The Truth About Climate Refugees. Looming mass migration or pseudoscientific scaremongering?

The following is a summary of ‘Myth 22: Climate change will lead to mass migration’ from ‘How migration really works’ by the brilliant Hein de Haas.

Valid concerns about climate change are frequently instrumentalised by politicians, the media and activists to proclaim a looming climate migration crisis which threatens to consume us all.

The portrayal of the relationship between climate change and migration by those on both the political right and the left is nothing short of apocalyptic, designed to prompt a moral panic demanding urgent action.

Depending on the affiliations of those speaking, dramatically different conclusions are drawn about what action is required.  But, most concerningly, there have been some shockingly high-profile examples of dehumanising rhetoric from every side of the debate.

What does the science say?

Climate change is undoubtedly real and will lead to significant change worldwide.  Sea levels will rise (although not uniformly).  Extreme weather events will become more frequent.  And, the lack of political will to reduce carbon emissions is a very valid concern.

However, the relationship between environmental change and migration is incredibly complex and far from linear.  Linking climate change with a threat of mass migration is a misleading and baseless over-simplification of how these phenomena interrelate.

The empirical evidence shows that extreme environmental conditions will not cause significant cross-border migration.  Misguided forecasts tend to simplistically map things like sea-level rises onto settlement patterns to predict human displacement.  The problem with this approach is, assuming all people in an affected area would move ignores the huge resilience (and sometimes surprising responses) people show in response to environmental challenges.

Paradoxically, people often move towards areas with more environmental hazards (as these can be more fertile areas with more opportunities to make a living).  For example, despite their high population density and environmental hazards, people will often move from rural settings to urban areas near the coast.

Forced migration which is caused by climate change is usually local and short-term.  Migration tends to be caused by powerful economic, political and social processes (such as labour demand, development, violence).

Alongside rising sea levels, lands are rising also due to sedimentation, although not necessarily at the same rate.  Through this process, between 1985-2015, Bangladesh gained rather than lost land.  Taking this example further, people displaced by sea erosion in Bangladesh usually move short distances, sometimes returning and resettling in their original location.  A study of land growth / loss in over 700 Pacific and Indian Ocean islands showed that 89% were either stable or had grown, with only 11% having decreased.

Most displacements caused by environmental factors are short-term because people generally want to return home as soon as possible.  I.e. agricultural settings where one or several family members may migrate to urban environments short-term to earn extra income.

Also, most people living in poorer countries do not have the considerable resources required to move over large distances.  Furthermore, people generally prefer to stay home following natural shocks and will do everything possible to stay where they are.  Extreme poverty tends to prevent people from migrating over long distances, sometimes trapping them in situ, unable to flee.  Sometimes environmental stresses actually reduce rural to urban (i.e. Malawi) and international migration (i.e. Burkina Faso to Cote d’Ivoire).

There is also no evidence to confirm that deserts are advancing or driving migration.  Desertification is generally a local phenomenon caused by human interventions which cause land degradation.  On the contrary, it tends to be social and cultural changes (including people leaving rural areas to seek work in urban environments) which actually lead to dysfunctional land and water management through neglect / lack of maintenance.  In such cases, it’s not the desert pushing people out, but people who are retreating from traditional agricultural practices.

Why the obsession with climate migration?

Given so much empirical evidence pointing to the contrary, why is so much air-time given to the myth of mass migration caused by climate change?  Apocalyptic visions serve political agendas on both the right and the left.  For the left, it supports the urgency of addressing climate change, and for the right, the urgency of restricting immigration.  More broadly, the myth of climate change-driven mass migration provides media attention and funding for causes on both sides of the political spectrum.

Those in positions of power deflect attention away from the human causes of environmental hazards and migration to distract from their failings, their ability and therefore responsibility to protect people from such challenges.  This is another form of blaming nature for man-made ‘humanitarian crises’ (even though climate change is a man-made phenomenon).

It may also serve governments to use climate change as an excuse to displace people (as in the Maldives).  In this case, consolidating the population onto fewer islands, by ‘evacuating’ islands, makes delivery of public services easier over a less dispersed area.  Or for financial gain (i.e. selling off islands to Saudi Arabia).

Governments displace people, not the climate.  Most displacement is driven by political factors rather than environmental ones (such as ‘development-induced displacement’).

Conclusion

Climate change is real.  Urgent action is required to prevent a worsening crisis.

However, predictions of mass migration caused by climate change are false and overly simplistic, often intentionally so, for political gain.

People move.  We always have.  We always will.