January 2021 
            
        
        
        
             Framework on Climate 
        
             Change and Environment 
        
        
        
                                                                
        
        
        
        
        
        
                                DRC Climate Change and Environment Framework 
                                       Scope of the climate framework 
                                       This document sets out the parameters for Danish Refugee Council, DRC’s response to the growing, global climate and 
                                       environmental crisis. It provides a common framework for DRC’s actions and approach under three core pillars of action: 
                                       Climate Adaptation in Programmatic Responses; Mitigation to reduce DRC environmental and climate footprint; and 
                                       Advocacy for displaced persons in the context of climate change. 
                                        
                                       Priorities and needs in the framework have been identified through field-based needs and capacity assessment, 
                                       experiences from the field, priorities of the humanitarian sector, existing and future donor compliance demands, as well 
                                       as relevant international and national conventions, policies and strategies including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable 
                                       Development, United Nations Secretariat Climate Action Plan 2020-2030 (UNSCAP), the Global Compact on Refugees and 
                                       the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration as well as UNHCR’s framework for Climate Action and 
                                       UNHCR’s Legal considerations regarding claims for international protection made in the context of the adverse effects of 
                                       climate change and disasters. 
                                        
                                       The crisis of the climate and of the environment have key societal and economique consequences. In this framework, 
                                       therefore, climate and environment are seen as both interlinked and with impact on vulnerable target groups. The 
                                       framework’s point of departure is to strengthen the full spectrum of our response from planning and designing to build-
                                       back-better in order to strengthen climate and environmental resilience by reducing the negative impact of shocks and 
                                       stresses and thereby the protection and livelihoods of conflict and displacement affected persons. 
                                        
                                       The framework goes hand in hand with the DRC 2025 Strategy setting more concrete targets for “Go Green” as an 
                                       strategic and organisational principle, as well as it is accompanied by an internal action plan defining roll out within the 
                                       strategic period of 2021-2025. 
                                        
                                        
                                 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
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             DRC Climate Change and Environment Framework 
                                             Introduction 
             With this framework, DRC is defining its ambitions to respond to climate change and environmental 
             degradation to meet the displacement challenges already being amplified by climate change, and 
             to mitigate and prepare for those to come.  
              
             Climate change and environmental degradation can be threat multipliers as climate-related risks may exacerbate conflict 
             dynamics and increase the impact of other drivers of conflict and fragility. Through this framework, DRC is underlining the 
             importance of addressing displacement in the context of climate change as we work to ensure protection of forcibly displaced 
             people. 
              
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             Climate change is a global phenomenon that “increasingly interacts with the drivers of refugee movements”  and 
             disproportionally affects developing countries, which today host 80% of the world’s refugees and displaced persons. People 
             affected by displacement, therefore, need a strong advocate to ensure protection and empowerment of the most marginalised 
             and that they will not be left behind in global climate action. However, more research is needed to clarify the relationship 
             between climate change on human mobility and forced displacement, as well as the effects of conflict on climate and 
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             environment.  
              
             Across several of the contexts where DRC works, the global climate crisis poses extreme challenges to the people DRC aims to 
             assist, which DRC naturally must reflect on in its overall strategies and response work. Climate change adaptation and 
             mitigation strategies requires a localized perspective, capacity and expertise, which is also in line with DRC’s Policy Statement 
             on Partnerships 2019. DRC´s donors and partners demand systems and programmes to mitigate the effects of climate change 
             and environmental degradation and are rapidly moving from soft to hard compliance requirements on par with already 
             established accountability areas. In consequence, the continued “license to operate” for humanitarian organizations will 
             increasingly depend on their ability to embrace the “green” agenda and do so in a proactive and transformative manner. 
              
             DRC staff and volunteers have consistently voiced expectations for a more sustainable organization, one that better responds to 
             climatic challenges and ensures environment-related rights of the displacement affected, and one where bold “green” 
             commitments become an integral part of DRC’s way of working. 
              
