Migration, the Environment and
Climate Change: Assessing the
Evidence
&
Frank Laczko,
Head of Research and Publications,
International Organization for
Migration, Geneva.
Flaczko@iom.int.
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Outline
• Presentation of findings from edited volume
“Migration the Environment, and Climate
Change: Assessing the Evidence“, IOM
2009.
• Overview of current research, concepts,
data, drivers, consequences, policy
challenges.
• Suggestions for enhancing the evidence
base
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Migration and the Environment:
Re-discovered
• Topic completely ignored in Global Commission
Report on International Migration (GCIM) in 2005.
• Yet as early as 1990 IPCC warned that “the gravest
effects of climate change may be those on human
migration”.
• First IOM report, published in 1992 “Migration and
Environment”: “It is not natural disasters alone that
generate risk, but rather the state of human development
that shapes vulnerability to disasters”.
• Between 2007 and 2009, numerous meetings and media
articles, but migration/development and climate change
largely discussed in separate global fora.
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Contested Area of Research
Literature tends to fall into two categories:
(A) work done by “minimalists” who suggest that the
environment is only a contextual factor in migration
decisions
(B) “maximalists”, who claim that the environment
directly causes people to be forced to leave their
homes (Fraser, et. al 2008).
Overwhelming focus on potential negative impact of
environmental migration/displacement; less emphasis on
migration as a possible adaptation/coping strategy.
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New IOM report “Migration and
Environment: Assessing the Evidence”
Selective review of past and recent research findings focusing on
6 main thematic areas:
1) Conceptualizing the migration and environment nexus, UNU-EHS
2) Challenges to measuring the migration and environment nexus,
Dominic Kniveton, University of Sussex
3) Collecting data on migration and the environment, Richard
Bilsborrow, University of North Carolina
4) Migration and natural disasters, Asmita Naik, Consultant
5) Managing environmentally induced migration, Susan Martin,
Georgetown University
6) Legal frameworks and policy responses, Roger Zetter, Oxford
University
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Concepts/definitions:
displaced, migrant or refugee ?
• Do those who move for environmental reasons have a choice?
• In some situations, such as natural disasters, people have little
choice but to move.
• In other situations of gradual environmental change movement
likely to be more voluntary.
• Population mobility is probably best viewed as being arranged
along a continuum ranging from totally voluntary
migration,… to totally forced migration, very few decisions
are entirely forced or voluntary (Hugo, 1996)
• Key policy implication from a human development perspective is
ensuring people have a real choice between choosing to stay or
leave
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Concepts/definitions:
IOM working definition
No agreed international definition of “environmental migration”
A Working Definition
“Environmental migrants are persons or groups of persons who, for
compelling reasons of sudden or progressive change in the environment that
adversely affects 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”. (IOM 2007)
Purpose of Definition
Seeks to encompass population movement or displacement:
• Temporary or permanent; internal or cross-border
• Regardless of whether voluntary or involuntary
• Due to sudden or gradual environmental change
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Data: numbers affected by certain
types of natural disasters 1979-2008
Slow-onset disasters, such as droughts and floods, appear to
affect far greater numbers than do sudden events.
–
–
–
–
–
Earthquakes 134 million
Droughts 1.6 billion
Floods 2.8 billion
Volcanoes 4.2 million
Storms 718 million
Source: EM DAT (Emergency Disasters Database)
- 1991-2005, 884,845 deaths due to natural disasters in
developing world compared to 61,918 in OECD countries
(Basher, 2008)
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Data Challenges:
current and expected trends
• Most reliable data related to « natural disasters »
• Recorded natural disasters have doubled from
approximately 200 a year to over 400 a year over the past
two decades.
• Latest research indicates approx. 20 million persons
displaced in 2008 due to climate-related disasters
(OCHA/IDMC, 2009).
• But no global data on migratory movements prompted by
natural disasters; displacement may be short-distance and
temporary.
• How has the increase in disasters affected the scale and
pattern of migration flows ?
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Towards better data
• Clearer definitions of what is being measured.
• Make better use of existing data sources – for example EM-DAT
database gives most globally comprehensive data on number, location
and type of sudden-onset disasters, numbers affected and displaced.
• But EM-DAT database includes little on-the-ground monitoring of
disaster-related displacement and the human dimension of disasters
and their impact on migratory flows.
• Add migration questions to existing environmental surveys and
environmental questions to migration-related surveys – censuses,
national living standards, and labour force surveys.
• Invest in specialized surveys – to date few recent studies have large or
representative samples.
• Improve data on internal migration, as most environmental migration
likely to be internal.
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Need for quantitative research
• There are many good studies on the impacts of migrants
on environments, on land use, deforestation etc.
• But there is almost no reliable evidence on the effects of
environmental factors, “controlling for other influences, on
out-migration, particularily from rural areas” (Bilsborrow, 2009).
