A SYSTEMS DYNAMICAL ANALYSIS OF RURAL OUT-MIGRATION IN WOLLO, ETHIOPIA © 2009 ... (PDFDrive)

CLIMATE CHANGE, LIVELIHOODS, AND FORCED MIGRATION
A SYSTEMS DYNAMICAL ANALYSIS OF RURAL OUT-MIGRATION IN

WOLLO, ETHIOPIA
Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy Thesis

Submitted by Justin Ginnetti
April 24, 2009
© 2009 Justin Ginnetti
http://fletcher.tufts.edu
1
T ABLE OF C O NTENT S
C HAPT ER 1: I NTR ODU CTI O N 3
The Scale an d S cope o f Climate Ch an ge -Ind uced M igrat ion
C HAPT ER 2: P R OBLEM D EFI NIT IO N A ND TH E P R OBLEM OF D EFIN ITI ON 6
Climate C han ge Re fu ge es , th e P rot e ction Ga p, an d Du ra ble S olut io ns
C HAPT ER 3: L IT ERA TURE R EVI EW 22
Effo rts t o Ex am in e th e R ela tions h ip Bet wee n C lim ate Cha n ge a nd
Hu ma n Migr atio n
C HAPT ER 4: S YST EMS D Y NA MI CS A ND C LI MAT E C H AN G E -F ORC ED M IGR ATI ON 41
Live liho od s an d Mig rat io n in Wo llo , Et hiop ia
C HAPT ER 5: C O NCLUSI O N 63
A Lo ok Ah ead a t Fu rt her Res ear ch O pp ort un it ies
2
C HAPT ER 1
I NTRO DUCT IO N : T H E S CAL E AN D S COP E OF C L I MAT E C H AN GE -I N DUC ED M I GRATI O N
Thanks to the scientific consensus that has emerged over the last two decades
about the existence of anthropogenic climate change, the discourse has shifted from
whether climate change was real to how humans can mitigate the change, and now the
dialogue includes substantial discussion about how to adapt to it. One such “adaptation
strategy” is migration. Some coastal populations will be displaced due to erosion, more
severe hydro-meteorological disasters, and rising sea levels attributed to the thermal
expansion of warming water and the melting of land-based ice masses in Greenland and
Antarctica. Climate-related phenomena at the other end of the spectrum, such as
desertification, drought, and irregular rainfall will put more pressure on populations that
are already vulnerable due to socio-economic factors. At the extreme, some have
speculated that future conflicts over scarce resources will become another, more
indirect, cause of human migrations. 1
What is the magnitude of climate change’s impact on human migration? Once
researchers established a conceptual link between predicted climatic changes and the
effects of those changes on human systems, they began publishing estimates of the
number of potential migrants, the most famous being Norman Myers. 2 Unfortunately,
there is little consensus when it comes to the definition of a “climate change migrant”
1
Clarke, John Innes and Leszek A. Kosinski. 1982. Redistribution of population in Africa . London
; Exeter, N.H.: Heinemann Educational, Edwards, Scott. 2008. Social Breakdown in Darfur. Forced
Migration Review 31: 23-24.
2
Myers, Norman. 1993. Environmental Refugees in a Globally Warmed World. BioScience 43, no.
11: 752-761.
3
or “environmental refugee”—in short, someone who has moved due to climate or
environmental change. For example, some estimates draw upon only one or two climate
change-related phenomena, often sea-level rise or desertification, while others draw
broader boundaries and include anthropogenic (but not climatic) changes such as
deforestation; some predictions consider environmentally driven labor migration, others
don’t; and some scholars look ahead as far as 2050, others run to the end of the
century, and some eschew emissions-contingent time horizons altogether and instead
measure migration flows against temperature rise. As expected, the differences in
underlying assumptions have yielded vastly different predictions.
Table 1 Sample of Estimates of Climate Change-Induced Migration

So urce : Esti m ate: Tim efra m e:
IPCC (1990)a 150 million 2050
Norman Myers (1993) 150 million 2050
“when global
Norman Myers (2005) 200 million "environmental refugees" warming takes hold”
IPCC (2007) No estimate N/A
“the exact number of people who will
actually be displaced or forced to
migrate will depend on the level of
investment, planning, and resources at a
government’s disposal to defend these
areas or provide access to public
Stern Review (2006) services and food aid” N/A
Christian Aid (2007) 1,000 million 2050
Christian Aid (2009) 250 million 2050
(a Based on previous estimates by Norman Myers, among others) Sources: IPCC (1990; 2007);
Myers (1993, 2007); Stern Review (2006); and Christian Aid (2007; 2009)
This paper will examine the effect of climate change on human migrations. First,
it will consider how this relationship has been conceptualized and described by experts
and will survey the existing scholarship on the subject. Second, it will develop a new
4
methodology that incorporates a sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA) and new
economic labor migration (NELM) into an integrated climate and migration systems
dynamics model. Third, the model will then be tested with actual data from Wollo,
Ethiopia, and the results and outputs will then be analyzed. Finally, gaps in existing
knowledge and avenues of future research will be highlighted.
Climate change may give rise to new migration patterns and novel
reorganizations of people and societies. However, this paper will argue that the most
profitable consideration of potential migration flows should be based upon existing
trends, data, and human experiences. Our understanding of climate change’s impact on
human migration patterns in the future ought to reflect how the former has affected
the latter already. The dominant migration trend for at least the last half-century has
been the relocation of people (and livelihoods) from rural to urban settings; more
importantly, “rural-urban migration and the transformation of rural settlements into
cities are important determinants of the high population growth expected in urban
areas of the less developed regions over the next thirty years.”3 This paper will argue
that climate change’s primary effect on migration will be an acceleration of this existing
rural-to-urban trend, and it will test this hypothesis by examining observed climatic
changes and human migration patterns in Ethiopia. The goal of this paper is to shed
light on the web of factors that explain how and when people decide to leave their rural
home and move to an urban center.
3
ECOSOC. 2002. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2001 Revision, Data Tables and Highlights.
New York: Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
5
C HAPT ER 2
P ROBL EM D EFI NITI ON AN D TH E P R OBL EM OF D EFINITI O N : C LI M ATE C HA NG E R EFUG EES , TH E
P ROT ECTI ON G AP , A ND D URABL E S OLUTI O NS
In the 1980s and 1990s, Norman Myers predicted that the number of
“environmental,” “climate,” or “climate change” “refugees” could total 150 million
people by 2050. This prediction has been attacked from all sides and even revised by
Myers himself.4 Where do we stand now? Unfortunately, the definitional battle still
rages on as of this writing.
One crucial definitional problem, often understated even by the experts
discussed below, concerns the fact that even within the most narrowly defined
category of climate change-induced migrants, one must account for the fact that many
of these people migrate for only short time before returning to their home, especially if
they cannot find work. 5 Temporary migration is a strategy employed by both entire
households and by individuals within a household, and in the Horn of Africa many rural-
urban migrants leave their agricultural livelihood to seek off-farm work when they are
not needed on their household’s farm. 6 Another trend, not addressed in this paper, is
4
Black, Richard. 2001. Environmental Refugees: Myth or Reality? Geneva: UNHCR, Brown, Oli.
2007. Climate Change and Forced Migration: Observations, projections and implications. Geneva:
United Nations Human Development Report, Myers, Norman. 2002. Environmental Refugees: A
Growing Phenomenon of the 21st Century. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 357,
no. 1420: 609-613.
5
Basso, S., O. Casacchia, L. Cassata, C. Reynaud, and M. Said. 2001. The Geographical
Distribution of Urban and Rural Population. In Migration and Urbanization in Ethiopia, with Special
Reference to Addis Ababa:7-51. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Rome, Italy: Central Statistics
Authority (CSA) and Institute for Population Research (IPR).
