Newsletter contribution from Professor Robert McLeman 

Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada 

Research on migration in the context of climate change has grown tremendously in the last decade. Recent assessment reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have made the following key findings: climate-related migration is strongly linked to household and community-level adaptive capacity; it most often occurs within countries as rural-urban migration; where international, climate-related migration is most often between countries in the same region.  

A given type of climate hazard may lead to higher migration rates in one country and lower rates in another, because the local economic, social, political, and cultural context is different.  

Data gathered since 2008 by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre show that an average of 24 million people each year are displaced by weather-related hazards, with floods and storms displacing the largest number of people.  Floods and heavy rainfall events are the largest annual source of weather-related displacement in Ecuador; Asia (East, South & Southeast), USA/Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa currently experience the largest number of weather-related displacements the distinction between voluntary & involuntary migration is important; voluntary “high agency” migration is more likely to be beneficial for sending and receiving communities and for migrants.  

People who are unable to move are especially vulnerable, making future estimates of climate migrant numbers is difficult due to data limitations and lack of a clear definition, policymakers have options for planning for future climate-related migration, including the Paris Agreement task force on displacement, the Global Compact for Migration and the Sustainable Development Goals. 

For further information, do not hesitate to contact the author at rmcleman@wlu.ca

Spanish version