ECMN23 Program

… critical assessments of how climate mobility is used in major climate discourses, and how it is constructed as a concept. The papers present diverse perspectives ranging from scrutinizing the treatment of migration and mobility in the IPCC AR6, discussing the construction of “climate refugees” and “climate migration”, to proposing new normative frameworks for understanding climate mobilities. These inputs contribute to the conceptualization of climate mobility and its implications in research and discourse.

The IPCC AR6 included a first-ever cross-report synthesis of findings related to human migration and mobility. The AR6’s treatment of migration represented an important advance for the IPCC, which at its inception was tasked with assessing the climatic conditions, events and variability that could upset habitability and drive forms of displacement and migration. While the statements on migration, (im)mobility and habitability largely represented an emerging  consensus view, there were key debates, considerations and omissions that future IPCC authors may do well to consider. The AR6 concluded that the more agency migrants have (i.e. the degree of voluntarity and freedom of movement), the greater the potential benefits for sending and receiving areas. The AR6 tempered alarmist policy rhetoric about international migration, emphasizing that the vast majority of climate-related migration and displacement observed currently takes place within countries. Likewise the AR6 sought to temper national defense policy narratives that erroneously conflate climate migration with civil and international conflict by elucidating these as separate processes. Finally, the AR6 highlighted a growing policy concern about habitability risks that will likely emerge in coming decades under all emissions policy scenarios, namely future populations whose immobility will be constrained by policy decisions. This presentation will provide a candid view on the AR6, including the policy discussions and implications of this report, and elements that were not included.

Climate-related mobilities is a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon. Depending on the context, climate change can either induce more movement – more likely within than across borders – or more immobility, with varying degrees of agency in the mobility outcome. Yet, despite this heterogeneity, in the current international policy landscape key institutions predominantly focus on cross-border movement. The global climate change regime under the 2015 Paris Agreement (PA) is somewhat more expansive, yet the focus of the UNFCCC’s institutional arrangements with regard to mobility remains narrow. First, it regards displacement as the central problem requiring address; second, it consigns climate mobilities to the Warsaw international mechanism for Loss & Damage. Consequently, the current setup is both normatively and practically limited in its capacity to address the whole range of mobility outcomes resulting from climate change.
In this paper, we propose a novel normative framework for addressing climate mobilities, grounded in a right to a livable space. We argue that this framework addresses the heterogeneity of mobility outcomes and provides justificatory guidance for utilizing the PA as a key governance framework. In doing so, we critically examine the normative scope of Loss & Damage (L&D) and highlight how centering the practical considerations posed by climate-related mobilities can help clarify distinct directions for L&D. Given the recent momentum captured by L&D at last year’s Conference of Parties, our framework provides a timely foundation on which to base an institutional set up of climate mobilities within the UNFCCC that goes beyond where it currently stands.

co-authors:

Simona Capisani, Durham University

Hélène Benveniste, Harvard University

My contribution focuses on conceptual and political obstacles to the development of policies and projects that address “climate migration” (CM), that too often go unremarked. To identify these obstacles first requires, I argue, to treat CM as an issue that is neither obvious nor self-evident. I then show that in the French context where I conducted my research, stakeholders find the concept inherently ambiguous. Any attempt to define terms and typologies is always contested, because the
‘right’ term to use is highly context-dependent and liable to vary over time depending on stakeholders’ shifting political objectives, ethical values, and communication strategies, all in a tense political context marked by hostility towards migrants. Consequently, French stakeholders find the CM concept and its analogues to be too unstable to operationalise. It is not clear-cut enough to expend the time, money,
and effort necessary to develop projects around. These persistent ambiguities, however, do not mean talking about CM is time wasted. I show that while some stakeholders drop the subject entirely, many hope to achieve other objectives by discussing it: promoting a nuanced understanding of climate change and/or migration, for example, or introducing interlocutors to climate justice principles.

This work draws on my PhD thesis and will be published mid-2023 in an upcoming book edited by Calum Nicholson and Benoit Mayer. I could also contribute some work (for a special issue or for discussion at
ECMN 2023) on how dominant representations of “climate migration” create and reinforce a spatial and temporal distance between French stakeholders and the phenomenon, again preventing action.

Climate imaginaries are founded on prescriptions between what is and what ought that advance certain interests over others in the process of negotiating and acting towards a preferable future. While imaginaries can be transformative, they are built within the context of existing power relations, leaving them liable to re-enforce inequality and produce maladaptations without critical analysis. As migration is increasingly perceived as a climate adaptation strategy, it is important to draw out how climate mobilities are connected to issues of access and resources that influence present action towards the future. This research uses Thailand as a case study for climate futures analysis to complicate how human mobility is constructed as climate adaptation.
Guided by the “imaginaries” framework, it will focus on how the dimensions of knowledge, values, actions, and positioning produce a specific vision of the climate future. It will first use this framework to perform a discourse analysis of key documents from institutional development collectives in Thailand on climate change and human mobility to assess what climate futures are being produced and why. It will then complicate these climate futures through local interviews on climate change, adaptation, and human mobility conducted in Northeastern Thailand. The research will explore the implications of depoliticizing climate mobilities in Thailand and argue for processes like knowledge co-production that contest and re-negotiate present policy and practice addressing human mobility as climate adaptation.

How will climate change intersect with human migration? As the question gained traction in recent years, the figure of the climate migrant / refugee has become an emblematic, presaging symptom of the climate emergency and its multiple ramifications. It is striking that, in the face of the epochal planetary changes and turbulences that are expected, few are the attempts to re-imagine how (im)mobility might or should look like once climate change kicks in. In academia, policy, advocacy campaigns, but also in novels, documentaries, movies, the climate-migration nexus has usually been envisioned recurring to a recombination of elements of today’s mainstream discourses on migration and its governance. The default tendency has been to project current patterns of human mobility into a direr future, rather than imagining new ones. What should be seen as an open political question about planetary habitability, mobilities, and ultimately justice, is reduced to a projection into the future of today’s constrained geographies of mobilities and unequal socio-ecological constellations. Building on a series of critical contributions and on the notion of climate mobilities (Sheller 2018, Boas et al. 2022), this intervention works on the figuration of ‘climate nomadism’ (drawing on nomadic theory, as introduced by Deleuze and others) in order to problematise two key tenets of currently dominant understanding of climate migration, i.e. the biopolitical State-territory-citizenship nexus and the emphasis on individual agency (or often, alleged lack thereof) in the conceptualisation of climate migrants/refugees. The idea or rather provocation of ‘climate nomadism’ thereby aims to contribute untangling how future mobilities are imagined from the deadlock of current framings.

… literature reviews and meta-analyses examining the influence of environmental changes on human migration. The papers analyze specific geographical areas including Bangladesh, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, as well as a global temperature-focused study. They review the history, regional contexts, specific environmental drivers of migration such as temperature.

For more than three decades, research on environmental migrations has multiplied and approaches have diversified. In this vast field of research, “temperature”, which is the first variable that comes to mind when talking about climate change (via temperature increase), is in a rather special situation. In many macro-level studies, often conducted by economists, temperature is introduced as an explanatory variable, among one (large) set of other variables, in migration models. The results generally show that this variable best explains migration. In some cases, researchers would assess future migration flows following a given temperature increase, in response to an important political question. In contrast, in more micro-level studies, rather conducted by geographers or other social scientists, temperature appears much less often as an explanatory variable. Yes, populations are experiencing temperature increase, but no, this is not a reason to migrate.
In this paper, we wish to question the place of temperature in the various studies of environmental migration. Based on an in-depth analysis of the literature using the Climig bibliographic database, we aim to better understand what is behind temperature and why its place is so different between micro- and macro-level studies.

co-authors:

Florence De Longueville, University of Namur 

Sabine Henry, University of Namur

Etienne Piguet, University of Neuchatel

Issa Mballo, University of Neuchatel

Jelena Luyts, UNamur

The academic engagement on the impact of environmental change on human mobility has intensified significantly over the past decades with a growing diversity of disciplines, issues, as well as approaches and methods. The increasing of empirical research on the one hand strengthen the evidence collected on the population-environment nexus, on the other hand it becomes necessary to review the collection of evidence and reflect upon the knowledge produced beyond the individual case studies. While there is a consensus that the relationship between environmental change and migration is highly context-specific, most systematic literature reviews have been conducted without a regional focus, with the exception of some reviews on the African continent. We wish to – partially – close this gap, by providing a systematic review of evidence for Southeast Asia (SEA) which is a highly mobile region and one of the hotspots of environmental change. This article aims to systematize the empirical literature on human mobility, outcomes of mobility, and remittance flows in the context of environmental change in SEA. The CLIMIG database was used for identifying relevant empirical articles and applied an additional search to complement the database. We have identified 63 relevant publications, which has been systematically analyzed. The result of the review illustrates the non- linear mobility outcome caused by a mixture of environment and non-environmental factors. The mobility patterns can be distinguished into 3 categories 1) displacement, 2) planned relocation, and 3) voluntary migration) and immobility. Deliberate migrants are likely move to coastal and deltaic cities, which are flood-prone areas and they are liable to have precarious living conditions there. The remitting behavior of overburdened and vulnerable migrants in destination is worth studying with the translocal perspective to broaden further studies and enhance the understanding of environment- mobility interactions.

co-authors:

Mongkon Thongchaithanawut, University of Vienna

Patrick Sakdapolrak, University of Vienna 

Marion Borderon, University of Vienna

Intra-African environmental migration is a bleak reality in the continent, where the availability of water or the lack of it combined with underlying non-environmental drivers force millions of people to move out of their place of residence. It is unclear to what extent human mobility is influenced by these adverse hydrological extreme events and what evidence exists to support the hypothesis that human migration in Sub-Saharan Africa may be induced by environmental conditions. Despite previous studies and meta-analyses on environmental migration in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), conclusive and holistic empirical evidence of the causal relationship between environmental change and migration is still missing. Here we draw on 87 case studies published in the scholarly literature (from fields ranging from the environmental sciences to development economics and migration research) or documented by research databases, reports, and international disaster datasets to develop a meta-analysis investigating the relationship between environmental changes and migration across 32 Sub-Saharan African countries. A combination of quantitative, Qualitative Comparative Analyses (QCA), and statistical correlation methods are used to analyze the metadata and investigate the complex web of environmental drivers of environmental migration in Sub-Saharan Africa while highlighting subregional differences in the predominant environmental forcing.

co-authors:

Sinafekesh Girma Wolde, Politecnico di Milano

Paolo D’Odorico, University of Berkeley 

Maria Cristina Rulli, Politecnico di Milano

One of the first scientific publications on human migration in Bangladesh was published in 1972, which looked at out-migration patterns from a rural flood plain. Migration research in Bangladesh has come a long way ever since, with each decade being marked by a different research sub- focus. While historically, most migration research in Bangladesh focused on economic drivers, the 1980s through the 1990s saw substantial emphasis on riverbank erosion as a major driver of migration all across Bangladesh. In the 2000s a shift took place towards understanding the impact of climate change on migration patterns and processes. Terminologies such as “environmental migrants”, “environmentally induced migration”, “environmental refugees”, “climate migrants” and “climate refugees” were being thrown around in popular news media as well as appeared in scientific publications. Globally, alarming estimates of “climate migrants” became a matter of much discourse along with issues related to attributability. A similar debate and discussion still continue in Bangladesh. With a large number of scientific as well as grey literature being published in this area, often by western authors, little to no review exists in Bangladesh synthesizing the evidence of environmental change as a determinant of migration and human mobilities. Whatever
estimates exist, vary considerably depending on the methods, disciplines and operational definitions used. Thus, this semi-systematic scoping review aims to (1) synthesize the evidence of the effect of environmental change on human migration in Bangladesh (2) review the different methodological approaches undertaken (3) understand the trajectory of migration governance in Bangladesh.