6
Devereux, Stephen. 2000. Destitution in Ethiopia's Northeast Highlands (Amhara Region).
Addis Ababa: IDS and Save the Children (UK).
6
the large volume of rural-rural migration, which may occur after a household sells its
property and decides to sharecrop in a more productive region.
Recently, a number of important stakeholders have weighed in on the issue of
terminology to compel the acceptance of a common definition. The United Nations
Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published People on the
Move, a handbook of terms and concepts that advocates for “environmentally
displaced person(s)” or “environmental forced migrant(s).”7
In the October 2008 special edition of Forced Migration Review, which focuses
on climate change and forced migration, Dun and Gemenne observe that for academic
purposes, “the interest in developing a definition lies in understanding the factors
underlying migration decisions. While this is also of interest and concern to
policymakers, they have an additional need to know what rights such a person is
afforded. Without a precise definition, practitioners and policymakers are not easily able
to establish plans and make targeted progress.”8 However, Dun and Gemenne’s analysis
identifies two factors that hinder the realization of a commonly accepted definition. On
one hand, academic turf wars can generate confusion because scholars have a
professional incentive to define the climate change-induced migrants narrowly so that
they can “fence off” environmental migration within the larger field of migration
7
UNESCO. 2008. People on the Move: Handbook of selected terms and concepts. The Hague
and Paris: UNESCO.
8
Dun, Olivia and François Gemenne. 2008. Defining 'environmental migration'. Forced Migration
Review 31: 10-11.
7
studies. On the other hand, policymakers’ and the media’s “appetite for numbers”
compels researchers to hype their figures to make them seem more policy-relevant.9
Dun and Gemenne tentatively argue in favor of an inclusive definition and are
even comfortable with using the contentious word refugee. They reason that in many
instances, those vulnerable to climate change and hydro-meteorological disasters (i.e.,
those most likely to be forced to migrate) often suffer from persecution and economic
marginalization, which would entitle them to some protection of the 1951 Refugee
Convention.
Appearing in the pages of the same issue of Forced Migration Review, Maria
Stavropoulou argues more explicitly for the adoption of the phrase environmental
refugee “even though [it] is legally inaccurate,” because it “evokes a sense of global
responsibility and accountability, as well as a sense of urgency for impending
disasters.”10 According to Stavropoulou, the opposition to the term refugee—and,
therefore, the barrier to a common definition—is political because irresponsible
governments want to deny the rights that the word refugee confers upon those it
describes. Even when those displaced by climate or their environment are not
deliberately persecuted, they still have much in common with traditional Convention
refugees, because “[w]hen migration is forced, and when this is combined with absence
of protection by one’s own state, then international protection considerations arise.”11
9
________. 2008. Defining 'environmental migration'. Forced Migration Review 31: 10-11.
10
Stavropoulou, Maria. 2008. Drowned in definitions? Forced Migration Review 31: 11-12.
11
________. 2008. Drowned in definitions? Forced Migration Review 31: 11-12.
8
Given that Stavropoulou worked for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR), her argument is shocking, as we shall soon see. As a direct rebuke of Myers,
Stavropoulou, and others who use the word refugee, Richard Black (writing in an official
capacity on behalf of the UNHCR) claims that there are no “climate,” “climate change,”
or “environmental” refugees. 12 Instead, Black argues that one’s decision to migrate is
caused by a multitude of factors of which the environment would count as just one.
Moreover, he also claims that the environmental component is overstated when it isn’t
trumped up altogether. 13 Black’s instinct to decry the use of the term refugee is
correct, but he ultimately carries his argument too far, to the point where he comes
across as a “climate denier.”
The UNHCR’s Etienne Piguet (writing in the UNHCR’s “New Issues in Refugee
Research” series) also argues against using refugee but still acknowledges the causal
role of climate change and environmental degradation in human migrations. Unlike
Black, Piguet focuses on the confusion that the term refugee generates in the context
of climate change as compared to its original legal meaning, which applies to “the
juridical status recognized by UN Convention of 1951, referring to any person having a
‘well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality,
membership of a particular social group or political opinion.’”14 As Piguet recognizes,
the issue at hand is that the word refugee has a precise, well-defined legal meaning,
one which is obscured by its misuse and exaggeration, or when it is used beyond proper
12
Black, Richard. 2001. Environmental Refugees: Myth or Reality? Geneva: UNHCR.
13
________. 2001. Environmental Refugees: Myth or Reality? Geneva: UNHCR.
14
Piguet, Etienne. 2008. Climate Change and Forced Migration. Geneva: UNHCR.
9
juridical context. This genealogical understanding of the legal definition of refugee has
since gained support beyond the UNHCR’s office. In January 2009, the Office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a special report
on the relationship between climate change and human rights. In the report’s discussion
of climate change, human rights, and displacement, it states:
Persons moving voluntarily or forcibly across an international border due
to environmental factors would be entitled to general human rights
guarantees in a receiving State, but would often not have a right of entry
to that State. Persons forcibly displaced across borders for environmental
reasons have been referred to as “climate refugees” or “environmental
refugees.” The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, and other
humanitarian organizations have advised that these terms have no legal
basis in international refugee law and should be avoided in order not to
undermine the international legal regime for the protection of refugees. 15
The crucial distinction one must bear in mind is that there are not, and cannot
be, “climate,” “climate change,” or “environmental” refugees until the UN Convention
and Protocol framework on refugees is amended to incorporate this category of forced
migrants. 16 Furthermore, the majority of the so-called “climate refugees” are expected
to become internally displaced persons and remain inside their national boundaries—and
15
OHCHR. 2009. Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights on the relationship between climate change and human rights. Geneva: United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
16
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. 1951. United Nations, Protocol Relating to the
Status of Refugees. 1967. United Nations.
10
therefore not refugees. 17 So, unless the legal landscape changes, Black is correct—but
he’s correct only in the most narrow, technical sense because, as the Stern Review
points out, there have been refugees who fled their homes due to conflicts in which the
environment was a contributing causal factor. Additionally, there may be new
incidences of statelessness if the ocean, due to sea-level rise, completely swallows up
small island nations such as the Maldives, Kiribati, or Tuvalu.
Absent an expansion of the UNHCR’s official mandate as defined by the 1951
refugee convention and 1968 protocol, there will remain a “protection gap” for people
who have been displaced due to environmental disasters and climate change. Into this
vacuum have poured numerous suggestions for durable solutions. 18 Most proposals
begin by suggesting a new, more accurate term for these displaced people.
Kate Romer, for instance, posits “environmentally displaced person(s),” or
“EDPs,” and “encourages governments to recognize the plight of EDPs and support the
development of migration agreements to assist potentially displaced persons, [and] to
encourage governments to . . . adhere to the Guiding Principles for Internal
Displacement and to recognize the protection needs of those displaced as a result of
climate change within [their] borders.”19 This modest proposition may have the best
chance of being adopted, because it doesn’t impinge upon state sovereignty or the
17
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. 1951. United Nations, Black, Richard. 2001.
Environmental Refugees: Myth or Reality? Geneva: UNHCR.
18
Brown, Oli. 2007. Climate Change and Forced Migration: Observations, projections and
implications. Geneva: United Nations Human Development Report, Hugo, Graeme. 1996.
Environmental Concerns and International Migration. International Migration Review 30, no. 1:
105-131, Romer, K. 2006. "Environmental" Refugees? Forced Migration Review, no. 25: 1.
19
Romer, K. 2006. "Environmental" Refugees? Forced Migration Review, no. 25: 1.
