Climate and migration

According to a World Bank report, by 2050, climate impacts could force more than 140 million people to move within their countries in just three regions alone – sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Globally, it is estimated that up to a billion people could be driven from their homes within the next 30 years – less than half a lifetime. If so, human civilisation will not have experienced migration on such a scale in its history.

It is likely that those who leave their homes will settle in cities, which offer the most diverse opportunities for employment and access to services. This is especially true for the forcibly displaced, as more than 60 percent of refugees and at least 80 percent of internally displaced people (IDP) live in urban areas.

Moving to cities does not come without risks. Here, migrants and displaced people may settle in already marginalised neighbourhoods and be vulnerable to labour exploitation, dangerous working and living conditions or trafficking. Cities themselves are often acutely vulnerable to climate hazards, meaning that new arrivals may end up swapping one set of climate risks for another.

This leaves cities facing multiple pressures, as in-migration increases pressure on services and infrastructure, while climate impacts – from extreme heat and fires to flooding and landslides – may displace people within city boundaries. Despite this, mayors are taking action to protect their new and existing residents while preparing for an inclusive and green path forward that recognises the vital contributions newcomers make and the assets they bring.

In Freetown, where the population is expected to double over the next 10 years due in great part to climate migration from across Sierra Leone, Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr’s administration has been working with migrant youth to improve waste services in informal settlements. In the United States, Houston took in hundreds of thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 only to face its own major devastation when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. In response, the city, under Mayor Sylvester Turner’s leadership, launched the Resilient Houston Strategy, which works to protect people in at-risk neighbourhoods and provide choices for residents who live in floodways. In Bangladesh, an estimated 2,000 people arrive in Dhaka daily, having migrated from other cities along a coastline that is increasingly affected by storms and rising sea levels. The Dhaka South City Corporation has developed a city-funded shelter for migrants designed to ease their transition to urban life.

Recent months have seen greater global recognition of the issue of climate migration. In February, US President Joe Biden issued an executive order directing officials to carry out a study of the impact of climate breakdown on migration, including “options for protection and resettlement” and opportunities to work with “localities to respond to migration resulting directly or indirectly from climate change”.

Excerpted: ‘Cities are at the front lines of climate and migration’

Aljazeera.com