Book Review

Climate Change and Displacement: Multidisciplinary Perspective tries to argue that the way we are handling environmental displacement and migration is insufficient and will not resolve the issues at hand. McAdam wants to bring in people of many different fields and professions to contribute to this book. He believes that a multidisciplinary perspective is needed to better understand the problem. The book brings a holistic analyze of the issue at hand and that this can't be answered from just one single field alone. This excerpt from the introduction creates the foundation of the arguments presented in the book. "Governments have not been prepared to take a leading role in developing responses to the issue, in large part due to the absence of strong theoretical and empirical frameworks from which sound policy can be constructed. The specialist expertise of the authors in this book means that each chapter identifies key issues that need to be considered in shaping domestic, regional and international responses, including the complex causes of movement" (McAdam 2010, 1)  

 The book also goes into great detail about some of the most prevalent states that are and will continue to deal with climate change and environmental displacement. That being Asia and the Pacific area. It states the attachment they have to their land, and the complex issues that arise from being forced to leave your land. The book also goes into detail about the history of the Pacific Island States and how they are trying to combat this issue. With Chapter 4 talking about the importance of land to these people and Chapter 6 talking about the concept of disappearing States and how they are trying to combat the issue. Some specific examples are that of the Maldive government trying on multiple occasions to encourage their many islanders to leave their homes and live in a specific list of islands. At first it was 85 and now the goal is about 20 to 25 islands with actual civilians in them. The idea being that it would be much easier, economically, to manage these people if they were more together, rather than spread out on hundreds of islands. Another option is the buying of land from other states such as Australia or New Zealand. 

The book as a whole does a wonderful job presenting all the information in a coherent manner. It starts off with what existing frameworks there are about migration, then goes into specific areas that are heavily affected by the issue. Since there are so much authors with proficiency in different fields it gives you a nice outlook on how people of these particular field think of the same issue. Then it shows and encourages the uses of these multiple perspectives and disciplines to create new normative frameworks. The book does end on a semi negative note; this is due to the time frame in which to book was published. It being 2010, there was the very unsuccessful 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit. This is due to the fact that it didn't properly address any of the issues and no consensus was made at that time. It had over 115 states and there were high hopes for its success. The book concludes with a need of more research needing to be done on this issue. It is encouraging more micro-level empirical research to better understand the complexity of the issue and at the same time the gathering of people of different fields to add to the debate. It wants the powerful states that are the main contributors of the rise in climate change to take a proactive stance and for it to be a more prevalent topic in future United Nation Conferences

Bibliography - 

McAdam. Climate Change and Displacement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Hart Publishing Limited, 2010.