EurActiv: Intensifying climate change is going to lead to more people being displaced in the poorest areas of the world, requiring new responses to immigration, a group of researchers has warned. A transatlantic study team set up by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) published the first results of its research into climate-induced migration in Brussels last week (30 April), stressing that climate change is going to create a growing new group of immigrants. The worst impacts will be felt in the poorest parts of the world where people are already vulnerable, they warned.Separating the impact of climate change from other factors driving immigration is difficult, the researchers said. They identified drought and desertification, rising sea levels, competition for natural resources and intensifying acute natural disasters such as cyclones as main climate scenarios likely to affect immigration in future.
"Our projection is that the most migration […] is likely to be internal movements, not international [ones]," said Susan Martin, director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University and a leader of the GMF team.
But she stressed that although most movement will be south to south, this does not mean the Western world can ignore the problem as the increased flow of people will create conflict and require humanitarian aid.
While drought and sea-level change are likely to lead to gradual migration, it will look much like economic migration except that the affected population will have no home to return to. Rich countries are not equipped to deal with the new wave of immigration, the researchers said, pointing to major gaps in both international and national law covering international immigration…..
This photo is from the documentary Home Across Lands shot on location at The Shimelba Refugee Camp in Northern Ethiopia in 2008. Shot by John Lavall, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
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