Responding to Climate-Related Migration

THE CHALLENGE

One of the most consequential human responses to climate change is and will continue to be the mass movement of people. As the environmental impacts of climate change increase in scope and severity, more and more people will move to new places to preserve or enhance their lives and livelihoods. Yet disaster management, humanitarian response, and policy systems have not kept pace. Without better approaches, climate-related migration risks becoming maladaptive: harmful to the people displaced, the communities receiving them, and the systems meant to support both.

THE APPROACH

- Interviews, focus groups, and surveys with Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricanes Maria and Irma

- Policy analysis of national climate migration frameworks across six countries: Bangladesh, Kiribati, Kenya, Norway, the United States, and Vanuatu

- Case studies of health system responses to climate migrants in three receiving community cities

- Social network analysis of migration and refugee policy influence networks

- Narrative analysis of ways climate-related migration is framed in Northern Central America

THE OUTCOME

Policy guidance and actionable strategies for integrating climate-related migration into health, urban governance, and emergency management systems grounded in original empirical research spanning displaced populations, receiving communities, and the institutions that serve them.

Further reading

Capacities of Health Systems in Climate Migrant Receiving Communities Urban Institute

Social vulnerability shapes the experiences of climate migrants displaced by Hurricane Maria Climate and Development

Addressing climate migration: a review of national policy approaches RAND Corporation

Humanitarian policymaking as networked governance: Social network analysis of the Global Compact on Refugees Journal of International Humanitarian Action

Climate Change-Related Mass Migration Requires Health System Resilience Environmental Research: Health

An urban governance framework for including environmental migrants in sustainable cities Climate

To Help Climate Migrants, We Must First Recognize Them The Hill

Climate Migrants Face a Mental Health Crisis The Hill

Climate Change Migration –Developing a Security Strategy for All The National Interest

Migration Narratives in Northern Central America: How competing stories about emigration and immigration in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador shape regional policy Migration Policy Institute

Parallels and discrepancies between non-native species introductions and human migration Biological Reviews