It’s Time for Solutions! Addressing Displacement and Other Human Mobility Challenges in the Context of Climate Change Loss and Damage

This brief advocates for a ‘durable solutions’ approach within the UNFCCC to averting, minimising and addressing displacement in the context of climate change. With the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) now operationalised and the UNFCCC’s Loss and Damage landscape taking shape, this piece discusses how ‘durable solutions’ can serve to avert, minimise and address loss and damage associated with displacement.
Published on November 1, 2024
Loss and Damage and the Challenges of Human Mobility and Displacement Working Group and the Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility | idrp, IDPs, Disaster, Climate, United Nations

Displacement has been described by Walter Kälin as “the human face of loss and damage”, profoundly affecting human rights, well-being and development, particularly in climate vulnerable countries with limited resources to address its impacts. With the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) now operationalised and the UNFCCC’s Loss and Damage landscape taking shape, ‘durable solutions’ approaches can provide a vital means for identifying entry points for addressing loss and damage. Relatedly, addressing the losses and damages associated with displacement and other mobility challenges is vital to the achievement of ‘durable solutions’.  This brief highlights the specific actions that the Fund for Addressing Loss and Damage and other UNFCCC stakeholder bodies, expert groups and organisations should take to support, prioritise and mainstream ‘durable solutions approaches’ into policy and practice. The brief also spotlights the critical COP 29 actions and decisions required for ‘solutions’.

This advocacy brief is co-published by the Loss and Damage Collaboration and Researching Internal Displacement. It can also be found also on the Loss and Damage Collaboration webpage.

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This advocacy brief was developed by the Loss and Damage and the Challenges of Human Mobility and Displacement Working Group and the Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility. Both groups are coalitions of practitioners, researchers, lawyers and activists working on human mobility at local, national and global levels.

 

Image Credits

Cover image: Cholistan, Punjab, Pakistan-September, 8, 2018. A man with his solar panel charges his mobile phone in a remote area of Cholistan Desert. Image credit: Farhan Riaz / Shutterstock.

Loss and Damage Collaboration logo: Sundarbans web, by the European Space Agency, Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2016), processed by ESA, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

 

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE

Researching Internal Displacement publishes engaging and insightful short pieces of writing, artistic and research outputs, policy briefings and think pieces on internal displacement.

We welcome contributions from academics, practitioners, researchers, officials, artists, poets, writers, musicians, dancers, postgraduate students and people affected by internal displacement.

By Sanjula Weerasinghe | Nov 5, 2026
On the eve of COP 31, this thoughtful, reflective short article relays a simple but vital message from the recent Pacific Pre-COP meeting: the need to listen to Pacific voices. Policymakers, experts and advocates seeking to shape effective approaches to climate-related mobility can learn from Pacific leadership, knowledge and innovation. As observed at Pacific Pre-COP, Pacific approaches to climate-related mobility are deeply interwoven with the goals of keeping 1.5°C within reach, accessing predictable climate finance and elevating ocean-based climate action and sustainable ocean management. They also prioritise peoples’ ability to remain safely in their homes, acknowledge the need for well-supported alternatives, including rights-based relocation and migration with dignity, and recognise that such mobility pathways often entail profound loss, which must be addressed. Ultimately, learning from Pacific experiences benefits the entire world. As noted by Palau’s President, “What reaches our shores today, will also reach your shores…”. As COP 31 begins, negotiators and advocates should listen.
By Sarah Koeltzow (ed.) and Erica Bower (ed.) | Nov 3, 2026
“Towards Dignified Climate Relocation: Community Perspectives from around the Globe” is a thematic miniseries guest-edited by Sarah Koeltzow and Erica Bower, co-facilitators of the Coalition on Dignified Climate Relocation (CDCR). It brings together relocating community leaders, researchers, advocates and practitioners from across the CDCR to examine diverse experiences of planned relocation and identify lessons about what rights-respecting, community-led relocation looks like in practice and how national policy should enable it. The series includes five ‘community perspective’ articles from the Americas, Asia and Africa, featuring the experiences and insights of coalition members from relocating communities and the organisations and researchers supporting them. An Introductory essay by the guest editors distils the experiences and lessons from the planned relocations spotlighted in the series. The essay and the other articles in the series demonstrate that planned relocation is much more than an infrastructure project; it is a multidimensional process of economic, social and cultural rebuilding.
By Sarah Koeltzow and Erica Bower | Nov 2, 2026
This final article in the miniseries, Towards Dignified Climate Relocation: Community Perspectives from around the Globe, distils the experiences and lessons from planned relocations in Mexico, Panama, India and Malawi, as recounted in earlier articles of this series, co-produced by RID and the Coalition on Dignified Planned Relocation. The articles were authored by members of the Coalition, who accompanied or witnessed these relocations. This essay, by the series guest editors, highlights the importance of community leadership, the need for “all of community” consultation and engagement, the importance of cultural sensitivity and responding to experiences of loss and grief, and the need to monitor outcomes over time. Critically, planned relocation isn’t just an infrastructure project; it is a multidimensional process of economic, social and cultural rebuilding. Planned relocation is a unique form of climate mobility, and supporting the exchange of key insights from communities around the world is essential. That work is at the heart of the Coalition on Dignified Climate Relocation's mission.