The Place I Called Home...

Background:

Researchers have identified several island nations, such as The Maldives, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and The Marshall Islands, as being at risk of completely disappearing due to rising sea levels. What happens, or what should happen, to an island's population when its nation's land disappears? Not only do these environmentally displaced persons (EDPs) need to relocate, but there is also risk of losing a unique culture, language, and way of life. In this problem, we ask you to look more closely at this issue, in terms of both the need to relocate people and the protection of culture. There are many considerations and questions to address, to include: Where will these EDPs go? What countries will take them? Given various nations' disproportionate contributions to the green-house gasses both historically and currently that have accelerated climate change linked to the rising seas, should the worst offenders have a higher obligation to address these issues? And, who gets a say in deciding where these nationless EDPs make a new home - the individuals, an intergovernmental organization like the United Nations (UN), or the individual governments of the states absorbing these persons? A more detailed explanation of these issues is given in the Issue Paper.

As a result of a recent UN ruling that opened the door to the theoretical recognition of EDPs as refugees, the International Climate Migration Foundation (ICM-F) has hired you to advise the UN by developing a model and using it to analyze this multifaceted issue of when, why, and how the UN should step into a role of addressing the increasing challenge of EDPs. The ICM-F plans to brief the UN on guidance for how the UN should generate a systemized response for EDPs, especially in consideration of the desire to preserve cultural heritage. Your assignment is to develop a model (or set of models) and use your model(s) to provide the analysis to support this briefing. The ICM-F is especially interested in understanding the scope of the issue of EDPs. For example, how many people are currently at risk of becoming EDPs[1]; what is the value of the cultures of at-risk nations; how are those answers likely to change over time? Furthermore, how should the world respond with an international policy that specifically focuses on protecting the rights of persons whose nations have disappeared in the face of climate change while also aiming to preserve culture? Based on your analysis, what recommendations can you offer on this matter, and what are the implications of accepting or rejecting your recommendations?