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Migration and Climate Change: Toward an Integrated Assessment of Sensitivity

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Disentangling Migration and Climate Change

Abstract

This chapter sets out a new approach to understanding the relationship between migration and climate change. Based on the understanding that migration is a significant, growing, but also complex phenomenon, this approach seeks to address the sensitivity of existing migration drivers in specific contexts to climate change. In contrast to existing approaches which have sought to generate global-level estimates of the numbers of ‘climate migrants’, this integrated assessment approach seeks instead to understand how and why existing flows from and to specific locations may change in the future, and provide a practical tool for climate adaptation planning. Examples of the application of this approach are provided for Ghana and Bangladesh.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The UN population division projects an increase of the world population from 6.8 billion in 2009 to over 9 billion by 2050.

  2. 2.

    Of course, the possibility remains that genuinely new flows could be generated by climate change, involving groups of people who have not previously migrated and/or new destinations opening up. However, the emergence of these new flows would depend on various factors, such as the availability and attractiveness of new destinations, and the financial, human, and social capital of prospective migrants.

  3. 3.

    See www.bangladesh-bank.org.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9SJ, Great Britain

    Richard Black

  2. University of Sussex, Chichester 1 Ci155, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK

    Dominic Kniveton

  3. Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (ROLAC), International Council for Science (ICSU), km 23.5 Carretera Federal México-Cuernavaca, Col. San Andrés Totoltepec, 14400, Mexico, D.F, Mexico

    Kerstin Schmidt-Verkerk

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Correspondence to Richard Black .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center on Migration, Citizenship and Development (COMCAD), Bielefeld University, Universitätsstrasse 25, Bielefeld, 33615, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Thomas Faist

  2. , Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstrasse 25, Bielefeld, 33615, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Jeanette Schade

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Black, R., Kniveton, D., Schmidt-Verkerk, K. (2013). Migration and Climate Change: Toward an Integrated Assessment of Sensitivity. In: Faist, T., Schade, J. (eds) Disentangling Migration and Climate Change. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6208-4_2

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