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Climate-induced migration

By staff - European Trade Union Institute, September 15, 2022

Can you imagine being displaced in your own country because of abnormal heavy rainfall or prolonged droughts?

According to the UNHCR, every year more than 20 million people leave their homes because of extreme weather events and are relocated to other areas of their country. This phenomenon, called ‘climate-induced migration’, which can cumulate in situations where people are displaced across borders, illustrates a complex nexus between migration and climate change.

This nexus is complex because, after an ecological catastrophe, it is difficult to isolate environmental factors as the sole driver pushing people to move. Many other factors come into play in the decision to migrate. For example, how well-off are the communities affected by the ecological catastrophe (economic factor)? Or what measures does the state take to cope with the situation (political factor)?

To add to the lack of clarity in this nexus, displaced people tend to underestimate the environmental factor as the main drivers of their exodus: ‘Most explain their displacement in terms of poverty, often overlooking the root cause behind the deterioration of their homes and land, and the resulting loss of productivity.’ (Source: Euronews)

Climate-induced migration is a ‘multicausal’ and ‘multidimensional’ phenomenon (Source: IOM Outlook on Migration, Environment and Climate change. International Organization for Migration (IOM). 2014, pp. 126). It occurs most often in the Global South, but this doesn't mean that the Global North is spared.

According to data provided by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and cited by the same Euronews article linked above, climate events causing displacement in Europe have more than doubled in the last years, from 43 in 2016 to 100 in 2019. The IDMC estimates that almost 700,000 people have been displaced by wildfires, storms, and floods in the last ten years (2008-2019). Russia comes out top with 141,787 people displaced, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina (91,215) and Spain (64,360).

Is it because climate-induced migration is difficult to apprehend that there is a lack of a commonly agreed definition of it at the international level? The question is open. Meanwhile, we must admit that there is currently no common European legal framework to protect people affected by environmentally induced migration.

Only three countries in Europe (Sweden, Italy, and Finland) have introduced grounds for national protection for victims of climate change and natural disasters, and two of them (Finland and Sweden) suspended their national provisions following the high number of migrant arrivals in 2015-16 (Source: Kraler, A, Katsiaficas, C and Wagner, M. Climate Change and Migration. Legal and policy challenges and responses to environmentally induced migration. European Parliament, 2020. pp. 114).

Extreme weather events, exacerbated in intensity and frequency by climate change, are becoming the trigger factors pushing people to migrate. More needs to be done at legal level to address this complex and challenging issue which gives climate change a human face. 

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