Migration as a Climate Adaptation Strategy
François Gemenne
People react to environmental degradation in many diverse ways. It has long been recognized, however, that changes to the environment can induce significant population movements, either as a direct consequence of these changes or because of the impacts that environmental changes have on other drivers of migration, such as poverty or food security. In recent years, scholars and policy makers alike have expressed rising concern that climate change could become a key driver of migration in the coming decades.1
Already in 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that “one of the gravest effects of climate change might be that on human migration.” An ever-growing body of literature has addressed this issue, but most of the work has focused on the number of people who could be displaced, the influence of environmental factors in the decision to migrate, or the legal and humanitarian challenges posed by the projected new flows of migrants. As researchers Jon Barnett and Michael Webber have noted, reports on the topic “rarely recognize the potential for spontaneous and planned adaptations to reduce vulnerability to environmental change,” nor do they “adequately recognize that migration is itself a strategy to sustain livelihoods.”2
Most of the literature on the subject has been widely alarmist, with some reports citing made-up projections of hundreds of millions of “climate refugees” worldwide by 2050. Climate-induced migration has been presented variously as one of the most dramatic consequences of global warming, as a humanitarian catastrophe in the making, and as a threat to international security. Yet long-time research on livelihoods and adaptive capacity makes clear that populations affected by environmental changes frequently have used migration as a deliberate adaptation strategy, especially in Africa’s Sahel region. Until recently, this body of literature was largely overlooked by the dominant research on climate-induced migration, which consistently presented migration as a failure to adapt to environmental changes.3
François Gemenne is executive director of the Politics of the Earth program at Sciences Po in Paris and a senior research associate with the University of Liège in Belgium.
Despite the variety of claims concerning climate-induced migration, the empirical reality is quite different. Although climate change can induce dramatic population displacement, the common conception tends to present migrants solely as resourceless victims. The overall number of people that may be compelled to move as a result of climate change is as-yet unknowable, but it is likely to be large, and this migration will likely involve mass suffering. The character of that suffering could take many forms, including responding to the evolving situation in place, migrating within one’s country, and possibly migrating across borders.
These distinctions matter because they affect the type of policy responses needed. The conception of migrants solely as victims, however, might actually hinder their capacity to adapt, and induce inadequate policy responses. Fortunately, some policy directions are available that would allow migration to unleash its adaptation potential.
Common (Mis)perceptions of Climate-Induced Migration
Migration often is perceived as a decision of last resort that people take when they are faced with environmental disruptions. It is commonly assumed that migrants have exhausted all possible options for adaptation in their place of origin, and are left with no other choice but to flee. Reports on the impacts of climate change are replete with the idea that climate-induced migration should be avoided at all cost, and would represent a failure of policies designed to help populations mitigate and adapt to climate change. Only a few analyses have considered that migration actually could be a resource that migrants use to deal with environmental changes. The result of this misconception is that migrants usually are perceived as resourceless, expiatory victims of climate change.4
Erin Magee, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Most Kiribati government buildings are on South Tarawa.
Over time, “climate refugees” have become the human face of global warming, simultaneously being the first witnesses and the first victims of climate impacts such as sea-level rise or melting permafrost. Populations in low-lying island nations, such as Kiribati or the Maldives, are portrayed as the proverbial canaries in the coal mine—alerting the rest of the world to the dangers of climate change, and themselves left with no choice but to relocate abroad. Strikingly, many of these populations refuse to be considered as refugees in the making, as it would undermine their adaptive capacity and render ineffective the efforts they already have undertaken to adapt.5
The perception of migrants as victims is deeply rooted in environmental determinism, a perspective that asserts that an individual’s course of action is determined exclusively by his or her environment. An all-too-common view is that most people affected by environmental changes would need to migrate, and that environmental factors would be the sole drivers of their migration. Examples of this perspective can be found in numerous reports on climate impacts (and on sea-level rise in particular), which also attempt to forecast the number of people who potentially could be displaced. The consequence of this deterministic perspective is that “environmental migration” often has been viewed as a new and distinct migration category, the nature and magnitude of which would be determined by environmental changes only, and where migrants would be set apart from broader global migration dynamics.6
From a policy point of view, analysts have associated this new category of migrants with specific policy challenges. A common assumption has been that massive flows of migrants from poor countries soon would be flocking to the doors of industrialized countries. An image on display at the Museum of London’s 2010 exhibition “Postcards from the Future,” for example, showed Buckingham Palace surrounded by a shanty town of “climate refugees”—just one vision of what the city’s landmarks could experience in an environment transformed by climate change.7
Policy-wise, climate-induced migrations also have been presented as an impending threat to national and global security. Numerous reports on the linkages between climate change and security mention the potential instability resulting from massive movements of people displaced by climate-related impacts. In 2008, an official communication to the European Council on the issue noted that, “Europe must expect substantially increased migratory pressure.” Yet rooting environmentally induced migration in a security agenda, and framing it in a deterministic perspective, is deeply at odds with the empirical realities of the climate change–migration nexus.8
