In this Talking Humanitarianism episode, Amali Tower provides a landscape view of forced displacement today and the role climate change plays in driving migration and displacement. She discusses how and where climate in some of the world’s poorest places intersects with underlying vulnerabilities to increase climate-driven displacement and leads to loss and damage for frontline communities.
Amali also provides case study examples to demonstrate why solutions require a climate justice approach to support populations disproportionately at-risk.
Amali Tower is the Founder and Executive Director of Climate Refugees, a human rights organisation that calls for the protection and rights of those displaced by climate change. She has extensive global experience in refugee protection, refugee resettlement and in forced migration and displacement contexts, having worked globally for numerous NGOs, the UN Refugee Agency and the US Refugee Admissions Program.
Climate Refugees have also recently released the report “Climate Change is Controlling Everything, Let Them Compensate Us”: Stories of Loss and Damage in Kenya based on site visits conducted by Amali in 10 distinct locations in the Great Rift Valley late last year as well as discussions with nearly 100 affected people. Prolonged drought and major flooding of lakes are causing displacement, human rights losses, and development setbacks for some of Kenya’s most marginalised and climate-vulnerable communities, who are often overlooked by existing policies, funding arrangements, and humanitarian interventions.