11
right to develop (two frequently invoked excuses for states’ exceptionalism). That said,
because implementation measures would be left to the states, the efficacy of Romer’s
proposal would no doubt vary according to each state’s capacity and disposition
toward the rights of its citizens. Even if the regime in Myanmar adopted the proposal,
for example, one wonders how much less vulnerable coastal Burmese would be.
Sujatha Byravan and Sudhir Chella Rajan prefer “climate exiles” and provocatively
advocate for a form of environmental equity that would provide “immigration benefits,
in advance of disastrous impacts, to people in vulnerable communities on the basis of
the host countries’ historical greenhouse gas emissions”; they reason that such a
solution would benefit host countries economically and quell tensions relating to
international migration and refugees. “Legally, it can be argued to follow from Article 1
and Article 4.8 of the UNFCCC, which respectively call on Parties to use the principle of
equity in accordance with ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ and to ‘meet the
specific needs and concerns of developing country Parties arising from the adverse
effects of climate change.’”20 As compelling as Byravan and Chella Rajan’s call for a
durable solution predicated on agreed-upon principles is, some might argue that they
are being disingenuous in the sense that they have chosen the principles after the fact
(i.e., after we have become aware of the consequences of our carbon emissions). That
said, given the intransigence of the biggest carbon-emitting nations, I am inclined to
overlook their retrospective fishing for the most advantageous ground rules for the
debate.
20
Byravan, Sujatha and Sudhir Chella Rajan. 2006. Providing New Homes for Climate Change
Exiles. Climate Policy 6, no. 2: 6.
12
Like Byravan and Chella Rajan, other academics and policymakers have argued
that current and future climate change-forced migrants are “already protected” by a
normative framework that draws upon an array of treaties and instruments ranging
from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social,
and Cultural Rights to the “Pinheiro” Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for
Refugees and Displaced Persons. 21 One drawback to this strategy of drawing our
attention to already signed and ratified treaties is that it risks diverting our collective
attention to seemingly more urgent situations that would be addressed by the same
instruments. Furthermore, this gesture implicitly raises the question of whether a
multilateral legal framework would be the most effective way to address this problem
given its evident shortcomings: “Indeed, the prospects of this are truly daunting, and
will require leadership, commitment and creativity the likes of which the world has all
too rarely seen in recent decades. And this is where the necessity of adaptation and
human rights must converge and together build a stronger and more vibrant response
than we have witnessed to date.”22
Fabrice Renaud et al. endeavor to differentiate “environmentally motivated
migrants, environmentally forced migrants, and environmental refugees” by using the
following matrix of vulnerability and impact (Figure 1):
21
Leckie, S. 2008. The Human Rights Implications of Climate Change: Where Next? Male',
Maldives: United Nations Development Programme, Shahid, A. 2008. Life on the High(er) Seas:
Adapting to Climate Change in the Maldives. The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 32, no. 2: 8.
22
Maldives: United Nations Development Programme.
13
Figure 1 Matrix of Vulnerability and Impact (Source: Renaud et al., 2007)
Renaud et al. choose to “retain the term refugee to characterize people precipitously
fleeing their place of residence because of an environmental stressor regardless of
whether or not they cross an international border,” or regardless of whether they meet
the other criteria for which one is recognized as a refugee.23 This linguistic sloppiness
infects the authors’ well-intentioned but scattershot cluster of policy
recommendations, which include requests for: better scientific understanding; increased
awareness; greater provision of (preventive) humanitarian assistance; improved
legislation; strengthening institutions and policies; and greater international
23
Renaud, F., J.J. Bogardi, O. Dun, and K. Warner. 2007. Control, Adapt or Flee: How to Face
Environmental Migration? Bonn: United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human
Security.
14
cooperation. 24
Graeme Hugo, by contrast, offers a nuanced historical overview of the problem
in “Environmental Concerns and International Migration” (1996). Although he never
settles on one given term (he uses “environmentally forced migration” and
“environmentally induced migration” interchangeably), Hugo thoroughly rehearses the
arguments against the use of refugee. Furthermore, he even lays some of the
lexicographical blame on the UNHCR, which, he correctly observes, has in practice
extended its mandate to provide humanitarian assistance to displaced victims of
natural disasters even though they do not satisfy the criteria for conventional status
determination. 25 Hugo advocates for broadening the protection measures to include
environmentally forced migrants, but he would argue that such protection is
tantamount to treating the symptom and not the underlying problem. Migration, he
asserts, is just one part of a much bigger global and human development picture:
“Migration is a logical and common immediate response to environmental degradation
and disaster, but is rarely a medium or long-term solution.”26 What’s needed instead, he
argues, are policies that effectively limit population growth (to reduce stress on the
environment), sustainable environmental policies, and better protection of human
24
________. 2007. Control, Adapt or Flee: How to Face Environmental Migration? Bonn: United
Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security.
25
Hugo, Graeme. 1996. Environmental Concerns and International Migration. International
Migration Review 30, no. 1: 105-131.
26
________. 1996. Environmental Concerns and International Migration. International Migration
Review 30, no. 1: 105-131.
15
rights. 27 Unfortunately, what Hugo is talking about is mitigation rather than adaptation,
and he reasons that without effective mitigation, the resulting flows of humans would
be unfathomable, larger than any previous migration in history. Ideally, “international
relocation may provide an enduring solution only in very specific circumstances such as
in small island nations influenced by a significant rise in sea levels.”28
What of this claim, repeated by Hugo and others, that future climate change
induced migrations will represent the largest flows of people in human history? Oli
Brown (who efficiently critiques nearly all of the proposed terms above and finally
settles on simply “forced migrants”) commences his background paper for the United
Nations Development Programme’s 2007-2008 Human Development Report with a
historical consideration of this very issue. He cites archaeological evidence of mass
migrations that suggest that humans have always responded to changes in climate by
migrating: from ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians to the Huns, Germanic hordes,
Visigoths, and Ottomans—and, within the last century, Depression-era farmers in the
Dust Bowl and temporary migrant laborers from the West African Sahel, a region that
has experienced prolonged drought. 29 According to Brown, climate change forced
migrations will build on or amplify previously established patterns: “even in the most
extreme, unanticipated natural disasters . . . migrants, if they have any choice, tend to
travel along pre-existing paths. . . . Most people displaced by environmental causes will
27
Review 30, no. 1: 105-131.
28
Review 30, no. 1: 105-131.
29
implications. Geneva: United Nations Human Development Report.
16
find new homes within the boundaries of their own countries.”30 Echoing the above
policy recommendations, Brown also proposes solutions that are based on the
relaxation of border controls and a more robust form of legal protection via the
expansion of the term refugee. 31
If migration has always been an adaptation strategy, particularly for nomadic
pastoralists, the two most important differences concerning the current situation are:
1) that this particular climate change is driven by human activity; and 2) that we have
at least some ability to observe, anticipate, and plan for these massive displacements.
What most of the above stakeholders discussed above have in common is a
predisposition to accept these displacements and facilitate these flows of forced
migrants. As we shall see below, the UNHCR remains somewhat outside the
mainstream.
“Dur ab le So lutio ns”
The UNHCR’s involvement has given rise to another definitional—or
jurisdictional—dilemma. In the early 2000s, the UNHCR redefined its “Agenda for
Protection” around the concept of “durable solutions.” The “durable solutions”
approach focused long-term resettlement issues, but it also began to think about
states of origin and even the underlying causes of refugee flows such as the links
30
________. 2007. Climate Change and Forced Migration: Observations, projections and
31
CSA. 2009. Atlas on Selected Welfare Indicators of Ethiopian Households. Addis Ababa:
Central Statistics Agency.
