ARGUMENT: Climate migrationPolicy Approaches to Climate Migration: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean

Published 11 November 2020

As climate change has gained more attention and governments have developed policies to reduce carbon emissions and manage increasing environmental risks, climate migration—the movement of people primarily due to changes in the environment that result from climate change—has become a key issue for research and policy.

As climate change has gained more attention and governments have developed policies to reduce carbon emissions and manage increasing environmental risks, climate migration—the movement of people primarily due to changes in the environment that result from climate change—has become a key issue for research and policy. Understanding climate migration presents complex challenges. Pablo Escribano writes in Lawfare that while the displacement of people affected by the types of disasters that have been accelerated by climate change is readily observable, understanding long-term trends is more complicated and will require creative analysis. Nonetheless, he says, countries are beginning to press ahead with policies to mitigate the factors that contribute to climate migration and address the displacement of people when it occurs.

He notes that attributing human mobility to actual or perceived changes in the environment is difficult, as migration responds to many dynamics, not just climatic drivers. The primary sources and global estimates which are most cited on climate migration derive from disaster displacement situations that involve sudden-onset hazards. In these cases, it is less complicated to isolate the environmental drivers of mobility than in slower onset processes. It is generally more challenging to capture migration due to droughts and land degradation due to the intersection of many different vulnerabilities, including, for instance, food insecurity, decreased income, unemployment and conflict. 

He adds:

Despite conceptual and definitional challenges, research and policymaking on climate migration have greatly advanced in recent years. Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are implementing different approaches to address climate migration, including provisions in climate, migration, and disaster risk frameworks, as well as the current development of specific processes. Data gaps remain a key concern as they may hamper the development of accurate interventions, and addressing this shortcoming will require additional investments in evidence collection and analysis. Policy coherence remains a structural need in this area: As climate migration is approached from multiple policy angles, ensuring synergies and avoiding duplications is crucial.

The inclusion of climate migration in international frameworks like the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration provides an opportunity for countries to report on the progress of their interventions during regular review exercises. Initial evidence shows opportunities for quick action, notably the use of available data sources to better understand and map climate migration patterns to enhance protection measures for displaced persons and climate migrants, and the development of national task forces to approach the complexities of climate migration from different points of view and harness the positive outcomes of migration as an adaptation strategy to climate change.