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), extreme weather events have displaced hundreds of thousands of people in different regions across Europe in recent years. For example, heavy rainfall across western Europe in mid-July 2021 led to at least 84,000 displacements. In the same year, wildfires triggered around 155,000 displacements in Southern Europe. On top of that, the number of reported cases of relocation or planned retreat of settlements due to exposure to risks such as floods and Sea Level Rise (SLR) is increasing. Despite this, news media and politicians seem more interested in discussing climate change-induced mass migrations towards Europe rather than recognising people’s internal mobility responses to environmental change. Furthermore, there is a geographical bias in the scientific literature, as research on climate change, environment and human mobility is underrepresented in European cases and mainly focuses on the Global South. This paper reviews where the discussion on the effects of environmental change on human mobility in the European context stands. To do so, we review the relevant scientific literature on wildfires, floods, and SLR to understand whether and how human mobility is contemplated. The present study is an initial attempt to fill the geographical gaps in the literature on environmental change and human mobility. At the same time, it questions the assumption that European countries can consider themselves immune to environmental change-related human mobility.

co-author:

Michele Dalla Fontana, Wageningen University 

Ingrid Boas, Wageningen University

… employ quantitative methods to examine the relationship between environmental changes and mobility, and utilize datasets on a meso-scale. These papers delve into various aspects, such as the impact of financial resources, demographic changes, household shocks, water scarcity, and aridity on migration patterns. The geographic focus of these studies spans from the national to global level, including specific case studies in Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Senegal.

In this study, we analyze the cumulative impact of different types of shocks on migration in Tanzania, considering both environmental and non-environmental events. Previous research has shown how different types of shocks can affect migration differently, but without fully considering the impacts of the co-occurrence and accumulation of different shocks over time. Using panel models and longitudinal data from the Tanzania National Panel Survey (TZNPS) between 2008 and 2013, we show that environmental and non-environmental shocks are closely related and can influence migration patterns. The timing of the shocks is important. While shocks that occurred in the same period (0-24 months) were found to have a constraining effect, shocks that occurred longer ago led to an increase in mobility. Poor households responded less strongly to disruptive events compared to wealthier households, suggesting the existence of migration constraints. Rural, agricultural households were found to be particularly affected by environmental shocks and less by non-environmental shocks. Breaking down shocks into more detailed categories further revealed large heterogeneities in the effects, suggesting that different types of shocks can constrain or increase migration depending on the local contexts. The presentation will also comment on implications for research in five African countries for the on-going HABITABLE (EU Horizon 2020) project, to which this study has contributed.

co-authors:

Julia Blocher, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

Roman Hoffman,International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) 

Helga Weisz, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

More frequent droughts and heat events are making water more scarce, more unpredictable, and more polluted, or all three. These impacts threaten people’s access to water which may in turn drive displacement. There are many analyses of the links between climate change and migration. However, the direct impact of lacking access to drinking water on migration has been overlooked.
I provide evidence of climate-induced forced migration (which is not linked to sea level rise). Indeed, if individuals move because of lack of access to drinking water the resulting migration can be assimilated to forced migration. While there is a continuum of migratory responses, and no strict definition of the two types of migration, the difference has important policy implications. Moreover, the selection into migration might be different.
To find a case where migration may be more directly related to access to water for basic human needs, I focus on Tanzania. This region is subject to harsh climatic conditions with recurrent events of drought and water scarcity. Using household panel data, I want to examine whether variations in access to drinking water affect migration. As water availability is likely to be the result of characteristics that are also correlated with unobservable characteristics which affect the migration choice, I exploit quasi-random variation in loss of access to groundwater. Tanzania’s hydro-geology structure is complex which leads to spatial variation in access to groundwater even at a small scale.

Water security is one of the United Nations’ goals to reach sustainable development. Using climate simulation, it can be shown that dwindling water resources will lead to a concentration of users around the remaining water sources in West Africa. However, the extent of this gathering around water points is still unclear, as how it will be influenced by other environmental, economic and social factors. In a future of rising temperatures and inconsistent rainfall, this has implication for future migration patterns, conflicts between users around scarce resources and commuting patterns inside Senegal.

Using random forest modelling and recursive feature elimination, we model the population distribution in Senegal and assess the relative importance of distance to dwelling, distance to water towers and water quality in dwelling on administrative level population density (2013) compared to other environmental and socio-economic predictors.

Models using dwelling distance among predictors achieved the best predictive performance. While population is higher when close to dwellings, link with water tower distance and water quality are not kept in the best models. Dividing Senegal in different set of population (man/women, urban/rural) leads to different predictors selection, hinting a different interplay of predictors in population gathering.

These results show the importance of water-related predictors for population distribution mapping, especially in rural context. This has implication for future commuting mobility and seasonal migration patterns of agricultural dependant population, quality of life and water fetching activities, as groundwater drilling is expected to increase in response to erratic rainfall patterns.

co-authors:

Corentin Visée, Camille Morlighem, Catherine Linard, Abdoulaye Faty, Sabine Henry, Sébastien Dujardin

The role of climate change as a migration driver has received widespread public and scientific attention. Previous research has shown a particular relevance of climatic factors for internal migration flows within the boundaries of countries. However, due to data limitations, cross-nationally comparative evidence on internal climate migration are missing. Here, we use a novel census-based dataset to estimate the impacts of increased aridity and drought on internal migration worldwide. The longitudinal data are based on IPUMS International census microdata for 72 countries, covering the period 1960-2016. We use information on the current and previous place of residence of the census takers to calculate 140,480 bilateral internal migration flows between 1,454 subnational regions of origin and destination. Combining the migration data with climate data, we find evidence of a sizable impact of drier conditions on human mobility. The impact is strongest in already arid areas, in particular in Africa, highlighting the role of increased aridification in this region. The effects of aridity on migration decrease with increasing wealth level of a region. Affected populations primarily migrate to urban regions in closer proximity to their origins. At the same time, we find reduced migration to neighboring regions, presumably due to spill-over effects of climatic impacts. Further distinguishing by migrant characteristics, we find a stronger impact of experiencing drier conditions on the migration of lower educated population groups.

co-authors:

Roman Hoffmann (1/2/3), Guy Abel (1/4/5), Maurizio Malpede (6), Raya Muttarak (1/7), Marco Percoco (8).

________________
1 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Wittgenstein Centre for Demography
and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/OeAW, University of Vienna), Laxenburg, Austria.
2 Vienna Institute of Demography (OeAW), Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human
Capital (IIASA, VID/OeAW, University of Vienna), Vienna, Austria
3 Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany,
4 School of Sociology and Political Science, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China.
5 Asian Demographic Research Institute (ADRI), Shanghai, China.
6 Department of Economics, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
7 Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
8 Centre for Research in Geography, Resources, Environment, Energy and Networks, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy.

Environmental burden is an umbrella term that presents threatening levels of key environmental parameters: such as extreme temperature and rainfall, hazardous pollutants in the air, water, and soil, changing land use patterns, and others. It is the major constraint for the overall sustainable development of the Global South countries and acts as a multi-faced health risk worldwide. Kenya is among the countries of the Global South where environmental challenges are huge, and resources are limited. In such situations, directly or indirectly, mobilities occur with a noticeable impact on the size, structure, and growth of the population of a particular place. This study aims to estimate environmental burden by categorizing key environmental parameters such as temperature, rainfall, air pollution (PM2.5), and green cover using remotely sensed data. Then, a corresponding population change (size, structure, growth) will be analyzed using gridded population data from the Worldpop data. The analysis will be conducted from 2000 to 2019. The results will be instrumental in understanding linkages between population change and environmental burden and will highlight the areas where research and policy attention are needed.

co-authors:

Ankit Sikarwar, Institut national d’études démographiques (Ined).

Valérie Golaz, Institut national d’études démographiques (Ined)

… assessments of the effectiveness of migration as an adaptation strategy to climate change, with a comprehensive conceptual framing, and cases with a particular focus on Bangladesh, Ghana, Ethiopia, India, and Pakistan. The contributions examine the dynamics and outcomes of involuntary (im)mobility, livelihood stabilization through migration, the contribution of migration to resilience, the impact of migration on remaining communities. The studies highlight the need for a nuanced understanding of migration as adaptation, with various positive and negative outcomes reported.

The role of migration as one potential adaptation to climate change is increasingly recognised but little is known about whether migration constitutes successful adaptation, under what conditions and for whom. Most existing appraisals of adaptation success focus on planned adaptation interventions, such as projects, programmes or policies, that seek to enhance adaptive capacity or reduce risk. Less work has been done on evaluating the success of autonomous adaptation strategies, among them migration, that are deployed by households and individuals affected by climate change impacts. To address this gap, the paper assesses under which circumstances migration constitutes a successful adaptation to climate change by examining the inter-temporal and social implications of migration through a representative selection of three scenarios within the migration system: intra-household dynamics in places of origin, experiences in places of destination, and links between destination and origin through remittances. It elicits three evaluation criteria – well-being, equity and sustainability – which can in turn help identify trade-offs that could potentially undermine the success of migration as adaptation as well as have implications for distributional, recognition and procedural elements of climate justice. These evaluative criteria can help make migration visible and tractable to policy as an effective adaptation option, while the identified tradeoffs represent important entry points for policy intervention to support migration as adaptation that simultaneously fulfils the criteria of equity, well-being and sustainability.

This meta-study evaluates the role of human (im)mobility in climate adaptation in Bangladesh. Drawing on five years of peer-reviewed field research articles in the CliMig bibliographic database, it considers the plurality of climate-related human (im)mobilities, forced and voluntary, that occur across a variety of eco-geographical contexts, across sending and receiving locations, and throughout different phases of (im)mobility.

Much has been in the literature about the context-specificity of climate change impacts on humans and the multicausal nature of climate-related (im)mobility. While this metastudy supports both positions, it also highlights significant commonalities that cut across ecological contexts, geographic locations, (im)mobility pathways, and phases of (im)mobility. Socioeconomic factors that predate and contribute to environmental displacement, migration, and involuntary immobility often remain operative throughout the (im)mobility lifecycle. Vulnerabilities are rarely resolved through (im)mobility. Indeed, because most of the (im)mobilities in the dataset are involuntary and autonomous, with climate-related displaced people receiving little or no external support, (im)mobility often becomes erosive.
These findings raise important questions relevant to the ‘migration as adaptation’ debate and highlight the need to mainstream human mobility into climate adaptation. They also demonstrate the value of a meta-study. The contextual richness of a large, aggregated dataset of empirical field research aids the exploration of points of convergence and divergence. It can also help create a composite view of how (im)mobility plays out over time.

Mountain communities of the eastern Hindu Kush are vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. Environmental change, natural hazards, socioeconomic, political, and cultural factors influence human mobility and immobility. Our research in the eastern Hindu Kush shows that climate (im)mobilities are caused by climate change through its impact on the livelihoods of mountain communities. In response, migration is undertaken as an adaptation strategy to generate income for households. The adaptive aspect of migration is emphasized in the climate migration debate, but the maladaptiveness of migration is an understudied phenomenon. Therefore, we aim to address this gap by assessing the effectiveness of migration as an adaptation strategy using a mixed methods approach comprising a household survey, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups in sampled villages of the Lotkuh valley of Lower Chitral, northern Pakistan.
The initial results suggest that over half of the surveyed households (n=388) increased their income and diversified their livelihood sources through migration. Similarly, access to education and health services for the household also improved for the migrant households. However, the remittances invested in agriculture and risk reduction measures are low. In addition to this, the out-migration of male members has negatively affected women and elderly people by increasing their workload. A significant portion of migrant households indicated that they faced food insecurity due to out-migration. Moreover, it would be interesting to explore the conditions under which migration is adaptive for some households and maladaptive for others.
Overall, this research intends to provide the latest empirical account of the adaptiveness and maladaptiveness of human migration and its implications for mountain communities in the Lotkuh valley, Pakistan.

