The Significance of Climate Change Through the Lens of Migration Studies
It has been decades since the first reckoning of climate change, and we are now already facing the consequences of unprecedented change all over the globe. Emissions from farming and industries, increasing burning fossil fuels, deforestations and many human factors have notably affected the wellbeing of families those in rural and urban areas. Scientists have understood that the recent climate change is substantially inflicted by human activities from an understanding of comparing observations with models, basic physics, and fingerprinting the detailed patterns of climate change caused by different human and natural influences. (The Royal Society, 2020). The average surface air temperature of the Earth has increased about 1°C since the 1900s, with the speed of the current climate change being faster than most of the past major climate changes including natural ones, leading human societies harder to adapt to the ever-changing climate in every part of the globe. As a result of the increasing emission of greenhouse gases, the earth’s lower atmosphere is getting warmer and moister, which could potentially lead to more severe storms and extreme weather events. Accelerating rate of intense rainfall and snowfall that escalates risks of flooding will impact human societies gravely.
This essay will examine the significance of climate change being the driver of migration, how climatic conditions in certain regions can contribute to growing numbers of dissatisfaction in personal quality of life, which in turn influences patterns of migration. Those who choose to migrate motivated by climate change in their respective regions have been given the term “environmental migrants”. IOM (2007) defined environmental migrants as “persons or groups of persons who, for compelling reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad”. There are still debates over who should qualify as an “environmental migrant” as a person’s motives can sway from one to another and such distinctions from other categories could be separated from other motives for migrations can coalesce. This essay argues that under extreme changes in today’s climate, more and more people will mobilize from a climate-change-affected regions to ones with better living conditions. To support this argument, this essay will present how climate change affects a community, who chooses to stay, and who chooses to leave, and explain how critical climate is as a driver for migration.
Mobility under the stress of climate change have been widely known to be dictated by pre-existing vulnerabilities and capabilities. (Adams, 2016). It has been generally accepted that the more severe consequences of climate change will affect greatly to the poorer regions of the world (F. Yamin, 2005). As water availability and other resources become scarcer, it could hinder development in respective regions, that could in turn lead to political unrest and conflict, thus causing displacement. It is clear climate change and resources scarcity such as food, arable land, water could induce conflict, meaning even more reason to contribute to forced migration. The United Nation (UN) in 1990 stated on their intergovernmental report on climate change that “the gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration as millions will be displaced”. Dissatisfaction in personal quality of life has been “the direct result of changes in the needs of a household, changes in the social and physical amenities offered by a particular location, or a change in the standards used to evaluate these factors” (Speare, 1974). Migration is at its core people’s adaptation strategy, and there are numerous drivers of dissatisfactions that could lead to migration. Previous studies have shown whether the climate had changed, 90% of the population answered yes, and of those that felt the change, 77% described a negative change (H. Adams, 2013).
Natural disasters namely floods, tropical cyclones most often lead to short-term internal displacement as opposed to long-distance or long-term migration, as victims of these phenomenon live mostly in poor countries and would not be able to migrate caused by the lack of resources. This is clear from a study investigated by Paul (2005) on the effects of a tornado in north-central Bangladesh and how it affects the migratory behavior in two village communities. Major finding in his study concluded that the tornado in the region did not cause higher rates of out-migration in the affected villages, and there was no link between the tornado and migratory behavior at all, but frequent disasters on a region would encourage people to displace. The linkage between migration and climate change is not as straightforward as other factors that drives migration, as those who are directly affected by climate change-related disasters have a variety of coping strategies, and those who are poorer would tend to not migrate at all and choose to migrate internally. The case is the same in research by Findley (1994), that investigated migration behavior in Mali households that are affected by the 1983 to 1985 drought. She concluded that migration by male household members decreased throughout drought periods, as they would spend their money on basic necessities that are surging in prices rather than choosing to migrate. The link between drought, tropical cyclones and migration appears not as direct as the link between sea level rise. SLR is practically permanent and irreversible and is responsible for the sinking and disappearance of certain areas and islands that are affected in the region. The IPCC report shown a 7 meter of sea level rise in the next several centuries, and 146 million people, mostly located in South and East Asia, who are living at an altitude of less than 1 meter above sea-level are prone to be forced to evacuate to a higher altitude. Anthoff (2006) stated that 397 million people would be vulnerable to displacement for the 2.2 percent of the global population that are living in the “low elevation coastal zones”, or those that are situated at an altitude less than 10 meters.
There are multitudes of factors leading to migration, and those who have decided to move couldn’t be categorized to a single factor as in most movement are motivated by converging factors. Economic and resources constraints could be caused by environmental stress or vice versa. Environmental factors could act as an additional burden besides other economic, social, demographic, and political causes. It needs to be noted that climate change is an ongoing environmental phenomenon that affects areas of the world differently and contains a complex political and social variability in coping the effects in every respective region. Afifi (2011) in his research in Niger concluded that environmental degradation had considerable impact on patterns of migration. In Niger, where there are hardly any rapid onset natural disaster namely volcanoes or earthquakes, the slow-onset phenomena made living conditions harder and lead people to move. The paper suggested the term ‘Environmentally induced economic migration’ as at first it seems people in the community leave their homes due to economic constraints, but in turn highly linked to environmental deterioration, regardless of the seasonal migration that has been part of the Nigerien culture. The environmentally induced economic migration is a vicious cycle where degradation of climate and environment lead to income reduction, unemployment, and poverty and in turn could lead to people moving from their home country. As farmers and fishermen left the country there arise the problem of lack of vegetation, which then worsen the environmental condition for the people that decided to stay.
Migration is one of a coping strategy for people that are dissatisfied with their living condition and environment. Climate change have been a significant actor in human migration and mobility, and at the current rate of human emission it is only going to increase over time. Slow onset phenomena such as sea level rise or desertification tends to trigger long term migration as situation worsen and people are forced to a livable condition, whereas rapid onset ones namely tropical cyclones will produce short term migration or internal migration and a back-and-forth type of mobility (Etienne Piguet, 2011). The “creeping” and gradual environmental change are the ones that affected human migration the most. Climate change could be the driver or part of the driver of migration, as it could be additional factors for people to move, aside from the economic, political, or social factors. New policies need to be taken in place for people that are vulnerable to the current onset deterioration of climate. Human beings are not entirely powerless in facing climate change, and this calls for international and national efforts in increasing protection, gathering knowledge, and put out a solution that are effective.
This essay was written for the course Understanding Global Migration at University of Sussex.
References
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et.al, D. A., 2006. Global and regional exposure to large rises in sea-level: A sensitivity analysis. Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, pp. 1–31.
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The Royal Society, 2020. Climate Change: Evidence & Causes. United States: National Academy of Sciences.