The Impacts of Climate Change on Migration
The linkages between environmental changes and migration are extremely complex, and the relationship is far from direct or causal. Many uncertainties exist about the nature and strength of these linkages, in part because of the relative lack of empirical (particularly quantitative) studies. It is generally acknowledged that three types of climate change impacts can generate significant migration flows: sea-level rise, changes in precipitation patterns and associated water stress, and the increased intensity of natural hazards.9
Sea-level rise. The world’s oceans are projected to rise by as much as one meter by the end of this century, although regional variation is expected. Coastal areas and river deltas rank among the most densely populated regions on Earth. They are home to many major cities—from Shanghai and Jakarta to London and New York—and will be at direct risk of flooding if adaptation measures, such as dikes and coastal restoration, are not implemented. Small-island nations are particularly vulnerable to even the slightest rise in sea level, which could inundate and eventually submerge buildings, roads, and other human structures.10
If no substantial adaptation measures are undertaken rapidly, people living in low-lying regions could be forced to relocate permanently, possibly abroad in the case of small-island developing countries. The time frame of these migrations, however, is very important: sea-level rise is a slow, incremental change, which allows populations to prepare and plan their relocation, possibly over several generations. In Kiribati, for example, the government has implemented a program called “Migration with Dignity,” which aims to provide citizens with the necessary skills to migrate abroad by choice, before they are forced to do so.
Changes in precipitation patterns and associated water stress. Changes in precipitation and in the availability of water induce a different type of migration. Because water stress often mingles with other drivers of migration, such as poverty or land tenure issues, it is more difficult to assess the weight of environmental factors compared to other variables. Empirical research suggests that migration patterns might be more diversified, with people migrating both temporarily and permanently, typically from rural to urban areas. In sub-Saharan African countries, such as Niger, Benin, or Senegal, a member of a household often will migrate to the city to gain additional income and to sustain the household’s livelihood during periods of drought, land degradation, and water stress. Remittances—the sending of money back home—are part of a household’s strategy to cope with disruption in weather patterns.
Migration also can be part of a social routine to deal with environmental stress, as is often the case with livestock farming populations—but it can become a permanent relocation if the crisis becomes more severe, as has occurred in Kenya and South Sudan. In the latter case, pastoralist migration has been a trigger for conflict with sedentary populations. Likewise, severe droughts can induce brutal, dramatic displacements as people migrate in search of food and assistance. Yet there is also empirical evidence that the rate of migration can decrease in cases of extreme drought, because affected households are so diminished that they cannot afford to migrate. Migration patterns therefore depend greatly on the socioeconomic context, the assistance available, and the availability of migration options.11
Increased intensity of natural hazards. Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, are expected to increase in intensity because of climate change—and they frequently trigger massive displacements of people. (See Box 9–1.) These displacements usually are confined within the borders of the affected country, but there have been cases of cross-border migration, especially when asylum possibilities were provided abroad. After Hurricane Mitch struck Central America in 1998, for example, many Hondurans and Nicaraguans were provided with temporary asylum in the United States.12
Petterik Wiggers/Hollandse Hoogte
A child in a United Nations refugee camp in Juba, South Sudan.
It was long thought that natural disasters did not lead to permanent migration, but only to temporary displacements, as the affected residents were assumed to return home once the disaster ended and reconstruction began. Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, however, showed that this was not always the case, as roughly a third of the population of New Orleans never returned to the city. But migration can also be a key tool for reconstruction in the aftermath of a disaster: remittances, for example, typically increase after a disaster, and can provide significant assistance to households seeking to rebuild their livelihoods.13
In general, migration patterns associated with environmental changes tend to be diverse and highly context-specific, making it difficult to outline common traits pertaining to “environmental migration.” Yet various cross-country studies and reviews make it possible to draw general characteristics. The first is that most migrants move within the borders of their own country, and often for very short distances. This is because people usually have little interest in moving far away, as this would disrupt their economic and social networks and potentially deprive them of state-led assistance. Moreover, migration is a very costly endeavor, and many households simply do not have the resources to undertake an international migration.14
Another key characteristic is the intermingling of environmental factors with other drivers of migration, typically socioeconomic drivers such as poverty or job opportunities. Environmental factors cannot be set apart from their socioeconomic context, which makes it difficult to isolate a specific category of “environmental migration,” with the exception of certain forced displacements associated with a brutal environmental disruption, such as a typhoon or flash flood. But even in these clear-cut cases, socioeconomic characteristics play an important role in determining the patterns of displacement. One cannot, for example, understand the patterns of displacement and return after Hurricane Katrina without taking into account race and poverty as determining factors.
