MSC 2023 – Munich Security Conference
Discussion on Climate-Related Migration and its Geopolitical Implications
Climate change will force hundreds of millions of people from their homes, primarily migrating within their home countries or neighboring regions. Now, the Foundation is hosting an event at MSC 2023 to discuss the geopolitical implications of these migratory movements.
Determined to put the issue of climate-related migration on the agenda at the Munich Security Conference, the Robert Bosch Stiftung is set to host a side event on February 18, 2023 entitled “Shifting (b)orders? The geopolitics of climate-related migration”. Climate change is already forcing millions from their homes, with rising numbers predicted to become affected by migration, displacement, and planned relocation in the future. According to the Groundswell Report more than 216 million people across six world regions could be forced to move within their countries by 2050. Countries and regions already considered fragile and conflict-prone, such as the Horn of Africa, are often those affected. Yet the debate on the geopolitical impact of climate-related migration has only just begun.
The Foundation hopes to leverage the MSC to raise awareness of the risks, but also the opportunities, of climate-related migration, specifically climate mobility, among international foreign and security policy experts. Large migration movements, including within the same country, can contribute to political instability and exacerbate conflicts, especially where policies and political leadership are weak. However, migration is also an important strategy for adapting to the impacts of climate change, especially where a changing climate or regularly recurring environmental disasters threaten people’s lives and livelihoods. Ultimately, climate mobility also represents an opportunity to address the increasingly acute skills and labor shortages in many countries of the Global North.
The Robert Bosch Stiftung has been a strategic partner of the MSC since 2016. The Foundation particularly seeks to give representatives from the Global South a voice in international decision-making processes as well as the chance to help shape them. The side event will see, amongst others, Ambassador Dr. Namira Negm, Director of the African Migration Observatory at the African Union, David Miliband, President & CEO International Rescue Committee and Andrew Gilmour, Executive Director of the Berghof Foundation and former UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, discuss promising strategies and approaches for addressing human mobility in the context of climate change.