/episode-22-their-present-of-our-future-climate-challenges-in-the-marshall-islands The Marshall Islands need our support! Please do whatever you can!...

Climate Land Bank Idea Gets Major Boost in New ADB Report

7 August 2019

Article

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…...

The People of Myanmar Need National Agreement on Restitution

24 February 2019

Article

A new 76-page report prepared by DS Director Scott Leckie with the collaboration of Jose Arraiza of NRC, with the support of the Joint Peace Fund, outlines the components of what an eventual agreement in Myanmar on housing, land and property restitution could look like. The report, entitled BUILDING AGREEMENT ON RESTITUTION RIGHTS WITH THE MYANMAR PEACE PROCESS AND NATIONAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK examines all of the necessary components that would need to find recognition within an eventual national agreement designed to ensure that everyone with a viable HLP restitution claim could submit these to an independent judicial body with enforcement powers strong enough to ensure the full enjoyment of restitution rights throughout all corners of the country. Millions of people with legitimate restitution claims have yet to be able to have these claims heard by judicial bodies with the power to enforce these claims to return to, recover and/or re-inhabit the homes and lands from which they have been forced to flee over the past several decades. The report points out that HLP restitution rights are widely recognised in international law, and that many other countries have adopted restitution laws and procedures as key elements within peace processes and the…...