Climate change set to drive unprecedented levels of human migration

10 June 2009

Migration and displacement, caused by climate change, could reach a scope and scale that vastly exceeds anything that has occurred before, according to a report launched today by UN University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), CARE International and Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).

Climate change is already contributing to migration and displacement. All major estimates project that the trend will rise to tens of millions of migrants in coming years. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates that there may be 200 million environmentally-induced migrants by 2050. Within the next few decades, the consequences of climate change for human security efforts could be devastating.

Key findings of the new report entitled, “In Search of Shelter: Mapping the effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement”, released during this week’s Bonn Climate Change Talks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) include:

• Although economic and political factors are the dominant drivers of displacement and migration today, climate change is already having a detectable effect.
• People in the least developed countries and island states will be affected first and worst. The consequences for the global economy and poverty reduction efforts could be devastating. There may also be substantial implications for political stability. 
• Gender roles, as well as cultural prescriptions and prohibitions, can make it impossible for women and female headed-households to migrate in response to environmental change – even if migration would be a case of survival.

“While human migration and displacement is usually the result of multiple factors, the influence of climate change in people’s decision to give up their livelihoods and leave their homes is growing” says Dr. Charles Ehrhart, CARE International’s Climate Change Coordinator and one of the report’s authors.

Mexico and the Central American countries are already experiencing the negative impacts of climate change – both in terms of less rainfall and more extreme weather, such as hurricanes and floods.  Rainfall in some areas is expected to decline by as much as 50 per cent by 2080, rendering many local livelihoods unviable and dramatically raising the risk of chronic hunger.

“The potential impacts of future sea level rise are at least as startling. In Vietnam’s densely populated Mekong River Delta, for example, a sea level rise of two meters would - assuming current populations densities - flood the homes of more than 14.2 million people and submerge half of the region’s agricultural land,” Ehrhart adds.

Most people will seek shelter in their own countries while others cross borders. Some displacement and migration may be prevented through the implementation of adaptation measures. However, poorer countries are underequipped to support widespread adaptation. As a result, societies affected by climate change may find themselves locked into a downward spiral of ecological degradation, towards the bottom of which social safety nets collapse while tensions and violence rise. In this all-too-plausible worst-case scenario, large populations would be forced to migrate as a matter of immediate survival.

“New thinking and practical approaches are needed to address the threats that climate-related migration poses to human security and wellbeing,” says Dr. Koko Warner, Head of Section of the UN University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and lead author of the report.

People have always relied on long- and short-term migration as ways of dealing with climatic changes. The challenge is to better understand the dynamics of climate-related migration and displacement and incorporate human mobility into international and national plans for adapting to climate change.

The new report provides empirical evidence from a first-time, multi-continent survey, policy recommendations and an analysis of both the threats and potential solutions. Original maps show climate change impacts and population distribution patterns.

“Migration needs to be recognised as not being negative per se, but a sometimes necessary response to the negative impacts of climate change. The policy decision we make today will determine whether migration can be a choice, a pro-active adaptation measure, or whether migration and displacement is the tragic proof of our collective failure to provide better alternatives,” Warner concludes.

The report was written by the UN University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), CARE International, and Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN). It was funded by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the World Bank.

Media contact:
Amber Meikle, , 0207 934 9348