Within the migration system, the Foresight report emphasised that climate change can have significant implications for staying populations. Yet till date there has been limited research on the topic. We aim to fill this gap by understanding the impacts of sustained outmigration and climate change on staying farmer communities in the Indian Himalayan Region. Using an empirical qualitative approach, new data is collected using semi-structured interviews (n=72). Communities describe how uncertain and untimely monsoon rainfall has significantly reduced farm output, directly affecting livelihoods and food security. Drying of mountain water springs poses a significant challenge to drinking water availability. These impacts combined with the lack of alternate livelihoods in the region are becoming a significant
factor in migration decisions. But not everyone migrates. Staying communities describe migration as good, bad, and necessary with the majority noting negative impacts such as fewer people to do agriculture, more tasks for women, loss of community, changes in demographic composition and household structure, and reduced state investments in social infrastructure and agriculture extension services as fewer people remain in the villages. We also find that when migration has positive impacts via remittances, it is used primarily for organizing everyday life and rarely as an investment for climate change adaptation. Therefore the potential benefits of remittances for building resilience, development, and adaptation fail to manifest. We argue that migration is unlikely to benefit adaptation for staying communities unless development policies address the underlying vulnerabilities.

Schewel (2019:328) identified “mobility bias” in migration research. The implication is that researchers focus on causes of mobility to the neglect of conditions that keep people in their habitual places, which often produce different outcomes of immobility. I intend to explore smallholder farmers’ climate im(mobility) decisions on household food security in Ghana using critical realism (CR) philosophy and an exploratory sequential mixed method design. With an exploratory sequential mixed method design, the research problem is explored by a qualitative method, and a quantitative method is used for testing and generalisation. The study hypothesised that smallholder farmers with climate-immobile populations without adequate adaptation mechanisms are more food insecure and use unsustainable means to achieve food security than climate mobile (seasonal or circular) populations. If the hypothesis holds, then, the present and future human capital and economic development are at risk if climate immobility persists, which requires a different research, institutional, and policy approach.

Climate change associated with increasing frequencies and intensities of extreme weather events, directly and indirectly, shapes human (im)mobility and resilience patterns at the individual, household, community, municipal, and national level worldwide, particularly in climate-vulnerable developing countries. Ethiopia is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, mainly because of its elevated proneness to droughts. Due to the high exposure and vulnerability of Ethiopia to climate change but also due to the comprehensive availability of migration and resilience data in the form of Socioeconomic Surveys conducted by the World Bank, Ethiopia was chosen as a case study country. This research examines how climate shocks, precisely temperature and precipitation anomalies, impact the resilience of Ethiopians with and without a migration background at migration destinations. The resilience approach covers the assessment of resistance and recovery while paying specific attention to the role of migration as adaptation during recovery processes. The methodological
approach will contain statistical matching using the individual and household characteristics as a first step. The matched data will then be analyzed with the help of conditional logistic regression and multivariate models. This research is essential since identifying the resilience of people with and without a migration background and determining what makes people resilient or less resilient assists in actively and effectively supporting people with low resilience levels.

co-autors:

Ann-Christine Link, UNU-EH

Roman Hoffmann, IIASA

Thomas Brenner, Philipps-Universität Marburg

… intricate dynamics of individual perceptions and social factors in climate-induced mobility. Drawing from research in Ethiopia, Sudan, Cambodia, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa, the session underscores the multifaceted ways in which short-term mobilities, climate-conflict nexus, gender differences, and income levels intersect with the perceived and observed impacts of climate change, shaping the patterns of migration and immobility.

This study examines the impact of environmental variability on migration paterns in sub-Saharan Africa over a period of 10 years. We distinguish between short-term and long-term migration events and identify underlying migration motivations using a cross-sectional dataset and a time event history model. Our analysis estimates the effects of both perceived and observed environmental shocks on migration decisions, accounting for potential time-lags in the migration decision process. Specifically, we explore whether the perceived and observed shocks have distinct effects on migration decisions and whether climate events directly impact migration events or operate through other channels.
Our findings indicate that migration occurs for various reasons, with income-related motivations being the most prevalent, followed by educational and family-related reasons. Environmental shocks, on the other hand, are relatively infrequent direct drivers of migration decisions. Nevertheless, we posit that much of the income-related migration is linked to weather shocks such as heat stress, drought, erratic rainfall, and floods. Moreover, we anticipate identifying differential impacts on male and female migration, particularly regarding the migration motivation.
This study makes a valuable contribution to the expanding literature on environmental influences on migration and population mobility, with a comparative evaluation across sub-Saharan Africa. Our dataset incorporates several best practices from prior studies, enabling us to differentiate between long-term and short-term migration and control for observed and perceived environmental variability. Our findings emphasize the need for policies that account for the varying impacts of
climate events on migration decisions and the channels through which these impacts manifest.

One of the biggest development challenges is climate change. Due to its high poverty rate and heavy reliance on agriculture for employment, Cambodia is especially vulnerable to the effects of climate and environmental change. As a response action to the environment and weather-related impacts, people are prone to move to different locations. Due to the complex manner in which various circumstances frequently alter people’s perceptions in particular ways and result in diverse response behaviours, local perceptions of climate change were used in this study instead of observable climate data. The research further examines the relationships between perception of climate change and migration through an empirical survey involving 261 households in Takeo province of Cambodia. According to the findings, climate change is another natural force driving local people to migrate in addition to socioeconomic factors. The paper suggests to integrate migration into climate and environmental related policies to ensure people are able to adapt in place and thrive or migrate toward areas of higher opportunity. Also, it is critical to reduce the rural-urban disparities through various key measures such as improvement of rural infrastructure, strengthening local adaptive capacity to weather extreme events, and diversification of rural livelihoods.

The Sundarbans Delta in India is a climate-stressed region where women use mobility as a livelihood diversification strategy, while others are left behind to cope with climate-related risks in fragile locations. This qualitative research paper presents the lived experiences of women who struggle to deal with climate-related disasters, such as cyclones, floods, and coastal erosion in the Sundarbans. Using the intersectionality concept, this study examines how social factors such as gender, education, and age intersect with mobility and immobility patterns in the region.
The paper argues that women, particularly poor women, often work voluntarily and manage scarce resources to deal with climate-related stressors in the absence of male members in the household. However, this is frequently at the cost of their health or bodily integrity. The findings suggest that only able-bodied women become adaptive agents and undertake circular/seasonal/temporary labor migration to deal with the impact of stressors, while vulnerable women, such as those with children, disabled women, and elderly women, are typically unable to mobilize the human capital necessary to enter the virtuous flow of skilled labor migration. Additionally, even women who undertake migratory labor journeys are exposed to numerous additional risks while trying to support their families back home in dealing with stressors. The findings highlight the challenges faced by women and underscore the need for gender-sensitive policies to address climate-related mobilities and immobilities in the Sundarbans.

Bangladesh is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. The country is experiencing climate-induced sudden and slow-onset extremes like sea level rise, salinity intrusion, flood and flash flood, drought, storm surges, tidal inundation, and waterlogging. Due to the slow onset and sudden disasters, including salinity intrusion, sea level rise, cyclones, and storm surges along the coastal belt of Bangladesh, climate-induced migration is a common scenario. The study aims to explore the trends and scenario of current climate-induced displacement and population dynamics from the salinity-affected coastal belt of Bangladesh. The study was conducted in Khulna and Satkhira (south-west coastal districts) through spatial and community analysis using Climate Vulnerability Assessment (CVA), Natural Capital Analysis, participatory research including Household Survey (HHS), Focus Group Discussion (FGD), and Key Informant Interview (KII), Agen-based Modeling (ABM) to identify the association between climatic extremes and migration from the respective study areas. The study reveals that population dynamics are changing rapidly regarding disabled childbirth, reducing population growth rate, and increasing women-led families. The study also revealed that land use and ownership changes are highly correlated with climate-induced displacement and changing human migration landscape. Historically, migration trends are increasing due to increasing trends of climate vulnerability

Trapped population – who are not able to move despite exposure to environmental stress – has been identified as the most vulnerable population. During the last decade, research have intensified their engagement with involuntary immobility, producing a figure of victimhood as the category it sought to name rather than an objective condition. Until now, mobility and immobility are considered as a combination of aspiration and capability, which lacks a fine-grained acknowledgment of agency. The central objective of the case-study is to provide a conceptualisation of climate-related mobilities and immobilities as dynamic, multi-scalar and entangled processes. We build on the aspiration-capability framework which provides the categories of mobility, voluntary, acquiescent and involuntary immobility. Using a mixed-method approach, we conducted qualitative interviews with involuntary immobile households previously identified through quantitative analysis of the Kersa Health and Demography Surveillance System. Results show that the most severely deprived do not have the capacity to use migration as an effective adaptation strategy, but neither do they have the means to (all) stay put. The involuntary and acquiescent immobility first observed shifted into sur-
vival mobility when one or more household members leave in difficult conditions to beg in nearby towns or more distant cities. Such coping mechanisms are normalized in times of excessive exposure to climatic and non-climatic stressors, as basic needs override personal values and aspirations. Our findings show that all forms of climate-mobilities and immobilities are entangled, dynamic and multi-scalar processes, where
needs play a part along aspirations and capabilities. Altogether, our study trials the concept of ‘trapped population’, and testify for individuals’ agency of rather than victimhood by engaging with the full portfolio of climate-mobilities.

co-authors:

Coline Garcia*, Marion Borderon*, Simon Bunchuay-Peth*, Laurence Reboul**, Harald Sterly*, Patrick Sakdapolrak*, Nega Assefa***, Merga Deresa***

*University of Vienna, Department of Geography and Regional Research

**Aix-Marseille University

***Haramaya University

How do Darfurian asylum-seekers conceive climate, security, and migration? The Darfurian 2003 conflict is often portrayed in the global media and in academic debates as a seminal example of the climate-migration-conflict thesis. Climate change is largely addressed in this debate as the foundational context for the inter-communal competition over scarce resources in Darfur, leading to food insecurity, livelihood deterioration, mass displacement—and eventually violent conflict, in turn spurring further waves of forced migration. Indeed, recent studies of human and critical security have discarded the climate-migration-conflict thesis as environmentally deterministic, arguing that it reproduces neocolonial discourses on the Global South and ignores insights of local experts and indigenous voices. These recent studies call instead for an agentful approach, which focuses on the human subject and enables to trace how humans experience climate. However, many of these studies still largely focus on the agency of political actors—national and local elites who either exacerbate vulnerabilities of local populations for their own parochial gains or rise to the occasion and apply climate-conscious policies. In this study, I draw on ethnographic fieldwork among Darfurian asylum-seekers in the Jerusalem African Community Center (JACC) to add a missing layer to the climate-migration-conflict debate in the Darfurian context. The study re-centers our scholarly attention on the nuanced ways in which the Darfurian asylum seekers, who are the bearers of forced migration, experience and frame the drivers of their migration, and the multiple meanings they ascribe to climate, security, and climate security.

… capture and model climate-induced mobility data. The papers present new data sources and methodologies such as the use of mobile phone data for tracking seasonal mobility, the downscaling of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) for understanding disaster displacement, agent-based models to simulate migration decisions, and the use of satellite imagery to improve census data. They also focus on areas where data is scarce or non-existent, demonstrating the application of these new datasets and models in case studies from Senegal, Brazil, Nepal, Madagascar, and West Africa. In addition, this session explores the policy implications of these modelling approaches, such as the unintended consequences of adaptation policies in Nepal.

Information on human mobility patterns at high spatial resolution is crucial for the analysis of a wide range of phenomena. We develop new global estimates of net migration in five-year intervals from 1975 to 2020 at a spatial resolution of about 1 km. We will use these new estimates to study the relationship between climate change and migration at high spatial resolution. Our estimates rely on an indirect estimation technique based on the demographic balancing equation. Compared to existing sets of estimates of spatially disaggregated net migration, three novelties characterise our new estimates. First, we expand the time coverage of the estimates by using updated population data at high spatial resolution from the Joint Research Centre Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) project. Second, we apply a standard definition of rural-urban typologies in the three classes of cities, towns,
and rural areas. Third, we refine the estimation approach by accounting for variation of fertility and mortality across these typologies. This provides a more accurate representation of demographic behaviour across the rural-urban continuum. Validation exercises show that the new approach of accounting for fertility and mortality differences at sub-national level is consistent with basic empirical findings. In addition, the mobility patterns revealed by our net migration estimates are consistent with net migration data at sub-national level derived from Eurostat and national statistical offices.

