Who Moves and Why: Climate Change, Displacement, and the Search for Solutions

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 is co-hosted with Columbia Climate School’s Earth Institute Hub and 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, and what more just and durable responses might 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.

This 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.