             Climate change and environment are central tenants of DRC’s 2025 strategy, and as such signify an unfaltering urgency for 
             sector response and integrated programming and advocacy, as well as our internal organizational conduct. This framework 
             represents a first-generation organizational climate and environment lens to DRC’s displacement response.  
              
              
                                            
                                            
             1
              Global Compact For Refugees: https://www.unhcr.org/gcr/GCR_English.pdf 
             2
              Oxfam (2019): Forced from Home – Climate-fuelled displacement.  
             https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/forced-home-climate-fuelled-displacement 
              
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             DRC Climate Change and Environment Framework 
             Displacement at the centre 
              
             DRC has more than 60 years’ experience in responding to displacement crises and in supporting and advocating for protection 
             and durable solutions for displaced persons. This expertise has evolved over decades on a backdrop where conflicts have 
             become more complex, laced with larger socio-economic and governance issues of chronic poverty and state fragility.  During 
             this time displacement numbers have risen to yet another unbearable high. And even with conservative estimates, displacement 
             forecasts suggest that the human impact of climate change could intensify the convoluted protection issues to unprecedented 
             levels.  
              
             The current exploitation of the earth by humans is ‘bringing about unprecedented global change to the environment as a result 
             of human activity and specifically as a result of the warming produced by the emission of greenhouse gases by human 
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             societies’ . Deforestation, unsustainable ways of industrial production and conversion of land for highly intensive and 
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             unsustainable agriculture and livestock production, are destroying ecosystems . The rapid loss of nature, ecosystems and 
             biodiversity is not only threatening the natural environment but also further fuelling global inequality and widespread violations 
             of human rights. 
              
             Displacement related to unpredictable long-term weather patterns or sudden damaging weather events is the most prevalent 
             human face of climate change. While acknowledging the challenge of accurate and dependable scenario forecasting, there’s 
             consensus that climate change either as a sole driver or as a multiplier, will increase the number of displaced people. In fact, 
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             numbers relating to disaster displacement have already exceeded that of conflict-induced displacement figures. Whereas 
             everyone around the world can feel the effects of climate change, the most vulnerable are people living in the world’s poorest 
             countries, many of which are recognized as so called climate change hotspots - areas, which are strongly impacted by the 
             physical and ecologocal effects of climate change come together with large numbers of vulnerable and poor people and 
             communities with little resilience and little capacities to adapt.  
              
             Evidently, people lacking financial, social, political or physical assets, as a direct or indirect consequence of environmental 
             stressors, may not have the means to migrate or move despite a desire to do so. Thus, while environmental change is likely to 
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             make displacement more probable, at the same time, it could also curb movements. Recent research  suggests a framework 
             where people affected by climate change falls into four categories according to their intentions and capacity: Involuntarily 
             immobile: those without ability and capacity to move; Voluntarily immobile: those not wanting to move and those who are 
             practicing climatic coping and resilience strategies; Involuntarily (forcibly) displaced: resembling displacement as we know it 
             and Voluntarily mobile people: with both aspiration and capacity to move in an ‘orderly manner’, could be supported migrants. 
              
             Projection trends suggest a strong likelihood for involuntary immobility to increase significantly because of climate change – 
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             suggesting an alternative causality between environment and mobility . Such involuntary immobile people, it is argued, 
             represent an equally important policy concerns as those who are able to migrate, not least due to the humanitarian crises this 
             may cause. Finetuning these distinctions and adding emphasis to the concept of involuntary immobility will help inform future 
             trends of the impact of climate change on people in risk-prone environments.   
              
                                            
             3
              MMC (2019): Mixed Migration Review. http://www.mixedmigration.org/resource/mixed-migration-review-2019/ 
             4
              DRC Trends Analysis, Climate Change and Displacement (internal document) 
             5
              Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (2018): Disaster Displacement. A Global Review 2008-2018. https://www.internal-
             displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/201905-disaster-displacement-global-review-2008-2018.pdf 
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              MMC (2020): Weak Links. http://www.mixedmigration.org/resource/challenging-the-climate-and-migration-paradigm/ 
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              MMC (2019): Mixed Migration Review. http://www.mixedmigration.org/resource/mixed-migration-review-2019/ 
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