Since 1960, a decline in mortality coupled with a high birth rate has increased Africa’s population from 300 million to 1.3 billion. This strong growth is expected to continue and the population is expected to double by 2050. In line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the issues of education, health and social protection of the inhabitants are now at the center of attention. In order to act on these social needs, knowledge of the population and its geographical distribution is necessary.
Many research teams have tried to link population estimates and satellite images over the past decades. Whether the methods are top-down or bottom-up, the results are often similar and take the form of a gridded mapping of the population. Instead of disaggregating census population counts into 100x100m tiles, we explore the idea of disaggregating population estimates to the level of built-up area in both rural and urban settings, as identified by the TeleCense project of Diginove.
TeleCense offers a characterization of built up areas from algorithms applied to earth observation data stemming from the European Union’s Copernicus program. The Sentinel 1&2 satellites deliver images of the desired geographical area every 6 days with a resolution of 10m. Through the TeleCense program, Diginove processes these satellite images in order to map built-up areas, geo-locate them, and provide their environmental characteristics.
We will build different models, on the basis of 2018 Madagascar census population counts and supplementary variables stemming from remote sensing and international databases. The Itasy region will be used as a case study and will illustrate how our method enables us to go from the
commune level estimates to built-up area estimates, providing detailed mapping of population settlements.

Households in Sahelian countries mostly rely on subsistence agriculture and livelihood means are dependent on the quality of a single rainy season (June to October). As a result, they not only have to deal with a high degree of seasonality in agricultural productivity, but also have to cope with the occasional occurrence of poor rainy season conditions. Some common coping mechanisms have been studied, but little is known about temporary migration as a viable strategy in the face of climate stresses. This is mainly due to the difficulty of measuring subtler human movements with traditional methods. In this study, we exploit three years of mobile phone data in Senegal to gain new insights into the role of climate variability in shaping temporary migration decisions. We infer the temporary migration history of millions of users over our study period (2013-2015), that we argue represent a very large section of the population, including individuals residing in the most remote locations. We construct a time-disaggregated migration matrix that describes temporary migration patterns over three years and across more than 900 locations covering the entire country. We combine it with satellite-based estimates of the quality of rainy seasons and we estimate gravity models to identify the effect of poor rainfall conditions at both origin and destination on temporary migration decisions. Our main findings point to a clear decrease in the propensity to migrate during the harvest season (October-November), and an increase at the following hunger season (April-June), especially for rural residents.

co-authors:

Paul Blanchard, Virginie Comblon, Flore Gubert, Erwan Le Quentrec, Anne-Sophie Robilliard, Stefania Rubrichi 

A growing literature on the mobility paradigm has contributed to animate the public debate on the right to move. However, less attention has been paid to instances where individuals remain in place despite their vulnerability in the face of climate change.

Using high resolution data, the analysis focuses on Western African regions from1975 to 2020. First, we map territorial patterns in the evolution of mobility and population changes over time. Then, we compare trajectories of population changes across territories to capture differences in the pathways of demographic and mobility transition. Second, we apply a spatial clustering technique to identify local clusters that have shown population attractiveness and the hotspots that can be defined as less resilient. Third, we model environmental (temperatures, precipitations, droughts) and socio-economic variables to explore how they are intertwined and unable to exacerbate population mobilities.

Findings would contribute to refine the conceptualisations of environmental condition as drivers of migration and population changes across territories. Results from the analysis seek to provide new insights for rethinking mobility in the frame of a more complex, nuanced processes influencing (in)voluntarily trapped populations. This would be the basis for designing qualitative surveys in the regions, as part of f the Complex Migration Flows and Multiple Drivers in Comparative Perspective (MEMO), a project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. MEMO would support the development of more adequate and efficient policies and practices to help individuals’ decision to improve their ability to move as well as to remain, despite the impacts of harsh environmental conditions.

co-authors:

Daniela Ghio; Anna Triandafyllidou: Robert McLeman; Emmanuel Kyeremeh; Sarah Hoyos-Hoyos

Agent-based models – in which system-level properties such as migration flows or forest cover emerge from the decisions and interactions of individual agents – are promisingly flexible tools for capturing heterogeneity in mobility processes (e.g., differing decisions of early vs. late movers, or of those who leave an area vs. invest in local adaptations). In a similar way, they are promising vehicles to link theories and conceptual models of migration and mobility that remain separated in scientific literature. However, this flexibility in model design may also be a liability – models may invoke very specific assumptions that limit their utility to other research questions, or incorporate so much theory and behavioral mechanism that they are challenging to understand. The challenge of aligning agent-based modeling assumptions usefully with questions, practitioners and users is a key research frontier.
We present experience with a knowledge-brokering approach to agent-based modeling of migration, through which researchers and non-modeling practitioners build skills in systems thinking and causal modeling in order to co-produce a shared conceptual model, which may then be operationalized into a computational model whose underlying assumptions are jointly understood. Our in-progress work adapts a previously developed model (MIDAS) to inform shared questions of interest around the role of rural investments in shaping both resilience to climate shock and rural aspirations in Senegal. In this talk we highlight our co-production of a conceptual model operationalizing the capabilities and aspirations framework, as well as our definition of verification and validation metrics in the face of scarce mobility data for the region.

co-authors:

Andrew Bell; Nic Choquette-Levy; Fabien Cottier; & Alex de Sherbinin

Evolving climate risks present new challenges for the world’s 2 billion subsistence farmers, who make livelihood and migration decisions in deeply uncertain environments. In turn, policymakers also develop interventions under uncertain climate and political conditions. While past scholarship has elucidated key mechanisms by which climate change influences migration drivers, how environmental and political uncertainties shape climate adaptation outcomes is still understudied.
Here, we develop an agent-based model (ABM) that incorporates endogenous interactions between farming households, local governments, and national ministries to analyze how climate and political uncertainty affect adaptation decision-making in Nepal’s agricultural sector. Nepal is an important case study for these questions, owing to its high climate vulnerability and high dependence on both subsistence agriculture and migration remittances. We apply this framework to investigate how different climate and political scenarios affect (i) farmers’ migration and cropping decisions and (ii) the efficacy of local and national climate adaptation policies, including crop insurance, irrigation investments, and cash transfers.
Preliminary results indicate that national policies may unintentionally reduce the effectiveness of local climate adaptation interventions. While a local government can maintain a relatively secure food supply under a 1.5 C temperature increase by subsidizing cereal crops, a national crop insurance program incentivizes farmers to respond to climate shocks by switching to cash crops and engaging in rural-urban migration, causing local shortages of staple crops. These results indicate that climate adaptation models may be overly optimistic regarding the potential effectiveness of interventions if they omit endogenous interactions between actors at multiple scales.

co-authors:

Nicolas Choquette-Levy; Frank Errickson & Anil Babu Pokhrel

Climate change risks are, fundamentally, driven by hazards, exposure and vulnerability. This process can be understood in face of the progress of vulnerability, in which disaster occurs when these 3 conditions are bring together. In this article we explore disasters, (im)mobilities and the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) relations in one of the richest Brazilian coastal areas, in municipalities located between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro metropolitan areas. This region considers 07 municipalities with 626,000 inhabitants (2022). Limited by the Serra do Mar, a system of mountain ridges and escarpments, and the Atlantic Ocean, this region constantly has high orographic precipitation that results in frequent landslides and floods, affecting particularly structures and populations close to hillside areas or river plains. Additionally, socioeconomic pressures from coexistence of intensive tourism, offshore gas and oil exploitation and ports activities increases conflicts around land use. To analyze local present and future potential environmental mobilities, we consider the approach of SSPs and their local outcomes. Data from past disasters, socioeconomic dynamics and geoprocessing images are used to synthesize disasters (im)mobility patterns (from temporary to permanent moves) interactions with each SSP. It is expected that SSP1 (sustainability) results into deep economic changes, with local mobility and sustainable housing. At SSP3 (regional rivalry) inequalities, immigration, (im)mobilities and habitation in risk areas increases. SSP5 (fossil-fuel development) presents a very unlike scenario, as it will combine high immigration and intense growth of local industry in a very limited area, with a wide range of spatial conflicts.

co-authors:

César Marques, National School of Statistical Sciences (Brazil) / University of Vienna

Juliana Trece (ENCE/IBGE and FGV/Brazil)

… the role of migration as an adaptation strategy, with a specific emphasis on the mechanisms and contexts, providing more detailed insights into aspects such as gender dynamics, translocal livelihoods, and migration infrastructure. It features studies from Senegal, Vietnam, Colombia, Nigeria, the USA, Morocco, and Ghana. Topics include gendered differences in adaptation, the role of migration for adaptation, the infrastructure necessary for adaptive mobility, the impacts of social remittances on adaptation, and the changes in migration dynamics in response to climate change. The session highlights the importance of understanding the socio-economic context and gender dynamics to understand the potential contribution of migration to adaptation.

In the debate on climate change and migration, there is growing recognition that migration can function as a means of adaptation to climate change. While much research has focused on financial remittances for adaptation, less attention has been paid to social remittances. Furthermore, how temporalities influence the adaptive effect of social remittances has not been scrutinized. We adopt a translocal mobilities perspective to study social remittances as a form of future-making in the context of climate stress. The paper is based on intensive qualitative research carried out between July 2021 and November 2022 in Skoura M’Daz, a small town in Morocco. Drawing on interviews, surveys, and participant observation with residents and government officials, we analyzed processes facilitating and constraining flows of social remittances and their implications for adaptation. We found that social remittances, such as constructing drip irrigation systems and digging wells, were formed and transmitted through a diverse array of translocal mobilities around Morocco. A main motivation for social remittance formation stemmed from local environmental changes, mostly decreasing water availability. While some remittances led to changes in agricultural practices, barriers inhibited implementation for others. Many farmers sought to overcome these barriers by taking additional actions in the short-term or creating long-term plans for implementation in the future: we call these latent social remittances. This temporal dimension of social remittances provides opportunities for extended or even amplifying effects beyond initial transmission that should be taken into consideration when studying the relationship among mobilities, social remittances, and climate adaptation.

co-authors:

Rachael Diniega, University of Vienna

Patrick Sakdapolrak, University of Vienna

The term “climate migrant” is critiqued for masking the diversity of migration experiences in the context of climate change. Some scholars suggest that the concept of “mobilities” offers a better lens for capturing these various forms of movement, their multiple causes, and dual directions. Though scholarship often considers mobility a consequence of climate impacts, this paper considers mobility infrastructure as a necessary condition for households to adapt to climate change locally rather than relocate permanently. I build this argument using ethnographic data collected over six years (2016 – 2021) from three climate stressed-areas of the globe: Montes de María, Colombia, Lagos, Nigeria, and coastal North Carolina, USA. This research shows that mobility requires shifting relationships with land, livelihood, and place as well as local policies facilitating temporary settlement. I offer two important contributions. First, that increased mobility is one form of climate migration that may be enacted in combination with temporary migration and permanent migration depending on local perceptions of the permanence of a climate hazard. Migration and mobility are part of a suite of adaptive strategies used in diverse ways. Mobility and migration are enacted by the same households at different times or by different individuals within the same household at the same time. 3) requires what I term “mobility infrastructure” to facilitate adaptive migration and mobility. The ability to adapt through mobility in response to climate change impacts is facilitated by mobility infrastructure. This research offers an empirically derived framework for mobility infrastructure in the context of climate change.