Natural disasters are displacing large numbers of people, although the numbers vary greatly from year to year. Population growth—the rise in overall human numbers as well as in the number of people exposed to hazards—has led to an increase in the scale of displacement over time. As the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre observes, “improvements in disaster preparedness and response measures . . . mean that more people now survive disasters—but many of the survivors are displaced.”
Demographics, vulnerability, and disaster risk reduction are key determinants of displacement, but environmental degradation and long-term climate change are becoming increasingly important. Although it remains difficult to pin a particular disaster on climate change, scientists have observed changes in both the magnitude and the frequency of extreme weather events in recent decades.
Weather-related hazards, such as floods, storms, and extreme temperatures, accounted for the vast majority (85 percent) of displacements due to rapid-onset natural disasters during 2008–13. Weather-related disasters displaced some 140 million people over this period, or an average of 23 million people per year. Floods (57 percent of the total) and storms (27 percent) were by far the most important contributors. (Earthquakes and volcanoes accounted for 15 percent of displacements in 2008–13, or slightly more than 24 million people.) (See Figure 9–1.)
But the annual figures fluctuate wildly along with variability in natural conditions. The number of people forced to flee in the face of weather hazards declined from 20.7 million in 2008 to 15.2 million in 2009, surged to 38.3 million in 2010, dropped to 13.8 million in 2011, more than doubled to 31.6 million in 2012, and then declined again to 20.6 million in 2013.
No comparable data exist on displacements caused by slow-onset disasters such as drought—whether they result from natural variability or are worsened by human-induced climate change. In extreme cases, lower or more-variable agricultural yields could compel people to move. Such migration may be seasonal, as people seek to supplement less-predictable farm incomes with work elsewhere. But any such impacts are far less acute, and thus harder to capture in statistics, than impacts imposed by sudden-onset disasters. This is also true for another impact of climate change—sea-level rise—which may be gradual enough to permit counter-measures (such as dike construction) to obviate moving.
Figure 9–1. Population Displaced by Natural Disasters, by Disaster Type, 2008–2013
The number of people displaced due to climate impacts is expected to rise as extreme weather events become more frequent and intense, and as droughts, desertification, sea-level rise, and glacial melt become more prominent. Yet it seems impossible to make any reliable projections about how many people may be uprooted in the coming years and decades. There are simply too many unknowns: outcomes will depend on the precise nature of climate impacts, the time and place that disasters may strike, and the ways that disaster risks and impacts may be lessened by preparedness and adaptation.
Fast-onset impacts such as floods and storms affect people in different ways than more gradual (although perhaps longer-lasting) processes such as drought. The intensity and frequency of disasters may have different ramifications as well. And the impacts of one-time disasters may differ from the effects of successive catastrophes, such as the two typhoons and an earthquake that struck the Philippines within a four-month span during 2013, displacing nearly 6 million people. Overall, population movements in response to disasters can vary widely in their duration, characteristics, and destination. (See Figure 9–2.)
—Michael Renner
Source: See endnote 11.
