Neoliberalising adaptation to environmental change: foresight or foreclosure?

The UK's Government Office for Science has recently released an important report, produced by its internal think tank Foresight. Over seventy peer-reviewed studies have been commissioned and some 350 experts and `stakeholders' have been involved in creating Migration and Global Environmental Change (Foresight, 2011). Its lead authors have recently published a summary of the main conclusions in the leading scientific journal Nature (Black et al, 2011), and the report has already received extensive media coverage. By virtue of its scope and authorship, the report can be considered a milestone in the scientific and practitioner fields related to environment and migration. It is targeted at a wide readership, both in academia and in policy-making circles.(1) An attached `action plan' suggests that the report's findings and recommendations are already being disseminated widely within international organisations and governance networks worldwide.