Climate change influences the adaptation responses and mobility patterns of smallholder farmers across multiple scales. This study employed an inductive approach to observe smallholder farmers in An Giang Province in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta to compare the effects of various environmental and climate-related stressors on households with and without contributing migrant household members and on households of different income levels in two rural communes. We looked into the roles that adaptation responses and human mobility patterns play in the daily livelihoods of (translocal) households. We adopted a mixed-methods approach, which involved the administration of a livelihood survey among households in two rural communes (N = 106) and, subsequently, two focus group discussions, unstructured in-depth interviews, and secondary data analysis. We discovered that environmental migration, adaptation responses, and climate change are interwoven in a web of complex relationships. No clear differences in effects and climate adaptation responses were discovered between emigrant and nonemigrant households. Relative to other income groups, middle-income farmers were disproportionally affected by climate-related disasters. Additionally, out-migration, aging, and COVID-19 lockdowns posed significant challenges to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

co-authors:

Mucahid Mustafa Bayrak; Tran Van Hieu; Thong Anh Tran; Yi-Ya Hsu; Tung Nien & Dang Thi Thanh Quynh

This research is conducted in Senegal, located in Western Africa, a region that will continue to be highly affected by climate change (Van der Land et al., 2018). Furthermore, most of the rural population depends on the natural environment for their economic activities (Mertz et al., 2011) which brings the need for adaptation. Multiple adaptation options exist and can either be implemented locally or entail migration.
In Africa, the optimal scale for studying adaptations to environmental change is the household, identified as the scale of decision-making (Castells-Quintana et al., 2018). This research differs from most others since it did not simply interview the head of the household, often a man, but gave equal importance to other members of the household, particularly women. In this regard, retrospective data on adaptation and perceptions of change in the environment and in daily life was collected from several members of each household, combining timelines and interviews.

The data collected will be used to investigate among others the following points. Firstly, the chronology of adaptations and in particular the place of migration within the chronology. Secondly, the differences in perceptions within the household and between groups (e.g., women/men, young/elderly). Finally, the specific adaptations of different household members. Do men and women of the same household have similar perceptions of environmental change and implement complementary adaptations?

In many rural African settings, climate (im)mobilities cannot be thought without existing translocal systems of livelihood security. Rural-urban and other forms of circular migration have long been strategies of households to diversify income opportunities and to reduce the risks of potential famine. While this seems to be increasingly important in a time of an accelerating climate change it also challenges widespread notions of climate change leading to massive out-migration from affected regions: rather, translocality enables the majority of rural populations to remain in their home communities. However, translocal livelihood systems are dynamic and need to adjust to external shocks caused by existential climate change-induced challenges.
In rural northern Ghana, migration practices had long been dominated by men. The heavy droughts in the 1980s, when rural households suffered from severe food shortage over several years, changed this. While, in the absence of urban income opportunities men returned to their rural home settings, and women used established trade networks in the urban south to support their rural households. Hereby, women’s labour migration practices and their role as providers in translocal household livelihood systems had been established. Based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork since 2007, my approach is two-fold: While I will shed light on how environmental change impacted on climate mobilities in the 1980s, I will also analyse the temporalities of women’s migration practices until today. Hereby, I aim at conceptualising climate-induced migration as a multi-layered and entangled social reality that is continuously negotiated and in flux.

The recent shift to understanding the nexus between climate change and human mobility through a mobilities lens has enabled an empirically grounded perspective examining climate mobilities through the messiness of the everyday. The focus on situated experiences, however, risks lacking attention to broader dimensions of power intersecting with and seeking to shape everyday im/mobilities of people in a changing climate.

This workshop seeks to explicitly engage with these power dynamics through examining the ways in which geopolitical considerations shape decisions, forms and directions of human movement in the context of climate risk, including mobilities (e.g. nomadic, urban-rural, cross-border movement), voluntary/forced immobilities, and processes relocation and managed retreat. This geopolitical focus directs our attention into how climate im/mobilities are shaped by: border politics (material borders, border customs, immigration regimes, borderlands); shifting notions of the state, belonging, and self-determination ; the security geopolitics resulting from discourses of fear depicting the global South as a climate-driven zone of instability; the implications of (transnational) environmental regulations (marine, sea or land-based); global climate change politics (impacts of large-scale mitigation/adaptation projects, postcolonial bias in international climate finance flows); racially or gender biased science/policy/ media discourses about uninhabitability and the need for relocation, etc.

Of interest is furthermore to explore ways in which the people subject to these geopolitical dynamics, navigate these influences. What are the ways in which migrants/climate-affected groups/populations navigate borders/climate change policies/discourses, and how are these also being actively contested, resisted and possibly transformed?

• We introduce the theme, and do a round of introductions
• We invite a selection of participants to briefly present their key work or perspective on this matter, followed by a brief Q&A per presentation (in total 10 min per pitch, incl. Q&A)

This is followed by:

• A group discussion on the linkages between the presentations, centering on which themes, research interests, etc., emerge from this.
• Developing a network strategy to develop this theme further in the next years, as a sub-stream of the ECM network.

Baldwin, A. (2017). Resilience and race, or climate change and the uninsurable migrant: Towards an anthroporacial reading of ‘race’. Resilience, 5(2), 129-143.

Boas, I., Wiegel, H., Farbotko, C., Warner, J., & Sheller, M. (2022). Climate mobilities: migration, im/mobilities and mobility regimes in a changing climate. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48(14), 3365-3379.

Chandler, D., & Pugh, J. (2020). Islands of relationality and resilience: The shifting stakes of the Anthropocene. Area, 52(1), 65-72.

Chao, S., & Enari, D. (2021). Decolonising climate change: A call for beyond-human imaginaries and knowledge generation. eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the Tropics, 20(2), 32-54.

Dalby, S. (2021). Unsustainable borders: globalization in a climate-disrupted world. Borders in Globalization Review, 2(2), 26-37.

Farbotko, C. (2022). Anti-displacement mobilities and re-emplacements: alternative climate mobilities in Funafala. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48(14), 3380-3396.

Samaddar, R. (2020). The postcolonial age of migration. Taylor & Francis.

Schapendonk, J. (2018). Navigating the migration industry: Migrants moving through an African-European web of facilitation/control. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(4), 663-679.

Sheller, M. (2020). Island futures: Caribbean survival in the Anthropocene. Duke University Press.

How are climate impacts perceived by local populations? How is the decision to migrate being made? One of the biggest challenges raised by climate change concerns the inhabitability of regions and territories. As climate models predict that some regions are likely to become uninhabitable in a not-so-distant future, empirical research shows that different criteria, including subjective perceptions, influence the definition of inhabitability at the local level. The workshop shall explore different works and methods that seek to assess inhabitability.

In the workshop, we will discuss the future options for the “Environmental and Climate Mobilities Network”. As of now, the network has the goals of fostering dialogue and exchange among the environmental mobilities researchers, facilitating a closer collaboration between researchers, decision makers and practitioners, and bringing together stakeholders from all over the world.

Relevant questions to discuss are:

• How can the network enable a fruitful and effective exchange between different epistemic communities (e.g. quantitative modelers, critical social scientists, political scientists, etc.)?
• What role can the network play in fostering a stronger integration of science and policy?
• How to facilitate more active engagement of researchers and stakeholders from the “Global South”? 
• How formal or informal does the network need to be – for the time being, and in the long run?

We will also take up other aspects or questions that we will collect online during the event.

• The workshop will be held in hybrid mode, so that also online participants will be able to actively participate.

What does the concept of migration and mobility signify in the context of escalating environmental and climate threats? When is migration and mobility perceived positively, as a successful adaptive strategy? Conversely, when is it regarded as maladaptation, a situation to be avoided and necessitating intervention? How do we bypass the sedentary trap when examining climate mobilities, which implies an inherent desire to keep people in place, without being overly optimistic and lauding the resilience and adaptability of people on the move? Where is the boundary between acknowledging the agency of individuals and households to utilize positive effects of migration for autonomous adaptation action, and, on the other hand, resisting the shifting of responsibility and withdrawal of states from adaptation responsibilities?

Since the emergence of migration-as-adaptation at the science-policy interface as a counter narrative to the “environmental refugees” discourse, it has been subject to polarized discussions. Some interpret migration-as-adaptation as functioning within the political rationality of neoliberalism, viewing it as a mechanism for transferring the responsibility of addressing climate change from a collective to an individual level. It has also been flagged as an indicator of depoliticization. There have been concerns raised about the potential negative socio-economic and socio-cultural consequences of migration. However, growing empirical evidence emphasizes the critical role of migration as a strategy for handling environmental and climate shocks and stressors. Efforts have been made to further refine the concept to enable the assessment of the circumstances under which migration can be deemed successful adaptation.

The workshop intends to utilize the ongoing debate on migration-as-adaptation as a launchpad for discussions aimed at further developing the concept towards one that is inclusive, fair and sustainable. The workshop will consist of multiple rounds of discussion engaging with the critique, identifying research gaps, and future perspectives for research and science-policy dialogue. 

Francois Gemene & Julia Blocher (2017): How can migration serve adaptation to climate change? Challenges to fleshing out a policy ideal, in: Geographical Journal, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12205

Kira Vinke Jonas Bergmann, Julia Blocher, Himani Upadhyay, Roman Hoffmann (2020): Migration as Adaptation?, in: Migration Studies, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnaa029

Patrick Sakdapolrak, Marion Borderon & Harald Sterly (2023): The limits of migration as adaptation. A conceptual approach towards the role of immobility, disconnectedness and simultaneous exposure in translocal livelihoods systems, in: Climate and Development, DOI: 10.1080/17565529.2023.2180318

Lucy Szaboova, William Neil Adger, Ricardo Safra de Campos, Amina Maharjan, Patrick Sakdapolrak, Harald Sterly, Declan Conway, Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe & Mumuni Abu 7 (2023): Evaluating migration as successful adaptation
to climate change: Trade-offs in well-being, equity, and sustainability, in: One Earth, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.05.009

… environmental factors shape migration decisions. It features case studies from Nigeria, Bangladesh, Mexico, Morocco, Malaysia, Turkey, Kenya, and Uganda, examining the complexities of migration determinants such as salinization, home destruction, gender inequalities, and familial networks. The studies underscore the need to disentangle causalities and highlight the interplay of climate risks and socioeconomic vulnerabilities in influencing mobility aspirations and capabilities.

Climate variability and extreme events have struck parts of East Africa in the past years. This echoes in increased poverty, displacement or mortality. However many other elements come into the picture when considering vulnerabilities and migration, such as local conflicts, land privatisation, poverty and other dimensions of the general socio-demo-economic setting.
Although climate change might not be identified as such, the high unreliability of agricultural yields and water accessibility might encourage more and more people to migrate and/or look for a living in other sectors. Previous research has shown how social and family networks were key in migration decision and in resilience.

Quantitative data on migration and non-migration are scarce, and I would like to present a future data collection plan, that will yield information on migration. Project FamilEA, built on a long experience of research in East Africa and innovative data collection tools, aims at shedding light on family change and family networks in Kenya and Uganda. It includes a demographic survey – to be conducted early 2024 – representative of Nairobi and Kampala. By collecting information on individual histories, as well as on extended families and other relationships that matter for people, we will provide information on migration to the capitals and also question the links between places and resources in family networks. This will bring new data on family systems and migration, from rural areas to capital cities. Data collection is planned for early 2024.

Migration research on Turkey has mainly focused on economic, social, political, and demographic drivers of migration. Human mobility within the context of exacerbating climate change impacts has yet to be empirically analysed regarding Turkey, which grapples with sudden-onset events such as storms, flooding, hail, frost, and gradual effects of climate change, primarily drought and water scarcity. Existing research shows that those dependent on their environment for survival, such as farmers and rural populations, are heavily and disproportionately affected by climate change. Such populations tend to migrate more in the face of climate change effects. Some prefer to stay (voluntarily immobile), some feel forced to move (involuntarily mobile), and some others are trapped (involuntarily immobile). Against this background, this paper seeks an answer to manifestations of such tendencies in the Turkish context, focusing on three provinces, Mersin, Afyon, and Şanlıurfa, under different climate change impacts. Relying on fieldwork which consists of qualitative and quantitative interviews with 111 farmers, and focus groups, it sheds light on three pathways for farmers’ migration intentions: a) those who intend to migrate; b) those who intend not to migrate; c) those who would like to do so but cannot afford. It analyses these inclinations based on multiple variables such as farmers’ socio-economic and demographic background, social networks, vulnerabilities, adaptive capacity, and resilience in the face of climate change effects. In doing so, it sheds light on similarities and differences behind such inclinations to move or not.