17
between vulnerability to hydro-meteorological disasters and refugee flows. 32 Once this
connection was established it was a small step to envision “durable solutions” to
refugee crises through the lenses of humanitarian action and development. 33 And by
contextualizing refugee issues within this context, the UNHCR implicitly broadened the
parameters that might explain refugee flows.
This link also encouraged development-oriented “durable solutions” based on
technological rather than legal solutions and advocates for decreasing vulnerability in
order to keep would-be forced migrants where they are by reducing the vulnerability of
rural livelihoods in the developing world. These solutions resonate within the economic
development community and frequently incorporate the diffusion of new efficient
technologies like drip irrigation, synthetic fertilizers, or water purification systems.
Upon implementation, these technologies might indeed pay tremendous dividends, but
they can also unintentionally “lock in” path-dependent patterns that ultimately trap
rural populations in vulnerable livelihoods over the longer term. 34 For example, a new
irrigation system might temporarily yield greater crop production within a rural village
that had been struggling to produce adequate crops due to declining (and climate
32
UNHCR. 2008. Climate change, natural disasters and human displacement: a UNHCR
perspective. Geneva: UNHCR.
33
________. 2006. Rethinking durable solutions. In The State of the World's Refugees 2006.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, UNHCR. 2006. Protracted refugee situations: the searchfor
practical solutions. In The State of the World's Refugees 2006. Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press.
34
Beniston, Martin. 2004. Issues Relating to Environmental Change and Population Migrations. A
Climatologist's Perspective. In Environmental Change and its Implications for Population
Migration, ed. J. Unroh, M.S. Krol and N. Kliot. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, Berger, Thomas. 2004. Innovation as an Alternative to Migration? Exemplary Results
from a Multiple-Agent Programming Model Applied to Chile. In Environmental Change and its
Implications for Population Migration, ed. J. Unroh, M.S. Krol and N. Kliot. Dordrecht, The
Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
18
change associated) annual rainfall. Improved crop production due to the new, more
efficient irrigation system might encourage local farmers to expect greater productivity
in the future, and as a result, they may decide to have more children (or, more likely,
more of their children will survive into adulthood). By eventually increasing the village’s
population, the introduction of this technological solution will have placed more people
at risk if the water supply dwindles due to overexploitation or the persistence of the
drought. Or, by building a sea wall around their capital, Maldivians might believe they
have provided themselves with protection from the ocean; although adequate to stave
off the slow encroach of rising sea levels, the wall may not provide protection from
cyclones or another tsunami.
This kind of speculation is obviously fraught with uncertainty, but it
encapsulates the challenge facing anyone who proposes durable solutions. Moreover,
this oversimplified, contrived example also highlights the ethical quandary associated
with this problem. Those who uncritically accept the fact that there will be enormous
migrations on a scale previously unseen must reconcile this approach with their
obligation to mitigate environmental damage and strengthen vulnerable livelihoods
wherever this is possible—their failure to do so might well contradict the desires (to
remain in place) of the very people they intend to serve. They forget that migration is
a combination of push and pull, not just a push. On the other hand, technological
solutions that mitigate the impact of climate change will almost certainly not work
absent more comprehensive policies that address other facets of peoples’ livelihoods.
19
Use o f T er m in olo g y in t his Re po rt
Strategies such as using the term refugee and/or employing the broadest
possible definition of people who will be displaced by climate change (in order to
generate outsized estimates of migrants) have succeeded in gaining the media’s and
the public’s attention. However, when researchers or policymakers employ these
tactics, they ultimately fail to advance our understanding of this phenomenon because
they have tended to sidetrack valuable conversations about methodology with
sensationalistic arguments and claims. The juxtaposition of these arguments’
sensationalism and cynical calculation with the conservatism and painstaking
methodological self-criticism of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
only highlights the absurdity of the former. As we shall see below, the IPCC may be
conservative, but the appropriate response should be objective, not politically self-
interested.
Therefore, this paper will employ contextually specific, conservative parameters,
and will make underlying assumptions explicit; this practice derives from the belief that
the seriousness of this problem needs no further sensationalization and that accurate
numbers will serve as a better basis for sound policymaking than hyped numbers. In
practical terms, this means that the figures generated by this paper’s systems
dynamics model will be scrutinized and checked against reality and common sense.
A final word about terms and definitions. Researchers have been calling for
terminological consensus for the better part of a decade—or longer. Because the word
refugee already has a specific legal definition and its use is contested by numerous
20
stakeholders, this paper will eschew it. Except when quoting others, this paper will use
the following two phrases interchangeably to refer to those people forced to migrate
as a result of climate change: “climate change-forced migrants” and “climate change-
induced migrants.” The decision to avoid use of refugee should in no way be
interpreted as an attempt to dispel claims about the marginalization and persecution
that many climate change-forced migrants face. Indeed, the relative marginalization and
failure of development (so called) to reach agro-pastoral communities serves as a
starting point of this paper’s analysis, and is addressed in its systems dynamics model.
In fact, one of the outputs of the present study is the realization that the existing
debate overlooks one of the most critical populations in this system: temporary
migrants who may leave farms for months each year to supplement the diminishing
returns on their farm assets with income from off-farm labor in towns and cities.
21
C HAPT ER 3
L IT ERATUR E R EVI EW : E FFORTS T O E XA MI NE TH E R ELATI O NSHIP B ET W EEN C L IM ATE
C HA NG E A ND H U MA N M IGRA TIO N
The definitional disparities delineated above concerning the identity of people
forced to migrate due to climate and environmental change have not prevented experts
from studying the relationship between these phenomena. Below, I will consider four
different attempts to address the scale and scope of the problem of forced migration
due to climate change: Norman Myers, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), Britain’s Stern Review, and the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM)
research on the subject (International Dialogue on Migration Expert Seminar: Migration
and the Environment and “Climate Change and Migration: Improving Methodologies to
Estimate Flows”). There are may other published estimates, but most can be traced
back to Myers, the IPCC, the Stern Review, and the IOM.
Each of the four perspectives incorporates its own particular set of assumptions
and inconsistent, competing terminology; yet, at the same time, these viewpoints also
draw extensively on one another’s work in a potentially confusing and self-reinforcing
manner. In the hope of establishing greater clarity, I will consider each effort
individually—starting with earliest (Norman Myers) and working up to the most recent
(IOM)—to parse the differences in methodology and establish the reliability of their
estimates. The literature review reveals that significant conceptual and methodological
improvements have been made since Norman Myers’s first estimates, but many of the
key issues have not yet been resolved adequately, such as how to count temporary
22
migrants who leave their rural households but do not return permanently in urban
centers.
Nor ma n M ye rs
For many years, the most frequently cited estimates of the number of people
who will be—or already have been—forced to migrate due to climate change have come
from the British academic Norman Myers. By 1993, Myers had joined the growing
number of critics who had identified climate change as a potential driver of human
migration. He defined “environmental refugees” as: “people who can no longer gain a
secure livelihood in their erstwhile homelands because of drought, soil erosion,
desertification, and other environmental problems. In their desperation, they feel they
have no alternative but to seek sanctuary elsewhere. . . . Not all of them have fled their
countries; many are internally displaced.”35 Given his use of the past and present tense,
Myers has accurately situated this issue as an immediate concern rather than a problem
of the remote future. It has been more than fifteen years since Myers initially raised
this issue, so it’s fair to ask: Who are these “environmental refugees”? And how many
of them are there? Unfortunately, as we shall see, there is no easy way to begin
answering these questions.
