MigrationHow Does Climate Change Drive Migration, and What Can Be Done about It?

Published 7 June 2021

April saw a 20-year high in the number of people stopped at the U.S./Mexico border, and President Joe Biden recently raised the cap on annual refugee admissions. Stanford researchers discuss how climate change’s effect on migration will change, how we can prepare for the impacts and what kind of policies could help alleviate the issue.

April saw a 20-year high in the number of people stopped at the U.S./Mexico border, and President Joe Biden recently raised the cap on annual refugee admissions. Stanford researchers discuss how climate change’s effect on migration will change, how we can prepare for the impacts and what kind of policies could help alleviate the issue.

In the face of a mounting humanitarian crisis at the U.S./Mexico border, the Biden administration has acknowledged climate change among the powerful forces pushing migrants from Central America. A $4 billion federal commitment to address the root causes of irregular migration acknowledges the need for adaptation efforts to help alleviate the situation.

The challenge is not limited to the border. Last year, weather-related disasters around the world uprooted 30 million people – more than the population of the 14 largest U.S. cities combined – and wildfires displaced more than a million Americans, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

Rob Jordan of Stanford Newsdiscussed with Stanford climate and behavior experts how climate change’s effect on migration will change, how we can prepare for the impacts and what kind of policies could help alleviate the issue. The researchers include Chris Field, a climate scientist who has led UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change efforts to analyze climate-related risks, impacts and adaptation opportunities; Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, a behavioral scientist who studies how people react to challenges associated with global environmental change; Erica Bower, a PhD student who studies human mobility in the context of climate change impacts and served as a climate change and disaster displacement specialist at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees; Nina Berlin Rubin, a PhD student in Earth system science whose research focuses on decision-making in the face of climate extremes.

Field is the Perry L. McCarty Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, a professor of Earth system science and biology and a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy. Wong-Parodi is an assistant professor of Earth system science in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences; and a center fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Bower is a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.