GENDEREDCLIMATEMIG explores climate-induced migration from a gendered perspective and through an interdisciplinary, comparative and participatory methodology. Climate related causes are often difficult to isolate, and migration takes places as a result of a combination of factors rather than a single driver (McLeman and Gemenne, 2018). Innovate research frameworks are thus needed to explore the relative weight of climate-related events in migratory trajectories in order to create the possibility for an informed and gender-sensitive governance of human mobility, in a world increasingly impacted by climate change. Through case-studies selected across three continents, GENDEREDCLIMATEMIG seeks to shed light on migration dynamics that existing migration regimes fail to capture. It will produce ethnographic case-studies in 3 middle-income countries and regional migration hubs: Mexico, Morocco and Malaysia. These 3 countries are uniquely positioned as origin, transit and destination countries: they experience climate-induced internal migration, international immigration from several countries in their region particularly affected by climate change, as well as significant emigration rates. This project also entails a multi-sited study into the current state of climate migration governance at international and national levels. GENDEREDCLIMATEMIG sets out to research patterns of mobility that are currently little visible, building on the hypothesis that climate-related processes weigh increasingly on decisions to leave one’s home, yet they fail to be captured both by existing administrative categories and by dominant theoretical frames in migration studies. Drawing on comparative ethnographies, this project seeks to advance our understanding of climate-induced human mobility and of its gendered challenges by resorting to participatory methodologies that will carve out more space for migrants’ voices than dominant methods in the field of migration studies allow for.

The Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta is one of the most populous deltas in the world, threatened by diverse environmental stressors, including salinity intrusion, causing adverse consequences on livelihood adaptation. Shrimp farming has been recognized as one of the most practiced livelihoods among various livelihood opportunities. Consequently, many farmlands are being turned into shrimp farms rapidly, influencing the adaptation choices of the people –migrate or stay. In this study, by drawing the theoretical perspectives of Hardin’s tragedy of commons, we investigated whether the growing trend of shrimp farming influences the migration aspiration of the vulnerable coastal communities in Bangladesh. The field study employed a qualitative-participatory geospatial approach in five villages in southwest coastal Bangladesh. Satellite images were analyzed to detect land-use changes in the selected study area in the last 30-years, confirming a rapid increase in shrimp farms. Results from the qualitative survey indicate that the growing shrimp farming is motivating affluent people with more resources to stay in that place. In contrast, poor people with limited resources cannot produce paddy on their land because of increased soil salinity due to shrimp farming, and they aspire to migrate. Thus, our analysis contributes to the discourse related to “aspiration and capability” in environmental migration by adding impacts of land-use change on livelihoods.

To understand the links between environmental change, human security, and mobility, research is ongoing on Hatiya Island in Southern Bangladesh (n=320). A small island located approximately 10km from the mainland in the Bay of Bengal, many of Hatiya’s inhabitants rely on fishing, agriculture, and aquacultural livelihoods. However, key production systems are under threat from increasingly severe and frequent rapid onset (river erosion, cyclones, flooding) and slow onset (saline intrusion, tidal inundation, increasing temperature) environmental hazards. A choice experiment was conducted to investigate the relationship between climatic events and migration decisions. Respondents were asked to make decisions about migration scenarios constructed using five attributes: climate at origin area, migration distance, length of migration, social network at destination, and income gap between the origin area and potential destination. This was followed by a survey questionnaire exploring the role that human security plays in influencing mobility outcomes. An individual-level human security index (HSI), adapted from Adger et al. (2021), was constructed and modified for rural contexts. Instances of past migration, outcomes at destination areas, and the potential for future out-migration were also explored in the questionnaire. The HSI and mobility results were then linked to examine how the level and type of human (in)securities experienced in Hatiya may connect with different types of mobility. While data analysis is ongoing, the research team would like to present initial findings.

Co-Authors:

Adam Savelli, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT 

Katherine Nelson, International Rice Research Institute

Ma Suza, Wageningen University

Ong Quoc Cuong, International Rice Research Institute

Climate change poses threats to individuals, communities, and cities globally. Global conversations and scholarly debates have explored ways people adapt to the impacts of climate change including through migration and relocation. This study uses Lagos, Nigeria as a case study to examine the relationship between flooding events, mobility intentions as a preferred adaptation, and the destination choices for affected residents. The study draws on a mixed-methods approach, which involved a survey of 352 residents and semi-structured interviews with 21 residents. Using the capability approach, (im)mobility intentions are assessed with respect to anticipated flood events. Results demonstrate that majority of affected residents are willing to migrate but the ability to do so is constrained by economic, social, and political factors leading to involuntary immobility. Furthermore, intra-city relocation is preferred to migration to other states in Nigeria or internationally. Findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of mobility intentions in response to climatic threats in one of the world’s largest coastal cities.

…the concept of immobility in the face of climate change. It delves into understanding the reasons and implications of non-migration, the linkages of vulnerability and immobility, and the intergenerational aspects of immobility. The case studies span globally and across diverse settings, such as high-risk coastal urban areas, rural communities in Bangladesh and India, and different socio-ecological contexts in Australia and Latin America. The session also discusses how lack of insurance and the costs associated with mobility can lead to immobility.

Over the past decade, the research field of environmental migration has explored non-migration or immobility decisions in the context of environmental change, or why people remain in regions exposed to environmental risks instead of migrating to safer locations. Although initial research on this topic focused on instances of involuntary immobility arising out of economic constraints that ‘trap’ people in place, subsequent research went on to explore the nuances of immobility decision-making. This included considering social, cultural, psychological, and political factors that influence people to both involuntarily remain behind due to lack of capabilities for moving away as well as voluntarily stay in place despite risks. While there have been attempts to review this growing subfield, these approaches have been limited to discursive analyses of the concept of ‘trapped populations’. This paper presents the findings from a systematic review of empirical peer-reviewed publications on environmental non-migration or immobility by analysing studies based on research questions explored, theoretical frameworks and research methods employed, regions studied, and environmental risks experienced. Focusing on context-specific determinants such as economic inequality, gender hierarchies, health and wellbeing, cultural and religious identities, subjective risk perceptions, historical experiences, and remoteness and geographic isolation, it thematically analyses how environmental factors combine with non-environmental ones in influencing people to stay in place. Based on an assessment of the current state of knowledge, it identifies significant gaps and opportunities for future research.

Research on human migration in response to climate change has experienced exponential growth in recent decades. There has been a focus on why people move, its causes and consequences. A relatively underexplored aspect of human mobility is the far more common process of immobility: why people choose to stay, return or cannot leave. These voluntary or involuntary immobile populations, despite increasing climate related extremes and processes, are the focus of our Belmont Forum funded project ITHACA – Immobility in a changing climate (2023-2026). This research seeks to provide rich comparative empirical evidence from coastal urban case studies in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and Latin America. ITHACA will augment our collective knowledge on immobility of those vulnerable to climate extremes and of the (un)willingness to relocate from climatically high-risk zones, and why people return to high-risk areas. This work will make visible ‘invisible’ people and groups at the forefront of these risks and offer critical and usable science to open avenues for justice for those disproportionately affected by climate change and to help decision makers governing migration, climate-exacerbated disasters and adaptation. In this session we will present our initial ideas and outline our proposed empirical strategy to the Environmental and Climate Mobilities Network. Moreover, we will make the case for the development of a sub-group focusing specifically on climate immobilities to provide a space for those working on, or interested in, this urgent topic.

co-authors:

Emily Boyd, Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies

Guy Jackson, Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies

Resilience is the capacity of an individual to sustain and improve livelihood opportunities and well-being despite any disturbances. In other words, resilience is inherited, i.e., learned from elderly family members, who can share with younger household members what strategies they have used to combat different disasters in their lives. Apart from this recognition, explanations of how intergenerational knowledge contributes to their place relations and disaster resilience building remain a research gap. To contribute to this lacuna, we employed the place relations theory. We conducted in-depth interviews with 60 families (3 interviews from each family, i.e., 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation) in cyclone-prone coastal villages of Bangladesh. Results show that both the relations and resilience to cyclone disasters differ across generations. For instance, 1st generation expresses the need to retain their links to their inherited land. Their identity and social capital are inherently connected to their lands and community. In contrast, this sentiment among the 2nd and 3rd generations was relatively minor as they aspire to better livelihoods and would like to out-migrate. Further, 1st generation people who experienced the highest number of disasters consider themselves resilient and confident enough to handle future disasters. It also influences their commitment to stay at a place e.g. higher place relations between the generations show higher resilience and result in staying despite increasing environmental risk.

co-authors:

Bishawjit Mallick, Utrecht University

Zakia Sultana, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University

Today climate change acts as a risk enhancer and increase in migration in different socio-ecological settings of India. The population which could not move despite the harsh environmental conditions is termed as ‘trapped population’. This ‘trapped population is likely to represent just as a policy concern as those who migrate. The present study was conducted in two socio-ecological settings namely Coastal Odisha and Himalayan mountainous areas of the State of Uttarakhand. Major objectives of the study were to: understand the complex relationship among climate change, migration and immobility; and explain why certain groups of population are mobile while others are not? Major findings of the study are: Insufficient resources, obligations to family members or property/assets, social ties, place attachment, worse alternative, lack of opportunity, physical immobility are the major reasons of immobility. Adaptive capacity has to be enhanced using multi-prong strategies such as investment in poor people’s human capital, particularly their education and skill development, and specifically education of girls and women. Measures to be adopted for diversification of economic activities in order to enable people to better adapt to climate change. There is also a need for incorporating the migration – climate change relationship in existing fields of policy that have so far not only tended to ignore migration, but have also remained quite separate from each other.

Currently, Australia is experiencing its third La Nina in a row leading to increasing flooding events, especially in the States of Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales. Also impacting businesses and infrastructure as well as thousands of homes and peoples’ belongings. House and contents insurance is one mechanism designed to help people deal with such events. In Australia this is private and does not necessarily include all types of flooding. With ongoing climate change and the increase of frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, insurance premiums are likely to rise, making insurance unaffordable and unavailable for some people, especially the ones that live in the regions that are most likely hit by weather extreme events.
This rise in premiums leads to an increase of under- and noninsurance and leaves homeowners in financial stress after such an event, making it impossible for them to rebuild or move away from the regions at risk. Therefore, we argue that this immobility is socially constructed and linked to power-relations. Mechanisms to deal with this immobility are planned relocation and buy-back schemes introduced by the government.

Therefore, this research tries to shed a light on under- and noninsurance in Australia, the immobility due to increasing financial stress and the nexus between climate change as well as the challenge of underinsurance and (im)mobility by considering mobility as a social construct that is strongly connected with (financial) power

… the dynamic intersection of mobility and immobility under slow-onset climate impacts. The papers included offer diverse case studies from Ghana, Indonesia, and the USA, focusing on how communities navigate the challenges of climate change through either migration or in-situ adaptation. The session illuminates various aspects, from the effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation measures, the role of indigenous knowledge and citizen science, to the justice implications of different adaptation preferences. Key themes include flooding, coastal erosion, and climate-induced uncertainties.

