With the climate crisis wreaking havoc worldwide, millions of people have been forced to leave their homes, increasingly often to other countries. These people are called climate migrants. Climate migrants commonly originate from developing countries that carry unsustainable debt burdens, which prevent the financing of disaster reconstruction, climate adaptation, but more importantly, direct aid and response measures for climate migrants who need assistance while moving. Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle for climate migrant assistance is adequate financing. Thus, this paper proposes a small-scale solution that can be adapted into bilateral or multilateral contracts among sovereigns and private investors: The Climate Migrant Financing Facility, readapted from The Nature Conservancy’s Blue Bond Program and the Bridgetown Initiative. While providing a public good, the CMFF provides countries the opportunity to adopt high Environmental, Social, and Governance standards for investment (ESG), supplement their labor markets, and invest in climate resilient projects that are sustainable in the long term. This solution could ease a country’s debt burden through insured bond buybacks and flexible contracting, which will revitalize labor economies, improve climate resiliency, and most importantly, accommodate climate migrants. Inspired by environmental debt mechanisms such as the Bridgetown Initiative, the TNC’s Blue Bonds, and Climate-Debt Swaps, the CMFF goes further by directly protecting the people of highly-indebted developing countries through strict ESG commitments and explicit contracting.

Continue Reading The Climate Migrant Financing Facility: Flexible Contracting and Strict Transparency for the Looming Climate Migration Crisis