Policy Engagement

United States Institute for Peace Report

  • Cities increasingly bear the brunt of climate-induced migration, particularly in conflict-affected countries. Armed conflict and the climate crisis interact in complex and reinforcing ways to undermine human security, leading to increasing trends in rural-to-urban migration and the rapid growth of informal or peri-urban settlements in many low- and middle-income countries. In the 25 years leading up to 2015, the population living in informal areas increased by 28 percent according to UN-Habitat. The World Bank estimates that by 2050, climate change could force the internal migration of over 200 million people, most of whom would move to these already densely populated urban areas. In addition, more than 100 million people were internally displaced in 2022 alone due to conflict, with most conflict-driven migrants also moving to urban areas.

    This report focuses on elucidating linkages between climate, conflict, and rural-to-urban migration in three countries: Honduras, Jordan, and Pakistan. The case studies draw upon expert interviews, fieldwork by the authors, and a review of secondary sources.

    In Honduras, agricultural workers, making up 39 percent of the population, are made vulnerable by the increasing frequency and intensity of droughts and hurricanes, while rural migrants to cities must contend with organized gangs and high rates of urban violence. In Jordan, increasing water scarcity and lack of adequate rural jobs drive migration to cities, most of which already host large refugee populations from protracted conflicts in Iraq, Palestine, and Syria. In Pakistan, climate disasters such as the devastating 2022 floods are more frequent; they affect both rural areas and urban cores and help drive the growth of extensive informal peri-urban settlements, already home to large numbers of conflict-driven refugees.

    This report analyzes the impacts on cities and migrants of the climate-conflict-migration nexus. As the cases highlight, with rapid influxes of people displaced by climate and conflict, urban areas face increased pressures on infrastructure, public services, and environmental quality. Ultimately, these pressures directly impact urban residents and can contribute to increased tensions between long-term residents and migrants. Combined with the chronic violence and crime common in urban areas, migrants are made vulnerable to physical and mental health challenges. However, governance mediates these negative impacts, and policy measures could promote positive feedback loops for economic and human development.

    The report concludes with recommendations for policymakers designed to promote inclusive urban development and proactive, comprehensive policies that benefit both rural and urban communities. Given that much urban planning has failed to cope with rapid urbanization generally and with climate- and conflictinduced migration more specifically, recommendations for local urban institutions focus on strengthening government engagement and capacity for building urban residents’ trust in government, building social cohesion between newcomers and long-term residents, providing essential services (such as low-cost water, energy, and sanitation services), and increasing investments in climate adaptation measures.

    At the national level, recommendations prioritize empowering local institutions and facilitating international cooperation by decentralizing authority to local officials, investing in the development of smaller cities, implementing flexible labor laws, addressing root causes of migration (including relevant priorities in national planning documents), and advocating for international protections for climate- and conflict-displaced persons.

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Policy Paper

  • In the next 27 years, 216 million people are predicted to be internally displaced as a result of climate change. Climate events exacerbate pre-existing drivers of migration while also shifting typical patterns of migration due to their rapid and unprecedented nature. While many people will be on the move, many others will be trapped in or unwilling to leave unsafe situations. Climate migrants are not recognized by international law as refugees, meaning that they rely on protection and support from local and national policies. Most climate migrants move internally within their country or region to major urban areas.

    Policymakers should enact proactive policies that facilitate the economic development of their urban areas, which in turn provides benefits for long-time residents and migrants. They should also invest in climate adaptation measures for those who remain in place, which decreases pressures on urban areas and protects people who do not have the ability to leave dangerous situations. This policy paper analyzes the current climate migration policy landscape and provides additional policy recommendations according to the OSCE migration mandate priorities.

USAID Research Technical Assistance Center Report

  • Climate change will have significant impacts on all aspects of human society, including population movements. In some cases, populations will be displaced by natural disasters and sudden-onset climate events. In other cases, climate change will slowly reshape the economic, social, and political realities of a place, which will influence how and where people migrate. Planning for the wide spectrum of future climate-related mobility is a key challenge facing development planners and policy makers.