Figure 9–2. Variations in Disasters and Population Movements
The propensity to move is also highly dependent on age, gender, and wealth. Younger men tend to be more mobile than other categories, and the most vulnerable populations often find themselves unable to migrate. The poorest, in particular, frequently lack the resources that would allow them to afford the costs of transport, housing, and sometimes smuggling. When they do move, they typically travel shorter distances than wealthier populations, in some cases simply relocating from one hazardous zone to another, as has been documented in Bangladesh. These barriers to movement are primarily economic: depending on the locations involved, the cost of migrating from one country to another can amount to several years of a migrant’s income.15
Administrative and informational barriers to movement also exist. In both industrialized and developing countries, migration policies have become increasingly stringent over time. Even when migrants move within their own country, they must overcome numerous administrative barriers, such as the possible loss of social benefits and protection. Many migrants lack information about possible destination areas and employment possibilities, and they often need to rely on migrants’ networks to secure a livelihood. Land tenure is a critical issue as well: research shows that landowners, who often are reluctant to abandon their land, are less mobile than those who rent their land. Land tenure also is a frequent problem in the destination area, as migration can lead to competition for land.16
In a nutshell, migration is one of many possible responses to environmental disruption. (See Figure 9–3.) Some people will choose to migrate in order to adapt, while others will be forced to move because they have been unable to adapt. Some will adapt successfully in their home locales, while others will not be able to adapt at all, meaning that their lives, health, and livelihoods will be directly exposed to the impacts of climate change. The choice between these different options depends in part on the nature of the environmental changes, but also—and possibly more significantly—on the policy responses that are developed.
Figure 9–3. Climate Change Adaptation and Migration
As planetary warming comes closer to topping the limit of a 2 degree Celsius (°C) increase in global average temperature, migration is likely to become a less viable adaptation option in the face of environmental changes, as people will likely have fewer adaptation opportunities from which to choose. In the event of a temperature increase above 4°C, both the number of people forced to move and the number of trapped people (unable to move) are likely to increase.17
At the moment, environmental changes are leading to both voluntary migration and forced displacement. Yet these categories are not discrete: most migration decisions include some elements of constraints, and very few movements are either completely voluntary or completely forced. In recent years, the line between voluntary and forced migration has become increasingly blurred, and forced and voluntary movements are better described as the two ends of a continuum than as clear-cut categories. In a warming world, where a particular population stands on this continuum will depend not only on climate impacts, but also—and possibly more importantly—on the way policies address climate-induced migration.18
Policy Directions for Migration as Adaptation
For the most part, climate-induced migration continues to be perceived as a failure of both migration and adaptation policies, and as a humanitarian catastrophe to be avoided at all cost. As a result, policy debates have focused mainly on protection and assistance mechanisms that could address this supposedly new type of migration. Yet empirical research shows that migration is not the only possible response that populations can adopt in the face of environmental disruption. Moreover, when they migrate, many people choose to do so willingly over other possible adaptation strategies: migration is employed as a powerful mechanism to diversify incomes, alleviate environmental pressures at home, send remittances, or simply put people and their families out of harm.
Yet the potential benefits of migration for adaptation should not overshadow the numerous situations of forced displacements, where people have no choice but to move because of environmental disruptions, such as persistent drought or submergence of their land. As climate change becomes more severe, with a global average temperature rise that could approach 4°C, migration is less likely to be available as an adaptation strategy. Consequently, more populations will find themselves either forced to migrate and relocate, or forced to stay where they are, because of a lack of resources and migration options.19
The paramount goal of policy responses should be to enable people’s right to choose which adaptation strategy is best suited for their needs. This implies that people should be entitled with both the right to stay and the right to choose. Yet unabated climate change is likely to result in an increase not only in the number of forced migrants, but also in the number of “forced stayers.”
Current adaptation policies tend to focus on the right to stay, with most projects targeted at the areas of origin affected by climate impacts. As such, migration is addressed mainly in a humanitarian or security agenda. Extending the migration options of populations, however, would require a broader development agenda. The right to choose one’s adaptation strategy can be enabled only if people are provided with different migration options.
Two policy avenues should be considered in this regard. First, the most vulnerable populations should be provided with migration opportunities, including options that seek to address their lack of access to the resources, information, and networks that would allow them to relocate. If these populations are forced to stay where they are, they might find themselves directly exposed to climate dangers. Providing them with migration opportunities will require lifting numerous barriers to migration, including financial, informational, and administrative.
Second, adaptation policies should be directed toward the destination areas. These destinations often are urban areas in developing countries, whose possibilities to accommodate additional migrants may be limited. Significant adaptation efforts—related to infrastructure, land tenure, access to the job market and financial networks, etc.—will be needed within the host communities to ensure smooth integration of migrants.
Climate change induces both voluntary migration and forced displacement. While the latter can be seen as the symptom of overwhelmed adaptive capacities, the former can be regarded as a genuine adaptation strategy. But as climate impacts become more severe, it is likely that the migration options of vulnerable populations will be reduced significantly. A key challenge for adaptation policies will be to keep these options open, and to enable populations to choose their own adaptation strategies. Whether climate-induced migration is and will be an adaptation failure or an adaptation strategy depends not only on climate impacts, but—most importantly—on the policy choices that are made today.
