How Will Climate Migration Reshape Our World?

The UNSW Centre for Ideas, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law and Adelaide Writers’ Week invite you to join in a conversation about climate change, its impacts on human displacement and solutions.

The UN Secretary-General has warned that the climate crisis is on track to prompt ‘a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale’. 

Already, floods, fires, drought and disasters displace more people within their countries than conflict.  This will be an evening to explore how we can meet one of the most challenging human impacts of climate change.

Award-winning science broadcaster Gaia Vince, author of Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World, will speak about her book and join a conversation with Jane McAdam AO, pioneering legal scholar in this area, Kaldor Centre Director and Scientia Professor of Law. Guardian Australia journalist Ben Doherty will chair the discussion. 

When: Thursday 9 March, 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm

Where: UNSW Roundhouse (The Roundhouse is located at UNSW Sydney's Kensington Campus)

Register: online to reserve your spot. Tickets are free, booking is essential. Please note this is a live event only, and will not be available via livestream. 

Speakers:

Gaia Vince

Gaia Vince is a science writer and broadcaster exploring the interplay between human systems and the planetary environment. She is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Anthropocene Institute at UCL. Her first book, Adventures in The Anthropocene won the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize. Her latest book, Nomad Century: How to Survive The Climate Upheaval, explores global migration and planetary restoration in a radical call to arms. 

Jane McAdam

Jane McAdam AO is Scientia Professor of Law and Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. Her ground-breaking research on climate change, disasters and displacement created a new area of international law scholarship, and her legal analysis has been adopted by courts, governments and UN bodies, and her work has been highly influential in the development of international, regional and national policy frameworks. She serves on a number of international committees, including the International Law Association’s Committee on International Law and Sea-Level Rise (as Co-Rapporteur until 2018); the Advisory Committee of the Platform on Disaster Displacement; the Technical Advisory Group for the Pacific Climate Change Migration and Human Security Programme; and the Advisory Council of the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion. In 2017, she received the Calouste Gulbenkian Prize for Human Rights for her work on refugees and forced migration. In 2021, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) ‘for distinguished service to international refugee law, particularly to climate change and the displacement of people’. She was the recipient of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2022 Human Rights Law award.

Ben Doherty

Ben Doherty is immigration correspondent for Guardian Australia, based in the Sydney newsroom. He was formerly the Bangkok-based Southeast Asia Correspondent for The Guardian, and South Asia Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in New Delhi. He has reported from more than 20 countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, and throughout the Asia-Pacific. Ben has twice been awarded a Walkley Award, Australia’s highest journalism honour, most recently in 2013 for a six-month investigation into sweatshop labour conditions and worker deaths in the Bangladeshi garment industry. He has written extensively on, and has a particular interest in, the issues of child and forced labour in developing economies, and the movement of refugees and other forced migrants. Ben was the Walkley Young Australian Print Journalist of the Year in 2008 and has been a finalist in the United Nations Media Peace awards, and Amnesty International Media Awards. Ben holds a Master of International Law and International Relations from UNSW Sydney.

This event is presented by the UNSW Centre for Ideas and supported by the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law and Adelaide Writers’ Week.