    Human migration brings opportunities and challenges to both sending and receiving societies. Migration is a key adaptation mechanism vulnerable households can use to cope with climate change, and whether receiving societies experience benefits or strain from population growth will depend on key investments—in housing, jobs, infrastructure, and social services. To best plan these investments requires an understanding of how future population movements will be affected by climate change.

    This report reviews a number of prevailing and promising modeling approaches for forecasting the nature, magnitude, and direction of climate-related migration over the next 30 years. We pay particular attention to how well models are likely to forecast migration across geographic contexts, for different population groups (including women and marginalized groups), the degree to which models integrate other developmental or conflict-related drivers of migration, and whether models capture the potential for trapped populations. Our findings are based on a systematic literature review and benefit from the insight and expertise of eight climate migration experts and modelers.

    Our report finds that the field of climate-related migration forecasting is still in its infancy. Modeling experts caution that at this stage of model development, numerical projections to 2050 should be seen as notional at best. Modeling human behavior, including migration, is fraught with uncertainty, and adding the dimension of climate change only compounds that uncertainty. For this reason, a scenarios-based approach is preferable to an approach based on single narratives of future trends. Attention should be given to variation across the full spectrum of future scenarios, and policies oriented towards encouraging best-case outcomes.

    Exposure mapping remains a useful tool to identify at-risk populations, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) should support a multi-pronged strategy to enhance climate resilience in vulnerable regions, including facilitating migration as an adaptive strategy, investing in in-situ adaptation, and enhancing the capacity of local and regional urban centers to accommodate and benefit from inmigration. To further strengthen foresight capacities, we recommend convening foresight exercises that bring modelers together with climate scientists, migration scholars, development practitioners, and other stakeholders to provide a more comprehensive picture of potential future trends for specific countries or regions.

    Climate-related migration modeling is significantly hampered by limited data on past and present migration.

    To improve the frequency and accuracy of census data collection, investment in statistical bureaus of developing countries is crucial. Finding innovative ways to capture flow-data is also important to capture short-term mobility, displacement, and irregular migration trends. Continued investment in individual and household level surveys that include questions on migration aspirations, plans, ability, and non-climate-related drivers of migration will strengthen capacity to distinguish voluntary and involuntary forms of climate-related migration and immobility, and to anticipate divergent outcomes for various social groups and marginalized populations.

International Land Coalition and Oxfam Briefing for Business

  • Land is the bridge between companies’ environmental and social sustainability agendas, and it is foundational to both. To implement their commitments on climate change, net zero emissions, human rights, women’s empowerment, and farmer livelihoods, companies must focus on land in agricultural value chains: who controls it, who can access it, who has rights to it, and who enjoys the benefits derived from it (‘land inequality’). This Briefing for Business presents eight land-focused ‘essential issues for business action’- and corresponding recommendations - that leading companies can integrate into their existing sustainability efforts.

Loss and Damage Youth Coalition Podcast

  • Climate migration is the movement of people from one area to another due to impacts related to environmental change and climate change such as drought, and storms.

    Climate migrants are individuals who are forced to leave their usual homes or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad, typically due to environmental factors that adversely affect their lives or living conditions. Currently, there are no laws in place that protect them as they are not even legally recognized. They have no legal recourse when disaster strikes.

    Climate migration can be looked at from different perspectives:

    An issue that arises from other forms of loss and damage in cases where the physical: land or shelter is destroyed by climate change forcing people out of their homes.

    As a cause of loss and damage to the people: loss associated with moving. People lose a part of their accustomed way of life, their livelihood, their experiences, and their sense of community which is difficult to recreate.

    It is critical to identify strategies for addressing the underlying causes of climate migration, including ways to encourage adaptation, redirect funding to people in need, and address the psychological impact of migration that is brought on by climate change. Climate financing is a key component of supporting vulnerable communities to respond to, prepare for, and adapt to climate and migration risks.

    As this is something that migrants did not ask for and therefore it could happen to anyone at any time, nations should likewise be more accommodating to migrants.

Policy 360 Podcast

  • Twelve Duke students had an exciting opportunity recently – they attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. In this episode, we will review that important conference through the eyes of students – what stood out to them, what worries them, and what gives them hope.

    Before heading to Scotland, the students all took part in a practicum course to gain a better understanding of the issues at the heart of global climate change.