Who Moves and Why: Climate Change, Displacement, and the Search for Solutions
What are the realities on the ground of climate-driven mobility?
As environmental change accelerates, millions of people around the world are being displaced from their homes — and the systems designed to protect them are struggling to keep pace. This event, co-hosted with Columbia Climate School’s Earth Institute Hub, Columbia Global Center Mumbai, and Columbia Global Center Beijing, brings together a panel of speakers drawn from academic research, civil society, and lived experience of displacement to examine the realities of climate-driven mobility. Who is moving and why? Where current humanitarian and legal frameworks are falling short? What might more durable and equitable responses look like? The conversation is designed to move through the full arc of the issue — from data and policy to what displacement looks and feels like on the ground — and is open to Columbia students, faculty, staff, and members of the public.
The event is part of Displacement in a Changing World, Columbia Global's year-long series marking the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The series explores how today's shifting world order is reshaping the lives of displaced people and what global protection means in practice–connecting Columbia schools, Global Centers, and communities across the world in conversation.
Speakers
- Wafaa El-Sadr (Opening remarks), Executive Vice President, Columbia Global
- Alex de Sherbinin (Moderator), Director, Earth Institute Hub at Columbia Climate School
- Pär Liljert, Director of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Office at the United Nations in New York
- Amali Tower, Founder and Executive Director, Climate Refugees
- Radley Horton, Professor, Columbia Climate School
- Camille Andre, Regional Lead, Violence Prevention and Response, Latin America, International Rescue Committee
- Achilles Kallergis, Senior Research Fellow, Director of Research and Practice, Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility, The New School for Social Research
You can attend this event in-person or online.
