Climate mass migration fears ‘unfounded’
By Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst, BBC News
4 February 2011 New research challenges the view that people would migrate to other nations as a result of climate change. The study by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) said people tended to stay in their own country. It added that people had been uprooted by a range of factors, not just changes to the climate. The report challenges the widely held view [pdf] that climate change would trigger an influx of cross border refugees. It had been forecast that as many as 50 million environmental migrants might be on the move by 2010. The IIED report says new studies in Bolivia, Senegal and Tanzania found no evidence that environmental degradation would result in large flows of international migrants. Lead author Cecilia Tacoli said most displaced people wanted to stay as near home as possible, adding that most stayed within their own borders, although there was a serious lack of information within countries facing widespread internal migration about the numbers involved. But Dr Tacoli added that if sea level rose as projected then it was likely that there would be many international environmental refugees from small island states. “Environmental change undoubtedly increases the number of people mobile,” she told BBC News. “But catastrophe like droughts and floods tend to overlap with social and structural upheaval, like the closure of other sources of local employment that might have protected people against total dependence on the land,” she told BBC News. “Of course we need to act on climate change, and rich nations have a moral obligation to help poor people affected by it. But it’s often easier and quicker to address the socio-economic factors.” The report observed that families living in areas of environmental decay would often choose to send one family member to a city to earn money to bolster rural incomes. This was a positive outcome of migration, Dr Tacoli suggested. …