Thanks to his prolonged engagement with this subject, Myers has frequently
updated his own calculations. For example, at the 13th Organization for Security and
Co-operation Economic in Europe’s (OCSE) Economic Forum in Prague, he declared,
35
Myers, Norman. 1993. Environmental Refugees in a Globally Warmed World. BioScience 43,
no. 11: 752-761.
23
“[In] 1995, these environmental refugees totaled at least 25 million people, compared
with 27 million traditional refugees. . . . The environmental refugees total could well
double between 1995 and 2010[, and] when global warming takes hold, there could be
as many as 200 million people . . .”36 This new figure is a 50-million-person increase
from his original “rough estimate.”37
To address the reliability and accuracy of Myers’s numbers, we must consider
their provenance, his methodology, and the assumptions he makes in order to derive
them. First, he assumes the worst-case, business-as-usual scenario from the IPCC; next
he designates 2050 as the “marker year” (i.e., the year through which he counts
aggregate “environmental refugees”); he assumes a 2050 world population of 10
billion; finally, he limits his analysis to exclusively developing countries. 38 As for specific
categories of “environmental refugees,” Myers identifies broad and diverse groups,
such as:
• people in drought-stricken parts of Africa who have had to migrate in order to
receive food aid;
• river delta and small island nation residents displaced by the loss of dry land due
to sea level rise;
• economic migrants in Mexico who have lost their rural livelihoods and have
moved either to cities in Mexico or to the U.S.;
36
Myers, N. 2005. Environmental Refugees: An Emergent Security Issue. Prague: Organization
for the Security and Co-operation in Europe.
37
Myers, Norman. 1993. Environmental Refugees in a Globally Warmed World. BioScience 43,
no. 11: 752-761.
38
________. 1993. Environmental Refugees in a Globally Warmed World. BioScience 43, no.
11: 752-761.
24
• farmers in China and India who have been overtaken by population growth and
shortages of agricultural plots, or who have been displaced by public works
projects like the Three Gorges Dam. 39
These figures do not include people displaced by chronic water shortages, nor do they
account for those who have fled conflicts over natural resources that have become
more scarce due to climate change—chiefly because many of these people also fit into
one of the other categories listed above. 40 To determine an aggregate total of likely
“environmental refugee” from these groups of affected populations, Myers relies on a
set of assumptions about the percentage of what fractions of the affected populations
are likely to migrate.
How reliable are these numbers? On the one hand, Myers is justified in focusing
on the developing world, particularly Africa and Asia, given developing world
demographics and the nature (and vulnerability) of livelihoods in these regions. On the
other hand, Myers’s numbers may be dramatically inflated due to the same factors. For
example, the World Health Organization predicts that the incidence of infectious
diseases like malaria and dengue will increase due to global warming. 41 There are
currently 1.2 billion people at high risk of malaria, 86 percent of whom live in Africa and
39
________. 1993. Environmental Refugees in a Globally Warmed World. BioScience 43, no.
11: 752-761, Myers, Norman. 2002. Environmental Refugees: A Growing Phenomenon of the
21st Century. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 357, no. 1420: 609-613, Myers,
N. 2005. Environmental Refugees: An Emergent Security Issue. Prague: Organization for the
Security and Co-operation in Europe.
40
41
WHO. 2007. Climate Change and Human Health-Risks and Responses Summary. Geneva: World
Health Organization, World Meteorological Organization, United Nations Development
Programme.
25
Southeast Asia.42 Given that these are the same people whose livelihoods are most
vulnerable to climate change, how many of the tens of millions potentially displaced
Ethiopians, Kenyans, Indians, and Bangladeshis might contract and die from malaria
before migrating? More ominously, we do not know how the malaria prevalence among
migratory populations will affect the policies of potential receiving nations in Oceana,
North America, and Europe—nations, that is, with low or zero prevalence of malaria. It
is reasonable to conclude that potential host nations will set policy to ensure that
Myers’s “environmental refugees” are kept in situ and do not pose a public health
threat to their own populations, especially if their own populations become more
vulnerable to malaria due to global warming.
Figure 2 Estimated Incidence of Malaria per 1,000 people, 2006. Source: WHO, 2008.
42
________. 2008. World Malaria Report 2008. Geneva: World Health Organization.
26
Or, taking a more optimistic approach, what if economic growth or the
implementation of new technologies reduced the vulnerability livelihoods in the
developing world? Alternatively, what if Myers’s assumption of the IPCC’s worst-case
scenarios proves to be inaccurate and carbon emissions are dramatically reduced due
to technological innovations, prohibitively expensive fuel costs, or some combination of
the two? Given the current concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases and the
lifetime of those gases in the atmosphere (e.g., 100 years for carbon dioxide), global
warming and anthropogenic climate change would result even if humans were to
somehow cut carbon emissions to zero today. 43 But, on the other hand, it is
unnecessarily alarmist of Myers to assume the worst-case, business-as-usual scenario
as he continues to do, especially given the progress at recent conferences of parties
since Bali in December 2007.
The I nter g ov er n ment al Pa nel o n Climat e C han ge (IP C C)
The scientists on the IPCC have accepted Myers’s holistic framing of this issue in
terms of livelihood vulnerabilities, but they also claim that all forecasts are, “at best,
guesswork,” and that “disaggregating the causes of migration is highly problematic, not
least since individual migrants may have multiple motivations and be displaced by
43
Freund, Paul, Anthony Adegbulugbe, Oyvind Christophersen, Hisashi Ishitani, William Moomaw,
and Jose Moreira. 2005. Introduction. In IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and
Storage , ed. Eduardo Calvo and Eberhard Jochem:51-74. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne,
Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sào Paulo: Cambridge University Press.
27
multiple factors.”44 For this reason, the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report eschews
numerical predictions of the number of people who will potentially be forced to migrate
due to climate change. By way of explanation, the report argues that “normative and
subjective elements are embedded in assessing the uniqueness and importance of the
threatened system, [as well as] equity considerations regarding the distribution of
impacts, the degree of risk aversion, and assumptions regarding the feasibility and
effectiveness of potential adaptations.”45 Some might contend that this explanation is
a dodge—another way of saying “there’s too much uncertainty”—but the IPCC is
structurally predisposed to err on the side of caution.
If, after Myers’s alarmism, the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report seems to
downplay the problem, one must recall that the panel’s publications are consensus-
driven documents written and edited, in part, by representatives from countries that
are most responsible for anthropogenic climate change. While it’s become common
knowledge that negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
44
Schneider, S.H., S. Semenov, A. Patwardhan, I. Burton, C.H.DD. Magadza, M. Oppenheimer,
A.B. Pittock, A. Rahman, J.B. Smith, A. Suarez, and F. Yamin. 2007. Addressing Key
Vulnerabilities and the Risk from Climate Change. In Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation
and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , ed. S.H. Schneider, S. Semenov and A.
Patwardhan:31. Cambridge: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Wilbanks, T.J., P.
Romero Lankao, M. Bao, F. Berkhout, S. Cairncross, J.-P. Ceron, M. Kapshe, R. Muir-Wood, and R.
Zapata-Marti. 2007. Industry, Settlement and Society. In Climate Change 2007: Impacts,
Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. T. Wilbanks and P. Romero Lankao:58.
Cambridge: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
45
Schneider, S.H., S. Semenov, A. Patwardhan, I. Burton, C.H.DD. Magadza, M. Oppenheimer,
A.B. Pittock, A. Rahman, J.B. Smith, A. Suarez, and F. Yamin. 2007. Addressing Key
Vulnerabilities and the Risk from Climate Change. In Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation
and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , ed. S.H. Schneider, S. Semenov and A.
