Climate migrant predictions may need a revamp

Climate change will almost certainly lead to a surge in migration around the world – that much researchers agree. By 2050, the number of people displaced by environmental degradation linked to climate change will hit at least 200 million, according to Oxford University-based environmental researcher Norman Myers, or as many as a billion, according to the charity Christian Aid.

But the frequently painted picture of millions of desperate displaced families surging across international borders isn’t very accurate, according to a new study by Cecilia Tacoli, a human settlements expert with the International Institute for Environment and Development.  Instead, she argues, much climate-related migration will be relatively voluntary, driven by political, economic  and cultural pressures as well as climate ones, and confined within national borders.

Her study, based on research in Bolivia, Senegal and Tanzania, found most migration as a result of climate pressures – at least so far - was relatively short-distance and short-term. But policy makers, spooked by fears of large-scale cross-border population movement, are already moving to put curbs on migration. That could hinder the ability of climate-pressured families to effectively adapt to climate pressures , including by sending family members to town to work in an effort to diversify their sources of income.

“Policy makers need to redefine migration and see it as a valuable adaptive response to environmental risks and not as a problem that needs to be tackled,” Tacoli said. “We need rational, realistic responses to climate change, not knee-jerk reactions that create new problems and increase vulnerability.”

Those responses, Tacoli suggests, should include helping families improve their resilience at home, supporting migrants at their new destinations and not restricting age-old coping mechanisms aimed at diversifying income, including sending relatives to cities to work.

Admittedly, “limited data on migration, especially internal and temporary movements, make it difficult if not impossible to predict with any precision future mobility patterns, let alone their size and direction,” the study notes.

But “mobility has long been a traditional coping strategy for people living in fragile environments” and that is only likely to increase as families around the world cope with climate pressures such as desertification, soil degradation, changing rainfall patterns and changes in temperature, the study says.