Perspective: ImmigrationHow Climate Change Is Driving Emigration from Central America

Published 9 September 2019

Migration from Central America has gotten a lot of attention these days, including the famous migrant caravans. But much of it focuses on the way migrants from this region – especially El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras – are driven out by gang violence, corruption and political upheaval. These factors are important and require a response from the international community. But displacement driven by climate change is significant too.

Miranda Cady Hallett, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Dayton, met Ruben (not his real name) on the back of pick-up truck in Palo Verde, El Salvador, as he was taking dried coffee beans to market. Ruben told her that, for the first time, he planned to save up his money to migrate out of El Salvador. His story is playing out across Central America among many migrants and would-be migrants. 

Hallett writes in The Conversation that rising global temperatures, the spread of crop disease and extreme weather events have made coffee harvests unreliable in places like El Salvador. On top of that, market prices are unpredictable.

As a cultural anthropologist who studies factors of displacement in El Salvador, Hallett say she sees how Ruben’s situation is reflective of a much broader global phenomenon of people leaving their homes, directly or indirectly due to climate change and the degradation of their local ecosystem. And as environmental conditions are projected to get worse under current trends, this raises unresolved legal questions on the status and security of people like Ruben and his family.

She writes:

Migration from Central America has gotten a lot of attention these days, including the famous migrant caravans. But much of it focuses on the way migrants from this region – especially El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras – are driven out by gang violencecorruption and political upheaval.

These factors are important and require a response from the international community. But displacement driven by climate change is significant too.

Hallett concludes:

For several years now, scholars and legal advocates have been asking how to respond to people displaced by environmental conditions. Do existing models of humanitarian response and resettlement work for this new population? Could such persons be recognized as in need of protection under international law, similar to political refugees?

Among the most complicated political questions is who should step up to deal with the harms of climate change, considering that wealthier countries pollute more but are often shielded from the worst effects. How can responsibility be assigned, and more importantly, what is to be done?