Samuel Huckstep , Reva Resstack and Helen Dempster at the CGD Blog ask, is there any point in defining a "climate migrant"? Their answer is that defining a climate migrant might not be worth the hassle. That's because it's difficult to determine whether it was climate that caused migration, or something else. They provide the example of:
Consider Joseph the farmer and his family. He could spend most of his money on irrigation, but instead chooses to send his daughter to school. When a drought decimates his crops, he decides to move to a city just across the border to generate income for his family and keep his daughter in school.
Is Joseph moving because of climate change, because of socioeconomic factors, or both?
It's a relevant question to ask. However, understanding the relationship between climate change and migration doesn't necessarily require us to discern the motives of migrants. Given data on climate, and data on migration flows, we can assess whether the two are related. That is essentially what I did in this 2017 article (ungated version here), which I discussed here.
Despite the definitional problems, lots of people (including policy makers and the media) talk about 'climate migrants' or 'climate refugees' (I've done it myself). That presents a problem. To see why, consider the argument in this 2019 article by Ingrid Boas (Wageningen University) and many (including some very high-profile) co-authors, published in the journal Nature Climate Change (ungated version here):
The UNFCCC explicitly specifies the need to avert, minimize and address climate displacement... while the UN Security Council warns of mass climate migration and the subsequent risk of aggravating conflicts... Although the potential for climate change to disrupt livelihoods and threaten lives is real, these policies reinforce a false narrative that predicts large numbers of ‘climate refugees’. This self-referencing narrative in scientific literature and policy reports has the consequence of entrenching climate migration as a looming security crisis without an empirical scientific basis...
Instead of being challenged, this emphasis on securitization (presenting climate change and migration as a security risk) is actively being perpetuated by public funding schemes for scientific research intended to inform national, regional or international policy development.
The willingness to accept a large estimate of 'climate refugees', without any critical thought whatsoever, was one thing I noticed about climate change researchers, media, and policy makers alike. This was particularly a surprise for me, since I expected the researchers to be a little more evidence-based (and the evidence base for a claim of up to one billion climate migrants by 2050 is pretty shaky, and was more so when I was working in this area [1]).
Boas et al. have a solution though. They recommend six research priorities, to help us to better understand the climate-migration relationship:
First, research and research funding must enable the assumption that climate change causes mass human migration to be interrogated, rather than simply reinforcing it. There is already considerable evidence that migration is not solely driven by climate change. It is instead influenced by a mix of climatic, socio-economic, cultural and political factors... Even when climate change does play a role, it remains difficult to determine the extent of its influence...
Second, the term migration does not capture the diverse ways in which people do or do not become mobile in response to a changing climate; the term should therefore be avoided. Some people may temporarily (or even seasonally) move, while others may permanently relocate to nearby urban centres... Regardless, mobility commonly involves relatively short distances, meaning that people typically move within their country or region...
Third, new research supported by scientific funding programmes should examine and address climate mobilities as the new normal, rather than the exception...
Fourth, it is crucial to fund and engage in research that goes beyond attempts to quantify and model new mobility resulting from climate change...
Fifth, research needs to better include affected populations in climate mobilities research...
Finally, research on climate mobilities needs to shift part of its focus from climate-sensitive sending areas to destination areas.
Some of those priorities (for example, #2 and #4), seem a bit self-serving (at least they didn't recommend radically increasing funding for migration research, or that would be a dead giveaway). However, the general point is clear. The way that research on climate and migration is being interpreted and used is not right, and needs to be addressed.
That suggests to me that there is a seventh priority that Boas et al. missed - that researchers should be funded (and expected) to better engage with media and policy makers on what any climate-migration relationship actually means in practice. Science communication is one thing that the climate researchers have learned to do really well, and which the rest of the research community could stand to do a bit better. It might not be worth it to define a 'climate migrant', but communicating why is definitely worth the hassle.
Read more:
- Climate change won't much affect internal migration in NZ
- Climate change and migration in poor and middle-income countries
- Why Tuvaluans aren't migrating due to climate change, yet
- Climate and internal migration in Kiribati, and what that might tell us about climate refugee flows
*****
[1] I haven't read in detail the methods underlying the World Bank's Groundswell Report, which projects 216 million 'climate migrants' by 2050. However, I would be very surprised if it held up to close scrutiny.
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