Climate migrants: the human face of climate change

The report looks closely at three country examples: Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Mexico, all countries with very different climatic, livelihood, demographic, migration and development patterns.

It is worth taking a moment to remember that behind all trends there are real people with dreams, hopes, and aspirations.

Watch Monoara's story



Monoara Khatun is a 23-year-old seamstress from Kurigram, Bangladesh. Her village has been flooded many times and this has led to increasing unemployment and food scarcity.

“Floods come every year, but this year the situation is worse,” says Monoara. My house is badly affected by this year’s flood, and many rice paddies got washed away.” Monoara moved to the capital city, Dhaka where she was connected to the NARI project, a World Bank initiative designed to provide training, transitional housing, counseling and job placement services for poor and vulnerable women. Since then, she has been able to support her family back in Kurigram and has gained financial independence. Monoara’s story highlights the importance of good development planning through programs like NARI, helping countries be better prepared for increased migration.

According to the report’s “pessimistic” scenario, Right now, close to half of Bangladesh’s population depends on agriculture, so changes in water availability and crop productivity could drive major shifts in population. Bangladesh has already undertaken initiatives in the water, health, forestry, agriculture, and infrastructure sectors to mainstream climate adaptation into its national development plans. Several adaptation programs are underway, including a program to enhance food security in the northwest of the country and another to encourage labor migration from the northwest during the dry season.

Watch Wolde's story

Wolde Danse, a 28-year-old from Ethiopia, is also turning adversity into a chance to change the course of his life. The eighth of 16 children, he left his father’s small farm in a drought-stricken part of his country and moved to the city of Hawassa in search of new opportunities: After some initial struggles, Wolde enrolled in Ethiopia’s extensive urban safety net program, and now he receives a small salary for supervising street cleaners. As part of the program, Wolde can attend Hawassa’s university without paying tuition, and he’s planning to finish his studies to benefit his country and his family.

0, with Ethiopia one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change in Africa, due to its reliance on rain-fed agriculture. Ethiopia’s population is likely to grow by 60-85 percent by 2050, placing additional pressure on the country’s natural resources and institutions. Ethiopia is taking steps to diversify its economy and prepare for increased internal migration.

Sometimes, however, migration is not the answer

Watch Javier's story

Javier Martinez, 26, and his brother have chosen to stay in their community in Oaxaca, Mexico and expand their carpentry business. They have been able to do so thanks to a sustainable forestry program that has helped to attract investors and enabled the community to adapt to a changing climate while building economic opportunities. Javier explains: “At the forest level there is employment, in businesses there is employment, so there is not a strong need to go away, because in the community there is a wide range of opportunities.” Efforts like these around the world to build more sustainable forestry programs are paying climate dividends globally and supporting economies like Javier’s locally.

According to the report’s worst-case scenario, Latin America is projected to have 17 million internal climate migrants by 2050. Mexico is a large and diverse country in terms of physical geography, climate, biodiversity, demographic and social composition, economic development, and culture. Rain-fed cropland areas are likely to experience the greatest “out-migration”, mainly as a result of declining crop productivity. There will also be increases in average and extreme temperatures, especially in low-lying (and therefore hotter) regions, such as coastal Mexico and especially the Yucatan. However, as an upper-middle-income country with a diversified and expanding economy, a predominantly urban population, and a large youth population entering the labor force, Mexico has the potential to adapt to climate change. Still, pockets of poverty will persist, given that climate-sensitive smallholders, self-employed farmers and independent farmers tend to have higher than average poverty rates.

Taking action

Monoara, Wolde and Javier’s stories tell us that, while internal climate migration is a growing reality in many countries, it doesn’t have to be a crisis.

The report finds that countries can take action in three main areas:



1. Cut greenhouse gases now:



. However, even at this level of warming, countries will be locked into a certain level of internal climate migration. Still higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions could lead to the severe disruption of livelihoods and ecosystems, further exacerbating the conditions for increased climate migration.



2. Embed climate migration in development planning:

Most regions have laws, policies, and strategies that are poorly equipped to deal with people moving from areas of increasing climate risk into areas that may already be heavily populated. To secure resilience and development prospects for everyone affected, action is needed at every phase of migration (before, during and after moving).

3. Invest now to improve data on the scale and scope of local climate migration:

Evidence-based research, complemented by country-level modeling, is vital. In support of this, new data sources, including from satellite imagery and mobile phones, combined with advances in climate information, can help countries improve the quality of information about likely internal migration.

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