Migration and Climate in Paris Talks

Frann Michel discusses the relations between climate and migration crises, drawing mostly from Harsha Walia's recent comments on "Why Migration Should Be Central to Paris COP21 Climate Talks."  Her comments highlight the ways that climate change causes displacement both directly--through the impact of drought, floods, and storms--and indirectly--through its contributions to conflict, war, and violence.  She also touches on the ways that, conversely, militarism contributes to environmental destruction.  That the recommendations of the Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility have been dropped from the current draft agreement under discussion in Paris reveals the extent to which elites consider the lives of black and brown people to be negotiable and negligible.
Photo Credit: EPA