Patwardhan:31. Cambridge: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
28
Change (UNFCCC) conferences of parties are rife with conflict, the same is also true of
the process by which the IPCC assessment reports themselves are drafted. 46
Disagreements over the scope and wording of these reports are frequently contentious
and nearly always result in compromised, cautious language. Again, this has less to due
with scientific caution and more to do with politics. Before the publication of the IPCC’s
Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, the Boston Globe reported that, “[a]ccording to
IPCC rules, all governments had to sign off on the document; its release was preceded
by four days of intense negotiations with officials from more than 100 countries.”47
Most importantly, one must also remember that any predictions that the IPCC
does make are carefully stated and described by the degree of uncertainty that informs
the prediction. The IPCC’s published estimates are almost always based on not one but
many simulations of numerous different climate models. As yet, rigorous, peer-
reviewed models that combine climate and migration are almost nonexistent (and the
one included in this document should only be considered a first draft of one). In short,
there has been no scientific basis upon which IPCC scientists could generate a
prediction or support any one figure.
The Ste rn Re vie w
Although the 2006 Stern Review was published some months prior to the IPCC’s
Fourth Assessment Report, I consider the two sources to be more or less
46
McDonald, Frank. 2007. U.S. and EU Deadlocked at Climate Talks. The Irish Times, December
14, 2007, 1.
47
Daley, Beth. 2007. A Climate Change Warning: Panel Says Humans Are Probably Causing Shifts
Around World. Boston Globe , April 7, 2007.
29
contemporaneous, especially given the long negotiation process inherent to producing
each IPCC report. In many ways, the Stern Review and IPCC are interrelated: the Stern
Review and the IPCC authors both draw upon the same source material; and the Stern
Review often cites previous IPCC reports while the Stern Review is itself cited in IPCC’s
Fourth Assessment Report.
Situated somewhere between Myers’s alarmism and the IPCC’s obfuscation, the
Stern Review relies on the work of the former, which it augments with additional work
from experts at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Wherever possible,
the Stern Review relies on straightforward objective criteria and mathematic
formulations along the lines of:
Number of Forced Migrants = Area of Land Lost x Population Density
The equation shown here is a simplification of those used in the Stern Review, and is
based on the work of Warren. 48 But, unlike the IPCC, the Stern Review also incorporates
more heterogeneous criteria, based on case studies (discussed below), to estimate the
full scale and scope of the problem. As a result, the report discusses potential numbers
of displaced people, “rising sea levels and other climate-driven changes could drive
millions of people to migrate: more than a fifth of Bangladesh could be under water
with a 1m rise in sea levels, which is a possibility by the end of the [21st] century.”49
Of course, the drawback to equations such as the one above is that they tell you
nothing about when or why or how people might be induced to migrate. In short, this
48
Stern, N. 2006. Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, Warren, Rachel, Chris Hope, Michael Mastrandrea, Richard Tol, Neil Adger, and
Irene Lorenzoni. 2006. Spotlighting Impacts Functions in Integrated Assessment: Research
Report Prepared for the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Norwich, England:
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, 91.
49
University Press.
30
type of modeling overemphasizes the climatic component and fails to accommodate
the human systems. For example, the calculation above does not take account of the
key factors that explain (as will be shown below) migration. Indeed, the IOM has found
that existing models have failed to replicate observed human migrations to
environmental changes such as deforestation and desertification. 50
Rather than address the proximate causes of migration, the Stern Review
authors tacitly side with the IPCC against Myers: they stop short of offering half-
century projections of climate change-forced migrants. And they do so for much the
same reasons as the IPCC: “the exact number of people who will actually be displaced
or forced to migrate will depend on the level of investment, planning, and resources at
a government’s disposal to defend these areas or provide access to public services and
food aid.”51 However, the Stern Review does accept Myers’s disaggregated climate-
driven migration projections by region and vulnerability, and it bases its figures on
particularized population-growth estimates much the same way he does. For example,
the report indicates that between 30 and 550 million people would be at risk of hunger
with a temperature rise of 2-3°C, and that as many as 4.4 billion people would also
experience water shortages. 52 Unfortunately, the report neglects to say how many of
these people are double counted for both food and water shortages, or what fraction
of the people who experience these shortages would be likely to migrate as a coping
strategy.
50
IOM. 2008. Expert Seminar: Migration and the Environment. Red Book Series: International
Dialogue on Migration. Geneva: International Organization for Migration.
51
University Press.
52
________. 2006. Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
31
The Stern Review includes case studies that highlight the connection between
forced migrants, climate change, and conflicts over scarce natural resources. The
conflicts could either be caused by migrants who are in search of pasture land and
water, as has been the case between Ugandans and Kenyan pastoralists and Ethiopians
and Somalis, or intrastate conflicts could result in cross-border refugees as was the
case in Mali in the 1970s and 1980s and is currently the case in Darfur. 53 This
conflation of potential cause and effect of forced migration—or of multiple causes
resulting in migration—demonstrates both how complicated this situation can be as
well as the necessity of using clear, precise language when discussing these issues.
(Unfortunately, as we shall see below, productive discourse has been hampered by
experts’ failure to do so.)
The I nter nat io na l O r gan iza tion for M igr ation (I O M)
In 2008, the IOM published two important texts, its Expert Seminar: Migration
and the Environment and Climate Change and Migration: Improving Methodologies to
Estimate Flows. The former is a product of a two-day expert seminar on migration and
the environment that was organized by the IOM and the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA) and attended by policymakers, researchers, and practitioners. Seminar
participants defined the climate and migration relationship by dividing it into four
categories, which are addressed discretely in the final report:
1. the impact of gradual environmental change on migration;
53
________. 2006. Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
32
2. the impact of extreme environmental events on migration;
3. the impact of migration on the environment; and
4. the interaction of these phenomena with the potential for conflict.
These four typologies also push the definitional boundaries of the relationship in such a
way that implicitly critiques the first methodologies discussed above. Whereas those
sources took the phenomenon of climate change as a starting point and then sought to
explain how it could impact migration, the IOM Expert Seminar approaches the subject
from the opposite direction, from a migration perspective, which opens up the field of
inquiry and addresses the root causes of climate change-driven migration.
The IOM’s classification and analysis demonstrate that there is no one cause-
and-effect process through which climate and environment factor into one’s decision to
migrate. The same economic, cultural, and social forces still apply and should therefore
be used to explain climate change-induced migration.
Whether or not households turn to migration as a coping strategy and
what form and duration this migration assumes can be explained partly by
factors that are: economic—e.g. differences in available financial
resources, security of land tenure, in transport/relocation costs and in
host area employment opportunities; social—e.g. family composition, age,
availability of networks to facilitate relocation, level of social mobility and
educational attainment; and cultural—e.g. differences in the cultural costs
of moving.
Predicting the exact nature of migration patterns in relation to
gradual deterioration in environmental conditions is complicated by these
33
factors and how they interact at the individual, household, community
and national levels. 54
The strength of the IOM approach here is that it draws together practitioners and
researchers. But models such as the Tyndall Centre’s, which describe particular human
behavior patterns without accounting for those humans’ livelihoods, will be hindered by
significant blind spots because they are likely to incorporate the impact of the
livelihoods on the local environment (i.e., more intensive farming in response to erratic
rainfall).
Another benefit to the IOM’s approach is that it understands that the climatic,
environmental, and human systems are interdependent: “Participants noted that . . .
poor small-scale producers tend to live in degraded areas with marginal plots of land
and little freshwater. To cope with these challenges many have overexploited the land,
fueling a downward spiral of more degradation and more poverty.”55 Indeed, these are
the factors that contribute to the familiar “overshoot and collapse” pattern of growth,
as well as desertification of marginal agricultural lands.