The northern part of Ghana is characterized by multidirectional and multiscale mobilities, from seasonal rural-rural labour migration to youth migration to urban centers in the south, or further afield. It is also affected by slow-onset climate change with rising temperatures and irregular rainfall as well as extreme weather events. A range of government and donor initiatives aim to promote local adaptation capacity and curb youth migration exist, including the ‘one village – one dam’ initiative to establish irrigation and thereby dry season farming opportunities for all villages in the region. Rather than putting seasonal migration to an end, however, such projects have mixed outcomes. This includes unintended mobility and immobility consequences, as dams may overflow and block roads for extended periods of time during the rainy season. Taking an example of two such dams, we explore the established and emerging (im)mobilities in this situation as well as the underpinning social imaginaries and infrastructures. In line with conceptualisations of climate change as a risk multiplier, we argue that slow onset climate change shapes socio-ecological contexts and livelihoods but does not cause mobility itself. We further combine this approach with studies on social imaginaries and pathways of becoming, and migration and physical infrastructure literature. This leads us to reflect upon the wider array of mobilities in the area as well as analytical approaches to studying mobility and immobility in climate affected areas.

co-authors:

Nauja Kleist, Francis Jarawura & Lily Lindegaard

Despite decades of advancement of post-modernistic development paradigms for rural regions, quick-fix technology orientations remain much in vogue, linked to notions of capital immersion and market integration. This not only applies to local interventions by the state, it also extends to the work of many NGOs concerned with rural development.

“We always try to tell the NGOs what they want to hear. Some8mes we know they will fail in what they want to do for us but we just wait and look at them. They don’t want to hear your side because maybe it doesn’t fit with how they want to spend their money, but you see in this world we in this village can say we want everything, but in reality we don’t need everything. And not everything can fit into our lives.”

This account of a village elder in northern Ghana is telling. It relates a quiet but critical acceptance of the resources NGOs bring to rural communities, their perceived material value outweighing the potential disruptions they may cause. This quiet acceptance has become a necessary default modus operandi for many rural communities as the advancement of climate change has brought about increasing uncertainty for their largely rain-fed agriculture, making all alternative income sources very welcome additions, however conditional their provision or unlikely their goals. Such state and NGO practices largely ignore the capacity of rural actors to also recognize and act on the increasingly complex world they are part of. The quesIon arises whose reality maJers, thereby accepIng that this may vary significantly among local actors. Our paper reflects on the need and ways in which endogenous knowledge could be coupled to more effecIve NGO intervenIons, knowledge of external experts and grounded government policies through conInual forms of engagement that foreground local realiIes, to thereaNer implement suitable and enduring ideas through alliances of all actors.

co-authors:

Lothar Smith, Radboud University & Francis Jarawura

Coastal erosion and flooding have been documented along many stretches of the West African coastline and beyond, but these environmental changes are not exclusively recent phenomena – early photographic evidence from the sandy shores of the Volta River Delta in today’s southeastern Ghana dates back to the year 1900. Nevertheless, the increasing amount and intensity of anthropogenic interferences into various natural systems that are linked to the Volta River Delta have caused particularly high rates in recent decades. This still ongoing process has led to a remarkable loss of inhabitable land surface and the displacement of thousands of people. Underpinned by a historical and socio-political contextualization, this scientific contribution carves out the factors that have over time and across multiple scales contributed to the continuous retreat of the shoreline. It further illustrates how and why affected people of the Anlo-Ewe who are/were living on a narrow sand spit east of estuary of the Volta River adapt(ed) to (impending) displacement in particular ways. Based on Political Ecology thinking, other actors and power relations that play(ed) a role in their decision-making process are emphasised, too. By mostly referring to data from own empirical field work, the talk sheds light on cases studies from various sites along the shoreline to give insights into the kaleidoscope of adaption measures with regard to people’s (im)mobilities. These include a.o. temporal refuge, gradual retreat, out-migration, state-led resettlement and self-reliant repopulation in combination with coastal protection and land reclamation, and adaptive practices in relation to autonomous housing construction.

The increasing threat of climate change does not align with the understanding of slow-onset climate impact and one of its implications, Human (im)mobility. This also applied to the community residing in the coastal area of Demak and Indramayu. For instance, Several people in the coastal areas of Demak and Indramayu choose to live in their houses despite being highly vulnerable to various coastal hazards with in-situ adaptation on stilts in their house amidst the seawater and cultivating mangroves to reduce the impact of tidal waves. Meanwhile, the municipality has not accommodated concrete efforts to ensure the needs of communities. On the other hand, migration as an adaptation measure also faced challenges, as the community’s new environment did not support their previous occupation. The current regulations and policies are not poised to deal with climate-induced migration, like planned relocation. This research applied the qualitative methods in drawing the line between slow-onset climate impact and human mobility to sort the slow-onset climate impact implication to the community choice to (im)mobility as the adaptation measures in Indramayu and Demak. The initial findings indicated slow onset climate impact drivers across various factor influences on the local communities’ decisions to migrate or stay. Moreover, the in-situ adaptation seems to be underdeveloped in the policy-making process. Besides, planned relocation tends to be the major incentive by the policy-makers without a comprehensive understanding of the community’s needs. The transdisciplinary approach to this pattern can establish a comprehensive policy to adapt to the slow-onset climate impact.

Great uncertainty exists about household responses to intensifying sea-level rise and related flooding, especially when residents may consider relocation. Understanding how preferences for in-situ adaptation versus climate mobility evolve through time across communities with varying capacities can help identify policy solutions suited to a range of community needs. We present an analysis of 40 interviews and 597 survey responses from residents of Miami-Dade County, FL, USA—an area of substantial and increasing flood-related risk, where concerns related to climate mobilities are emerging. We use a mixed-methods approach, integrating new flood hazard models depicting chronic inundation and 1%-annual-chance flooding with street-level detail under increasing sea-level rise with interview and survey data, which when combined reveal the multiplicities of spatiotemporal risk and differential climate mobility pressures. Overall, we find that up to 75% of all participating respondents have experienced precipitation-based flooding in recent years, and “new normal” experiences of inundation are already disrupting living conditions and reshaping current decisions to move. However, up to 57% of survey respondents preferred in-situ adaptations over moving away, highlighting a need for society-wide commitments to long-term adaptation. Socioeconomic pressures dominated climate mobility considerations among respondents, raising climate justice concerns over socially inequitable mobility outcomes. Examinations of differential climate mobility pressures and preferences for adaptation increase our understanding of the transformations reshaping coastal communities today to guide more equitable societal adaptations in the future.

… intersectional and cross-scale power dynamics: it delves into the intersection of climate mobility, gender, and political ecology. It discusses the necessity to apply national and global perspectives of (feminist) political ecologies to environmental mobilities, investigates socially differentiated perceptions and power relations, investigates the discrepancies between experiences of climate migrants and policymakers’ perceptions, and theorizes on the political dynamics of a habitable world.

Research on climate and migration interactions has greatly evolved from environmentally deterministic explanations to more sophisticated and complex accounts of human (im)mobilities in a changing climate. Although gender and social inequalities have been acknowledged as key factors that shape vulnerability and resilience, the multi-scalar power relations that shape human (im)mobility in the context of climate change have been underestimated. This paper argues that bridging socio-ecological systems with world-systems and feminist political ecology can advance our understanding of the gender and social inequities embedded in the climate-migration nexus by conceptualizing power relations across different scales in our world economy. In doing so, a broader understanding of social tipping points in the context of climate change can be achieved. Paying explicit attention to the power imbalances embedded in climate and migration interactions at multiple scales can not only advance our conceptual understanding of this complex nexus, but also lead to more appropriate policy and development interventions.

Habitability is an emerging scientific concept with strong relevance for mobility research. Users of the concept hope that it can focus research efforts on the maintenance and improvement of place-based human well-being to counteract both forced displacement and involuntary immobility due to global environmental changes. As theoretical conceptualizations of the concept solidify, it will also be important to pay attention to how habitability can be protected and improved in practice. This necessitates discussion of policy, politics, and political action. Building on a partial conceptualisation of habitability as the capability-set available to people in a particular region, this paper discusses three issues related to the political dynamics of habitability. We discuss (i) the relationship of the politics of habitability to the politics of migration, borders, and integration, in countries of the global north and south, in both so-called sending and receiving communities; (ii) the role of political contention between challengers, from civil society and social movements, on the one hand, and state actors and other powerful incumbents, on the other, in shaping habitability outcomes, and (iii) the role of secular and global political economic forces in shaping the broader constraints to achieving a fairer and more habitable world.

While the impact of gender dimensions on human mobility has been recognized, the field of environmental mobility too often lacks a gender approach. Moreover, the bulk of the literature on gender, environmental change and human mobility is often disconnected, which has led to a lack of theoretical understanding of how gender shapes the different dimensions of the environment-migration nexus. In order to map the nature and extent of the literature on the gender dimensions of environmentally-related mobility, we conducted a scoping review of peer reviewed empirical studies addressing the gender dimensions of the drivers, experiences and outcomes of human mobility in a context of environmental change. After reviewing 120 articles from CLIMIG and SCOPUS, we propose a typology of the literature on the interlinkages between gender and environmentally-related mobility. We classify studies into 5 categories according to their research aim and provide key concepts and findings for each category. We divided articles as follows: 1) Studies examining how the likelihood of migrating due to environmental stressors differs by gender; 2) Studies analyzing how and why evacuation outcomes differ by gender; 3) Studies examining how gender influences access to different coping and adaptation strategies (including mobility); 4) Studies analyzing how environmentally-related mobility experiences differ by gender and 5) Studies examining the consequences of mobility on gender roles and relations at origin. We then conclude our paper by identifying knowledge gaps in order to inform future research.

co-authors:

Tatiana Castillo Betancourt & Caroline Zickgraf

Mounting evidence suggests that climate change is significantly impacting migration and will continue to do so at exponential rates in the next three decades. Contrary to media reports, most climate migration will occur internally within the country of origin and, to a lesser extent, the same region. Policymakers, however, are vastly underprepared for the migrants that are already on the move within their countries, much less for future increases in flows. There are many potential theories as to why this is the case: there are more pressing problems that policymakers must address on a daily basis, they lack the economic resources or political will, or they do not believe that climate change is causing migration. Yet, each potential theory requires a different solution or a combination therein.

This paper seeks to assess the discrepancies between experiences of climate migrants and perceptions of policymakers in order to best propose a path forward for allocating climate migration educational and economic resources to policymakers and migrants themselves. It analyzes a survey of 1,500 households in Guatemala, a country that has been experiencing extreme droughts as a result of climate change, to establish the link between climate change and migration. Then it uses qualitative interview data with 40 policymakers in Guatemala City and Mexico City, where many migrants from Guatemala migrate, to assess the perceptions of climate migrants, the policy actions planned (or not) to address flows of climate migrants, and the conceptualization of climate change as a driver of migration. Combined, this analysis allows for an assessment of the discrepancies between experiences and perceptions by policymakers and a theoretical framework of the various approaches needed to assist policymakers in addressing climate migration.

… important aspects of mobility in the context of climate change that need more attention, including the impacts of water scarcity, land tenure, land degradation, pollution, and information technology, as well as the need for stronger exchange between research and policy making. The global studies, case studies, and conceptual contributions within this session offer new perspectives on the relationships between environmental factors and human mobility, and challenge and broaden the positioning of science and policy actors.

Despite improvements in the scientific understanding of the subject and advancements in policy, major gaps remain in addressing the humanitarian and socio-economic challenges related to climate migration. In this presentation, based on a recently published academic article the urgent needs for a holistic approach and a closer integration of science and policy involving diverse stakeholders in the process of knowledge generation and implementation are assessed. For this five key challenges need addressing: characteristic for improving the science–policy interface: (i) conflictual political contexts and the securitization of human migration, (ii) simplistic narratives and framing of the subject, (iii) the uneven production and dissemination of knowledge, (iv) limited data and analytical capacities and (v) a selective topical and methodological focus. To address these diverse challenges, there is a need for more bridging initiatives at the science–policy interface that integrate diverse disciplines, approaches and stakeholders. A closer engagement of researchers and policymakers in the form of multi-stakeholder exchanges, capacity-building activities, co-development and co-implementation processes and integrative scientific assessments can help bridge the gap to support the inclusive generation of knowledge and the development of comprehensive policies. In the outlook of the presentation entry points for scientific input into strategy formation and implementation of climate foreign policy and feminist development policy are identified.

