Climate Change and Migration

 

Climate Change and Migration

Introduction

There is a consensus that adverse weather events are likely to lead to migrations individuals and households migrate under climate pressures in order to improve their livelihoods. Such population movements have been taking place for thousands of years (Gupta, Anderson, and Pandey 2006), and today the resulting pressures are accelerating the process of urbanization, given that those most affected by climate change tend to be involved in agriculture in rural areas.With the climate expected to worsen in many parts of the world, including theme region, there is substantial concern that migration may accelerate,whether one refers to tye4rms such as environmental migration, forced environmental migration, environmentally motivated migration, climate refugees, environmental displaced persons, disaster refugees, environmental displaced persons,or eco-migrants to refer to this reality. Some estimates suggest that hundreds of millions of people may have to migrate in the next thirty to fifty years (ChristianAid 2007; Foresight 2011; Jakobeit and Methmann 2007; Stern Review 2006),but there is considerable uncertainty about when and even whether such migration will take place.Of course, climate change is not the only factor that may lead to migration.Most migrants today migrate in search of economic opportunities, and this searches only partially related to the increasing occurrence of extreme weather events such as droughts or floods in rural areas. Said differently, there is probably no such thing as a ‘pure’ climate migrant. In fact, the empirical evidence on the effect of climate patterns on migration remains limited, and different patterns may yield very difference responses. While fast-onset disasters may induce only temporary displacement (for example, Findley 1994; Haug 2002; Paul 2005),longer-term trends toward desertification or sea-level rise may have slower but more definitive impacts on the ability of households to remain in certain areas.Because of the many ways in which climate patterns may affect migration, and because migration is itself affected by many other dimensions apart from climate spatterns, estimating the impact of weather or environmental conditions on migration is not easy. Ideally, it would be best to have data on changes in climate,as well as changes in migration patterns, and to correlate both while taking also into account data on many other factors that may affect migration. But such datasets are scarce, especially in the Middle East and North Africa where household surveys are few and often not publicly available.This chapter is based on new household survey data collected in 2011 in five countries—Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and the Republic of Yemen (on data collection and the choice of focus countries, see Burger et al. 2014a, 2014b). Fora brief review of the literature which informed the data collection and this chapter,see the introduction of chapter 1 by Wodon et al. (2014) and chapter 2 on the five countries of focus for this work by Burger et al. (2014a), both in thisstudy. One of the objectives of the surveys was to assess whether perceptions of climate change on the part of households affect migration decisions on the partof household members. The same household survey was implemented in two climate-affected areas in each country with only slight modifications in the survey instrument based on country-specific context. The survey elicited data on household perceptions of climate change and environmental degradation, and measured whether household members have migrated either temporarily (this is referred to as resident migration because the member still resides in the household)or permanently (this is referred to as nonresident migration).There are a number of limits to the analysis that can be conducted with such data. First, because the surveys were implemented in sending areas affected by extreme weather events, we do not record information on the migration of entire households—we only record the migration of household members. This is how ever not too much of a problem given that most migration is typically unde rtaken by household members, instead of entire households. Second, the surveys are not meant to be representative of the five countries in which the work was carried, since only a few areas were surveyed in each country. Third, it must be