The IOM Expert Seminar delineates a general framework for understanding the
relationship between climate change and human migration. Thanks to the report’s
clearly defined purpose and its input from both practitioners and researchers, it proves
a more cogent roadmap than even the academic Forced Migration Review’s special
issue on “Climate Change and Migration” from October 2008. The Expert Seminar,
54
IOM. 2008. Expert Seminar: Migration and the Environment. Red Book Series: International
Dialogue on Migration. Geneva: International Organization for Migration.
55
________. 2008. Expert Seminar: Migration and the Environment. Red Book Series:
International Dialogue on Migration. Geneva: International Organization for Migration.
34
however stops short of authorizing specific analytical methodologies. Kniveton et al.’s
IOM-sponsored research paper Migration: Improving Methodologies to Estimate Flows
takes up this subject, first by considering the effects of climate change and the drivers
of migration separately, and then “exploring the methodological options for quantifying
the additional numbers of migrants that may be expected in response to changes in the
climate caused by human activities.”56 These options, which may be used in concert
with one another, include a Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), New Economics of
Labor Migration (NELM), and Agent-Based Modeling (ABM).
The SLA is rooted in development discourse and was conceived by the UK’s
Department for International Development (DFID), and its “underlying idea is that
families possess a variety of natural, physical, financial, human, and social assets, which
are all used to maintain a family’s livelihood. If one of the assets suffers a loss, it can be
compensated for by falling back on the other available assets in the so-called asset-
pentagon.”57
56
Kniveton, Dominic, Kerstin Schmidt-Verkerk, Christopher Smith, and Richard Black. 2008.
Climate Change and Migration: Improving Methodologies to Estimate Flows. Geneva: International
Organization for Migration.
57
DFID. 1999. Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheet. London: Department for International
Development, Kniveton, Dominic, Kerstin Schmidt-Verkerk, Christopher Smith, and Richard Black.
2008. Climate Change and Migration: Improving Methodologies to Estimate Flows. Geneva:
International Organization for Migration.
35
Figure 3 Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Source: DFID, 1999.
The power behind SLA’s ability to explain climate change-induced migration is its
holistic viewpoint—it treats people like people and seeks to understand their means of
supporting themselves and coping with stresses and shocks. The problem with this
approach, however, is that it takes time and painstaking effort to truly understand a
group’s livelihood; another drawback is that it may still aggregate data (at the
community rather than national level) and thereby overlook more subtle local
inequalities. 58
As its name suggests, the NELM approach conceives of migration primarily as an
economic decision taken at the level of the household, whereby the migrant
58
Climate Change and Migration: Improving Methodologies to Estimate Flows. Geneva: International
Organization for Migration.
36
coordinates with nonmigrants and seeks employment elsewhere to supplement the
nonmigrants’ financial assets through remittances. In short, the NELM framework
equates migration with an attempt to diversify a household’s sources of income and
reduce collective risk. The real value of the NELM framework, however, is when it is
used conjointly with an SLA analysis, because when they are used together “the SLA
and NELM approaches provide a way of understanding how households respond to
climate shocks, and the extent to which migration is part of their response”; however,
the most common impediment to this combined approach is the lack of detailed
livelihood data for a community over an extended period of time. 59
Figure 4 SLA and NELM Approaches. Source: Knivedon et al., 2008
The second benefit of the combined SLA-NELM approach is that once one has
identified the key livelihood indicators, one can then devise a mathematical model that,
ultimately, can generate a numerical estimate of climate-induced migration flows based
59
________. 2008. Climate Change and Migration: Improving Methodologies to Estimate Flows.
Geneva: International Organization for Migration.
37
on individuals preferences, the predicted effects of climate change, and other situation-
specific inputs such as social assets, distance to a city, and other variables that affect
one’s ability to cope with stresses and shocks.
The IOM team advocates for Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) precisely because this
type of modeling allows modelers to program the way individuals will respond in certain
situations based on their beliefs and perceptions. “While numerous assets and
economic opportunities,” such as those accounted for in SLA and NELM analysis, “will
no doubt affect an individual’s wish to undertake migration as an adaptive response to
climate stresses and shocks, the decision will also be influenced by deeper cognitive
stimuli required to account for human bounded rationality.”
This idea of “bounded rationality” is crucial to our understanding of climate
change-forced migration. Agriculturalists may not migrate as soon as they perceive
that they can gain additional financial assets (as would the rational actor homo
economicus of the NELM approach). Instead, the potential migrant must make a series
of decisions based on historic trends (“This land is my ancestors’, many generations of
whom survived worse droughts than this.”), their current state (“My crops may be
failing, but I can borrow some money or eat fewer meals per day.”), and their
expectations about the future (“If I leave, then my neighbors who remain will take over
my landholding, and I will have nothing to return to.”).
The question remains: How should one account for individuals’ bounded
rationality and decision-making in one’s model? Kniveton et al. address this question
head-on:
38
As a statistical summary of the atmosphere over a prolonged period of
time, climate, and therefore climate change, is an abstract concept. In
simulating the migratory response of a community to the manifestations
of the climate system, one is therefore modeling people’s perceptions of
an abstract phenomenon. The influence of the unique cognitive responses
and attitudes of individuals towards these manifestations is therefore of
considerable importance in identifying the livelihood impact perceived to
occur by individuals and the importance of these in their current
existence. By including such aspects into the agent attributes of an ABM
and developing rules for the interaction of such agents, agent-based
modeling presents a means of simulation far more powerful than those of
alternative statistical analysis. 60
Some attributes may be “included” via the model’s original assumptions, such as a
coefficient that signifies how much emphasis potential migrants’ place on the expected
robustness of their livelihood relative to its current or past robustness. Alternatively,
one might “include” these attributes by modeling them dynamically, allowing them to
change as conditions change. Either way this information must be tested against
historical data or, where none exists, proxy measurements. But the key is to include
these seemingly nonnumerical “soft variables” in one’s model.
As we shall see below, one might just as easily use a systems dynamics model to
replicate the same behavior—or produce the same results as—an agent-based model,
but the advantage of a systems dynamics model is the way it graphically depicts the
structure of the system and reveals the relationships among numerous factors. In
60
________. 2008. Climate Change and Migration: Improving Methodologies to Estimate Flows.
Geneva: International Organization for Migration.
39
short, a systems model is better equipped to represent the key reinforcing and
balancing feedback loops, rather than the behavior of individual agents.
40
C HAPT ER 4
S YSTEMS D Y NA MI CS AN D C LI MA TE C HA NG E -F O RCED M I GRATI O N : L I VEL IHO ODS A ND
M I GRATI O N I N W OLLO , E TH IOP IA
There are no side effects—only effects. Those we thought of in advance, the ones we like, we call the
main, or intended, effects, and take credit for them. The ones we didn’t anticipate, the ones that came
around and bit us in the rear—those are the “side effects.” —John Sterman, “All Models Are Wrong,” 2002
Once the definitional problem has been solved, it should be easier to identify and
protect the different types of forced migrants. Indeed, one of the key challenges
remains distinguishing between internally displaced environmentally induced migrants
and economic migrants. Most of the experts above, from Black to Brown to Myers,
make use of some form of modeling to generate their predictions of climate change-
induced migrants. The Stern Review, for example, draws upon a Tyndall Centre model
that generates a number of displaced coastal peoples by examining the expected
amount of coastal land loss due to soil erosion. The only problem with this model is
that it draws upon climate inputs while not making use of the related human systems.
Other models rely on Pareto-type optimizations that examine one variable.
