By Ileana Sînziana Pușcaș, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Switzerland

COP29 was named the transition COP or the finance COP, for its larger goals. But for human mobility, COP29 was the legitimacy COP.

The 2024 Conference came fourteen years after the milestone Cancun Adaptation Framework paragraph 14.f, which anchored human mobility in UNFCCC negotiations, and seventeen years after the first human mobility side event in COP13. Three main trends legitimized human mobility in the climate change negotiations at COP29.

To start with, human mobility was discussed in eight relevant negotiations. These are in loss and damage (Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FrLD), Warsaw International Mechanism, Santiago Network (SNLD)), adaptation (National Adaptation Plans, Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA)), the Just Transition Work Programme, finance (New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG)), and gender. The two most consequential ones concluded with decisions integrating human mobility, namely the NCQG and the GGA. These could lead to accelerating climate finance for human mobility and strengthening migration as an adaptation strategy.

Secondly, climate mobility was recognized at the highest levels of the COP political debates. The COP29 Presidency together with the human mobility community elevated the discourse to events and political outcomes among Presidents and Ministers as well as heads of NGOs and UN agencies. We saw all the facets of climate mobility being analyzed, from its links to peace and protection to its relevance in mountain areas and extreme heat.

Thirdly, the climate mobility community has never been stronger and larger. COP29 gathered a diverse set of actors, including not only the usual mobility entities, like IOM, UNHCR, IDMC, PDD, but also migrants and refugees representatives, Youth Delegates on Climate Migration, climate mobility think tanks and humanitarian organizations. The strength in numbers was felt throughout the negotiations and advocacy efforts to ensuring that climate mobility is part of the COP29 agenda and decisions.

These engagements made COP29 a milestone: human mobility is now an inevitable topic in UNFCCC. The next step is for the human mobility community to capitalize on these gains for sustainable action. These include:

1. Human mobility actors should support the Expert Group for the GGA indicators with evidence and knowledge on migration as a solution to the climate crisis. This could contribute to establishing regular migration pathways, when adaptation in-situ is no longer possible. IOM organized such a first discussion at its COP29 Pavilion, and the UN system will continue the exchange in 2025 before the Group drafts proposals in June 2025 in Bonn.
2. The operational entities working directly with governments and communities on climate mobility should quickly adjust their technical services and be on standby to support the elaboration of technical assistance requests to SNLD and of finance requests to FrLD as well as for the use of eventual allocations to implement relevant programming.
3. IOM, as the only named UN entity in the group of 30 members of the Annual High Level Dialogue on Loss and Damage, will have to position human mobility at the Dialogue’s first session in Spring 2025. IOM could carry the diverse expertise of the human mobility community, including through its role as Coordinator of the UN Network on Migration. It should advocate for covering the financial gaps in responding to increasing disaster displacement, planned relocation, and migration in the context of climate change, not least by leveraging its broad membership of 175 States and presence in over 500 locations.

Finally, looking ahead, COP30 in Belém, Brazil is set to be an important one for human mobility. With the work programmes on just transition and adaptation goals concluding their work, there is an opportunity for Parties to fully leverage the positive potential of human mobility for effective climate action.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of AIDMI.