Paper details

Abstract

Authors: Jay Balagna (RAND Corporation), Aaron Clark-Ginsberg (RAND Corporation), Bernard McCaul (GOAL), Jonathan Blake (Berggruen Institute). Migration resulting from climate change will happen within national borders, placing great importance on nation-state-level policy as a key component of climate mobility. However, little is known on nation states’ governance of climate change-related migration, including the policies they are enacting to address mobility issues, the underlying rationale behind those issues, and how humanitarian actors navigate this policy landscape. This study’s purpose is to gain a better understanding of the national level government context and the role of international humanitarian organizations. To do so we combine academic research with insights from the field. We first outline the national policy regimes, drawing on a review of six country case studies. We identify five frames through which to understand climate mobility policy and five categories of climate mobility policies themselves. Next, we reflect on the role of international humanitarian actors through a case study of how the international humanitarian response agency GOAL, active in more than 60 countries, share the ways they navigate within this policy environment in Latin American cities to support migrants and their host communities. Results, developed in collaboration with GOAL, provide insight into how climate migration governance and the ways humanitarian response interact with and shapes that governance.