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This cybeseminar will address population displacement and the potential need for organized resettlement owing to climate change and associated mitigation and adaptation projects. The seminar will address two major types of future resettlement – 1) resettlement stemming from direct climate impacts, and 2) resettlement owing to large scale mitigation and adaptation (M&A) projects that are meant to reduce climate change risks. The latter include large-scale projects such as dams, coastal defenses, water transfer schemes, biofuel plantations and renewable energy complexes which, regardless of their actual effectiveness in promoting M&A, are often justified for climate reasons.

This discussion starts from two premises. The first is that resettlement should not be a preferred option, but that ignoring it altogether means that necessary planning and capacity building that could improve outcomes for resettled communities will probably not take place. The seminar will nevertheless explore other adaptive responses in regions where climate change impacts are particularly severe – ranging from investments in in situ adaptation, spontaneous migration, to assisted relocation. The second is that there is much to be learned from past development forced displacement and resettlement (DFDR) and disaster related resettlement that could be applicable to future climate-related resettlement, and therefore the research community has an important role to play. The seminar is based in part on discussions that took place at a November 2010 Bellagio Conference on the same topic (see http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/confluence/display/CCDR).

Major questions to be addressed include:

1. Under what circumstances could displacement and resettlement due to direct climate impacts be necessary?
2. Which countries or regions (or types of regions) are most likely to require resettlement?
3. What are the range of policy tools at the disposal of governments – from in situ adaptation to facilitated migration and assisted relocation to resettlement – and what are the costs and benefits of each?
4. How does the “immobility paradox” (the fact that most people do not migrate even when it would be economically rational to do so) inform the debate around resettlement?
5. What lessons have been learned from experience in government led development forced displacement and resettlement (DFDR) that are relevant to future climate-related resettlement?
6. What is new about potential future climate-related resettlement that may require adjustments to past lessons?
7. In terms of resettlement praxis, what protection mechanisms can be put into place to ensure that those who are resettled or voluntarily move because of M&A projects or climate impacts are not worse off after their moves? And what are current policy frameworks, “best practices”, regulations and legal mechanisms in the area of displacement and resettlement?
8. What are the available methods (and need for novel ones) for estimating social and environmental impacts of such projects in both intervention and resettlement areas (e.g., participatory assessment, surveys)?
9. What changes might be needed in order to adapt impact assessments to the context of future climate change related displacement and resettlement?
10. The study of displacement and resettlement has been fragmented among different agencies (e.g. refugee agencies, disaster response agencies, and development agencies) and corresponding research communities. Given the likelihood displacements will increase with climate change, how do we foster truly interdisciplinary research that borrows from all branches?