Natural disasters can result in significant economic losses through out-migration of affected populations (DeWaard et al. 2023). Water depletion is a critical environmental issue that has the potential to impact human mobility. Existing studies have examined the impact of climate change and other environmental factors on migration, for example, Stoler (2018) explored the connection between climate change, water insecurity, and migration, Abel (2019) investigates the relationship between climatic shocks and internal migration on a global scale, Morrissey (2013) focused on environmental change and human migration in Sub-Saharan Africa, and Hoffmann and Muttarak (2017) who examined the challenges and solutions for low- and middle-income countries in the face of environment, migration, and urbanization. However, none of these studies explicitly addressed the specific impact of water depletion on internal migration in a global approach, to shed light on the complex mechanisms linking environmental factors and human mobility.
Our project, “Water Depletion and Internal Migration Globally,” aims to fill this gap by examining the relationship between water depletion and internal migration globally from 1900 to 2000. We use hydrological data of water depletion, shortage and stress, and internal migration on Admin 1 level to provide a comprehensive understanding of this relationship. By doing so, we will contribute to the growing field of environmental and climate mobilities and provide insights into the complex relationship between water depletion and human mobility.
Preliminary results indicate that water depletion is a significant contributor to internal migration globally, and that this effect has become stronger over time. Our findings suggest that water depletion is an increasingly important environmental factor shaping human mobility patterns across the globe. Our findings also inform the design of effective adaptation and mitigation strategies to address the impacts of water depletion on human populations.

co-authors: 

Wanli Nie¹; Roman Hoffmann²; Raya Muttarak¹; Jessie Pinchoff³; Hamidreza Zoraghein³; Jack DeWaard³

¹Department of Statistical Sciences “Paolo Fortunati”, University of Bologna

²Social Cohesion, Health, and Wellbeing Research Group, Population and Just Societies, IIASA

³Populatino Council

Land degradation is a barrier to humans’ ability to safeguard livelihoods, particularly in regions where fertile land resources are scarce. A quarter of the Earth’s ice-free land area is already degraded, disrupting the livelihoods of one in six people globally. Land degradation is often assumed to fuel mass migration in low- and middle-income countries. However, to what extent and how land degradation actually does affect migration remains poorly understood. While research on environmental migration has blossomed in the recent years, nearly all studies focus on climate change and ignore land degradation. This is a significant research gap that needs to be addressed given that land degradation is continuing and expected to increase, generating new risks for populations affected by land degradation and migration. This presentation calls for expanding the current research agenda on environmental migration to explicitly include land degradation in migration and displacement studies, thereby considering specific research priorities.

Questions about migration and (im)mobilities in the context of environmental and climate change require inter-and multidisciplinary dialogues to be understood in their full complexity. Our contribution aims to raise a number of questions from a socio-legal perspective to this rapidly growing field of study. We are currently developing two complementary research projects of which we will lay out the contours in this presentation. First, our research intends to gain a better understanding of the role of land tenure (in)security and attachments people feel to their land in migration decision-making in a context of climate change. Second, we aim to explore the way in which the implementation of climate mitigation and adaptation laws and policies in weak rule-of-law environments impacts people’s tenure security, especially those most affected by the consequences of climate change and state-led climate responses. Our aim is to develop a comparative perspective through socio-legal case study research in Mozambique, Ethiopia, DRC and South Sudan. On this presentation we will present the main findings of our preliminary literature review on these topics, discuss their interconnections, and raise a number of questions regarding the paths to move this research forward.

co-authors:

Carolien Jacobs, Leiden University and Bernardo Almeida, Leiden University

In recent decades, the causal relationship between environmental degradation in rivers and human displacement has received increased attention. The lowest section of Britain’s River Lee, dividing the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham, seemingly depicts a similar story: over 150 years of industrial and sewage-related pollution have rendered its riverbank apparently socio-culturally desolate, extremely environmentally depleted, and, quoting planners of the 2012 Olympics, a “tear in London’s fabric” that needs “stitching” (Design for London, 2013, p. 15).
Since then, and coinciding with escalating environmental and climate justice movements, new river restoration and residential projects have emerged, drawing new activity and movement to Britain’s former “most polluted river.” This doctoral research began as an attempt to map this unravelling relationship between environmental degradation, riverside regeneration and (re)mobilisation of human communities, thus complicating the oft-simplistic environment-displacement nexus. However, preliminary findings reveal an urban waterscape of unanticipated contradiction and climatic complexity.
This paper presents some of the socio-ecological conundra which have emerged through ethnographic observations, and interviews with community members, in the Lower Lee Valley. How has the Lee’s status of a negligible, polluted “fringe” historically suppressed human life and mobility along the river? Conversely, how has this man-made marginality provided a scaffolding for more-than-human lifeforms? How do contemporary efforts to regenerate the Lee – and “reintegrate” it into London’s urban landscape – enable certain mobilities, whilst endangering others? And how can indigenous-informed environmental theories (e.g. permission-to-pollute) guide critical understandings of, and justice-based responses to, past, present and future governance of the River Lee?

… critique and enhance our understanding of how climate migration is governed at various levels. It includes discussions on the overlooked experiences of people with disabilities, the need for a more rights-based approach in Pacific Islands’ migration governance, and potential exploitation of environmental migrants. The session also discusses the rise and potential of litigation for environmental migrant recognition and protection, and analyzes the narrative of climate mobilities in European national parliaments, emphasizing the necessity of a transdisciplinary understanding of environmental migration.

Through its Institutional Strategy on Migration, Environment and Climate Change 2021–2030, IOM aims to adopt migrant-centered, rights-based, comprehensive approaches to the migration and environment nexus. The strategy builds on its understanding of the complex mobility implications of climate change and stresses the need to: (a) Develop solutions for people to stay, by promoting adaptation, reducing climate risk and contributing to stable societies where the factors compelling people to move are addressed; (b) Develop solutions for people on the move, by fulfilling the protection needs of migrants and displaced persons, including through improved preparedness and anticipatory approaches; (c) Develop solutions for people to move, by facilitating safe and dignified migration out of areas at risk, including permanent relocation.
IOM manages a portfolio of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation programmes valued at approximately 1 billion USD as of February 2023. IOM recognizes the need to prioritize prevention and preparedness earlier and more predictably in contexts affected by natural hazards and climate change causing risks and vulnerability within populations. To this end, IOM implements interventions spanning stabilization, migration management and emergency preparedness, well connected with early warning and anticipatory approaches. On the latter, the Sendai Mid-Term Review Synthesis has acknowledged that more work is needed to broaden universal access to early warning systems. IOM’s integrated approaches address that issue through programs run across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. By boosting community resilience, IOM seeks to prevent loss and damages at the community level, and avert, minimize and address climate induced mobility and disaster displacement.

With climate change and human mobilities both occupying central positions on European political agendas, the two areas of politics and policy are also increasingly being brought into contact with another. One key way the linkages are articulated is by the climate movement emphasising the potential for climate change to trigger human mobility towards Europe in order to tap into populist, far-right anti-migrant sentiments and increase support for climate policy. This article uses a mixed methods approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Q-methodology (Q) to interrogate parliamentarians’ perspectives on climate change and human mobility politics. I identify four distinct perspectives on climate change and human mobility politics: 1) a responsible position in the world; 2) the climate-reluctant racist; 3) trust in the international community; 4) our way or the highway. I analyse these perspectives in the context of uneven social and power relations and argue that the instrumentalization of (fear of) people on the move to advance climate policy is not only normatively but practically flawed. I draw on points of consensus and dissent between the four perspectives to postulate that the four perspectives identified are divided along different understandings of responsibility and different conceptualisations of what national interests entail. Generating a deeper understanding of how politicians understand responsibility is therefore a more promising avenue for kickstarting cooperation on climate change and human mobilities, while fostering a more positive discourse around human mobilities generally is much more likely to move the needle towards productive policy outcomes.

The article evidences to what extent rights-based climate litigation is applied as a strategy to enhance the recognition and protection of climate-induced migrants. Adopting a deductive approach and desk review, the study, firstly, illustrates how climate-induced migration has been addressed by International
Human Rights Law, with some attention also paid to the growing application of the right to a safe climate and climate justice. The study highlights the duties of both States and private actors in tackling the emerging climate crisis under the human rights agenda. Relevant responsibilities are framed in particular within the scope of rights-based litigation dealing with the topic. We present an analysis of litigation linked to climate-induced migration that were filed before distinct international, regional, and national jurisdictions and in doing so propose a chronology of cases – structured in three generations – of how population movements as a result of climate change have been discussed by judicial means. The first generation relates to cases that consider the issue from the perspective of protection – in both national, regional, and international jurisdictions. The second generation emerges within general climate litigation claims, involving commitments linked to the climate agenda. In addition to raising (forced) population movements as one of the expected impacts of climate change, such cases frequently call upon a rights-based approach. The third generation encompasses rights-based cases centered on climate-induced migrants per se. The strengths and limitations of rights-based litigation to respond to the topic are finally highlighted: we conclude that litigation remains a blunt but not unpromising tool to respond to climate-induced migration. Generic references to the risk of (forced) population movements largely prevail; nevertheless, strategic rights-based litigation can facilitate the visibility of climate-induced migrants to the international community, fostering the development of legal solutions in the longer term.

co-authors:

Diogo Andreolla Serraglio, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research;

Fernanda de Salles Cavedon-Capdeville,  Federal University of Santa Catarina

Fanny Thornton, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Climate Change is significantly driving some of the worst humanitarian crises in human history. From food shortages to water scarcity, from violent conflicts to disease outbreak and displacement. Climate crises are wreaking havoc in different parts of the world, particularly the Pacific Islands. Slow and rapid onset extreme weather events are forcibly displacing people from their homes, both internally and externally, while also increasingly disrupting human mobility patterns in the Pacific Island countries and territories. Despite contributing less than 1% of the global carbon emission, the Pacific Island countries are the hardest hit by climate events. This is evident in Nauru and Kiribati Islands, where nearly 74% and 94% of households in these respective countries are forced to move due to climate-induced disasters, such as sea level rise and cyclones. Environmental conditions, such as droughts and flooding events, have also triggered 98% of household movement in Tuvalu. Also, there are significant records of cross-border movement into neighboring countries, such as New Zealand and Australia. Despite all these ordeals and the uncertainties clouding the future of Pacific Island nations, the contemporary global migration regime has been complacent to this growing reality of climate-induced mobility. Particularly, there has been a deafening silence towards redefining the place of climate migrants in global migration laws and protocols, including institutionalising global legal instruments to address this growing concern. In this light, this paper presents a critical assessment of the current global migration governance, specifically regarding its gesture towards climate-induced migration in the Pacific Islands. This paper further evaluates the 1951 Refugee Convention and makes a case for the urgent need to revise the global migration instrument to reflect the current realities of climate-induced mobility. It also explores the realities of climate change in Pacific Islands and how it is disrupting human mobility patterns. Finally, this paper presents a frame of reference for the current global migration regime to drive sustainable and institutionalized responses to climate-induced mobility in the Pacific Island countries

Climate change is already having a devastating impact on people around the world. It exacerbates the precariousness in which many already live and amplifies existing factors that make people vulnerable to modern slavery. In many cases, migration becomes the only viable solution for survival. Migrants are at heightened risk of severe exploitation compared to non-migrant populations but in the context of climate change immobile people may also find themselves more vulnerable to modern slavery.

Drawing from our work, our presentation focuses on the intersection of modern slavery with climate change and migration. We explore why and how individuals can become vulnerable to severe exploitation due to the effects of climate change. We thus elaborate on how macro and micro factors influence vulnerability to modern slavery and how they intersect, highlighting what we know to date and which areas require more research. Through case studies, we illustrate how different contexts, including rapid and slow onset, push people into migration and how vulnerabilities are context dependent. As part of this, we address the vicious circle that emerges from environmental degradation, leading to a lack of alternatives for people than to move and work in exploitative industries that contribute to amplifying the effects of climate change and the thriving of modern slavery. Finally, we address solutions, possibly presenting any preliminary findings from our ongoing work, and introducing best approaches for the design of solutions that effectively minimise vulnerabilities to modern slavery for those who migrate (or not) in the context of climate change.