• In a review of literature over the past 50 years, of 321
publications, including 153 articles in peer.reviewed journals
and 29 books, only two articles found, which investigate the
effects of environmental factors on out-migration based on
quantitative mutlivariate methods (Morinière, 2009).
• Focus of these few studies tends to be on impact on effects of
too much or too little rainfall on migration.
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Fostering closer co-operation between
environment and migration researchers
• Few social scientists who focus on migration – and rely on
data from censuses and household surveys – have been
engaged in data collection or research on the environment.
• Relatively few of those who focus on the environment,
whether social or natural scientists, work on migration.
• The study of migration has come to mean the study of
international migration, and much of the current research is
dominated by scholars in the north.
• To better understand the likely impact of climate change will likely
require shifting the migration research agenda towards a
stronger focus on internal migration, and more emphasis on
South-South migration.
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Building Research and Data
Collection Capacities
• Most environmental migration likely to occur within and
between developing countries where research capacities
likely to be limited.
• Over 98 per cent of persons affected by climate-related
disasters live in developing countries.
• DFID new research strategy, 2008-2013, highlights lack of
capacity in South: 48 researchers for every million Africans
living south of the Sahara compared with nearly 3,000 for
every million people in OECD countries.
• Example of new initiative – ACP Migration Observatory – 5
year programme to develop research network and build
research capacities in ACP countries.
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Policy Challenges: Legal and normative
frameworks for environmentally displaced
• UNFCC does not include any provisions concerning special
assistance or protection for those who will be directly affected by
climate change
• There is however, considerable scope for adapting or building on
existing norms and instruments to develop a framework of guidelines
to protect the forcibly displaced (Zetter, 2009).
• But new research needed to explore how far governments and civil
society at national level have the capacity to implement adaptation
and resilience strategies
• An exception and gap concerns the rights of transborder migrants
and those who become stateless
• Important to develop protection policies which do not focus solely on the
protection needs of those who move; many of those unable to migrate
may be even more vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
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Policy Challenges: Can migration
be a form of adaptation ?
• Migration can be a form of adaptation, when migration is a
voluntary coping strategy that allows people time to weigh
alternatives and use migration as a way to reduce household
risk.
• Leaving environmentally degraded and agriculturally
unsustainable regions can be seen as a legitimate coping
strategy for affected populations.
• Migration could potentially help slow the process of
environmental degradation
• Migration and its link to adaptation is recognized in some of
the National Adaptation Programmes for Action (NAPAs)
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Assessment of current policy frameworks:
Migration and National Adaptation
Programmes of Action (NAPAs)
• NAPAs = principal frameworks adopted to identify priorities
to adapt to climate change in least developed countries (38
countries have submitted plans)
• Review, by S. Martin, in IOM study indicates many plans
include awareness of migration - especially concerns about
increased rural to urban migration.
-
Bangladesh: awareness that high depth of standing water is
preventing crop cultivation leading to migration to cities
-
Tanzania:erosion and rising sea levels leading to loss of
settlements in coastal areas
• Fewer NAPAs focus on migration as an explicit adaptation
process in itself, either to help fragile eco-systems by reducing
population pressures or to protect populations affected by
natural disasters or sea-level rise.
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Policy coherence :Linking migration,
development and adaptation policies
• Ensuring coherence between development, adaptation
and migration policies will become increasingly important
• NAPAs – one entry point for LDCs – migration recognized in
many NAPAs as a factor which can influence adaptation
• Key source countries for international migrants, India, China
and Mexico, include few references to migration in their
national climate change strategies (S. Martin)
• Few destination countries as yet have any special
provisions to accept persons forcibly displaced due to
climate change; some examples of returns being delayed post
disasters.
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Conclusion
• Likely impact of climate change/environmental degradation on
migration highly uncertain
• States through processes such as the Global Forum on Migration and
Development (GFMD), have begun to explore again how migration can
contribute to development.
• It is unhelpful to frame the climate change and migration research
agenda solely in terms of the potential negative impacts
• Climate change and migration policies should be closely linked to
development cooperation efforts and not viewed as separate fields
• A more informed policy debate requires much greater investment in
data collection, new studies, and research capacity-building.
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THANK YOU
Migration
&
the Environment
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Key findings: data
• Definitions: How should we define those who move for
environmental reasons? (many different categories and
definitions developed since 1980s) Is environmental migration
inherently a form of forced displacement ?
• Data: How many will move? Who is likely to move? When,
and where will people move?
• Drivers: To what extent can environmental factors be
identified and shown to be a primary cause of movement?
• Policy responses: Do those displaced for environmental
reasons need special protection? How adequate are existing
legal and normative frameworks?
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Enhancing the knowledge base:
priorities for further research
1) Definitions and concepts
2) Enhancing data collection, capacities and analysis
3) Developing new research methods to better identify
causes of environmental migration
4) Understanding the consequences and impact of
environmental migration/displacement.
5) Developing coherent and effective policy responses,
and legal and normative frameworks
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