The advantage of a systems dynamical model is that it can replicate both detail
complexity and dynamic complexity. Systems models can incorporate both a huge array
of diverse inputs and account for the way they interact in a dynamic fashion over time.
This integrated model below shows how climate-driven, rural-to-urban migrations
(resulting from drought, floods, or sea-level rise) may accelerate existing rural-urban
41
migration patterns. Moreover, it can help us differentiate between environmentally
induced migrants and economic migrants.
Figure 5 Climate change and Agricultural Production. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
42
Figure 6 Livelihoods Inputs and Rural-Urban Migration. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
Another critical advantage to a systems dynamics model is that the data, structure, and
assumptions are all presented with maximum transparency. Norman, Black, and Brown all employ
heuristics or modeling strategies, but in their work, it is much more difficult to determine what
the authors’ assumptions are and how they define the relationships between variables to
generate predictions. The difference in transparency is important for two reasons—clarity and
comprehensibility on the one hand, and adaptability on the other. In a systems model, anyone
can change the initial parameters to generate new results. One might want to do this if they
disagree with the model’s assumptions or dispute its source data; more importantly, one might
also want to change the parameters to adapt the model to other communities. This model limits
its focus to one region of Ethiopia that is characterized by a fairly homogenous livelihood
strategy. To apply this model to a comparable subsistence farming community in Bangladesh
one would change the initial population data and assumptions about variables like birth rate.
43
Instead of land loss due to soil erosion, one would add expected land loss due to sea-level rise
and increased river delta flooding but the overall structure of the model would largely remain
intact.
Met ho do log y
Location: For this analysis, I chose to model the robustness of rural livelihoods in (and
migration out of) the Wag Hemra, Northern Wollo, and Southern Wollo zones in
Ethiopia’s northeastern highlands region of Amhara (hereafter referred to collectively
as Wollo).
Figure 7 Map of Ethiopia and its Northeastern Highlands. Source: USAID/Ginnetti, 2009.
44
There are a number of reasons to test the model on this region. First, these
three zones are rural, with more than 90 percent of the population deriving livelihoods
from agricultural (or agricultural and livestock) production: “The undiversified nature of
local livelihoods is disturbing: despite recurring droughts, falling soil fertility and
shrinking per-capital land and livestock resources, smallholder rain-fed farming remains
the core of Wollo’s economy.”61 Second, livelihood data for Wollo is relatively abundant
for the period from 1990 to today, which is likely the result of the high-profile food-
security crises during the 1980s. Third, there is also data on Wollo for two interrelated
trends: increased dependence on food aid due to a shortfall in per-capita production
and on rural-urban out-migration. 62
Model: As shown in Figures 5 and 6 above, this model integrates the climate-affected
agro-pastoral production system into Wollo’s primary livelihood system, which in turn
provides a major input into the region’s rural-urban migration trend. In short it
quantifies the effect of climate change on livelihoods and the effect of livelihood
robustness on migration.
61
Sharp, Kay and Stephen Devereux. 2004. Destitution in Wollo (Ethiopia): chronic poverty as a
crisis of household and community livelihoods. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities
5, no. 2: 227 - 247.
62
Golini, Antonio, Mohammed Said, Oliviero Casacchia, Celia Reynaud, Sara Basso, Lorenzo
Cassata, and Massimiliano Crisci. 2001. Migration and Urbanization in Ethiopia, with Special
Reference to Addis Ababa. In-Depth Studies from the 1994 Population and Housing Census in
Ethiopia. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Rome, Italy: Central Statistics Authority (CSA) and Institute
for Population Research (IPR), Sharp, Kay and Stephen Devereux. 2004. Destitution in Wollo
(Ethiopia): chronic poverty as a crisis of household and community livelihoods. Journal of Human
Development and Capabilities 5, no. 2: 227 - 247.
45
The model simulations run for 60 years (720 months, in 1-month time steps) so
that I could: a) compare available data from 1990–2000 with the model-generated
data; and b) project results out through 2050, which has become such a widely used
target year in climate negotiations and climate changed-forced migration predictions.
The sources of data on agricultural production and livestock holdings come from
USAID, and from the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization and World Food
Programme. Demographic and migration data come from Ethiopia’s 1994 census, a
1999 Labor Force Survey, and a joint analysis of them produced by Ethiopia’s Central
Statistics Authority (CSA) and the Institute for Population Research in Rome. The two
systems are bridged using DFID’s livelihoods framework and based upon Maxwell, Sharp,
and Devereux’s research on Ethiopian livelihoods.
In this model, agricultural production is dependent upon Wollo’s carrying
capacity and the erosion of it due to climate change and intensive farming practices, as
well as by previous production. Livestock production also depends upon Wollo’s
livestock carrying capacity, the livestock population, and the population’s reproduction
and mortality rates.
When “activated”, climate change impacts the model in two ways: first, by
reducing the yield of the harvest by 10 percent during months 120–240 (i.e., 1
percent/year). This would be due to climate’s effect on the weather during the growing
season by increasing the frequency of droughts and floods and by changing
precipitation patterns). The second way that climate impacts the system is more
46
indirect, and occurs after a delay, by reducing the capacity of the land to regenerate its
carrying capacity.
Agricultural (cereal) and livestock (cows and oxen) production are measured
first in a disaggregated fashion. To integrate these assets into a more useful livelihoods
framework and derive per-household measures of financial and physical capital (i.e.,
agricultural and livestock production, respectively), the model weighs the region’s
aggregate harvest and herd size against the rural population and the number of people
per household. For example:
Physical Capital Per Household = Cows / (Rural Population / People/Household) =
Cows x People Household / Rural Population
The model produces per-household natural assets by weighing the carrying capacity (in
hectares of arable land and grazing land) against the population and number of people
per household; and it calculates per-household human capital by measuring the
educated population against the total population. This model does not account for per-
household social and political capital.
Household livelihood robustness is computed by adding each type of capital into
an aggregate livelihood score. I assigned an individual weight to each of the dynamic
capital factors based on individuals’ ranking of them in surveys conducted by Sharp and
Devereux. They found that financial and physical capital were the most important
factors, though in part because the majority of households already sharecropped their
47
land. 63 Sharp and Devereux surveyed individuals to examine the correlation between
different types of capital and destitution, which is based upon a household’s ability to
meet its subsistence needs, its access to productive assets, and its dependence on aid
or assistance.64 They also found that individuals place a higher value on assets over
income: “The centrality of productive resources in the definition and quantification) of
destitution reflects the now widely accepted observation that, in defining poverty,
‘poor people focus on assets rather than income.’”65 Whereas Sharp and Devereux
incorporate the different types of household capital into a snapshot of livelihood from
which they analyze poverty and destitution, I incorporate those variables into an
aggregate livelihood score that I use to model migration flows.
The change in livelihood robustness is then used to generate a measure of
expected livelihood robustness, which is in turn interpreted as migration pressure. The
reason for generating a value for expected livelihood robustness is that one’s decision
to migrate is informed by one’s current livelihood robustness and one’s expectation of
future livelihood outlook. The household strategy depends on two sets of factors: one
has to do with the available assets; the other has to do with physical and economic
63
5, no. 2: 227 - 247.
64
Addis Ababa: IDS and Save the Children (UK), Sharp, Kay and Stephen Devereux. 2004.
Destitution in Wollo (Ethiopia): chronic poverty as a crisis of household and community
livelihoods. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 5, no. 2: 227 - 247, Sharp, Kay,
Stephen Devereux, and Yared Amare. 2003. Destitution in Ethiopia's Northeastern Highlands
(Amhara National Regional State). Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Institute of Development Studies and
Save the Children (UK).
65
5, no. 2: 227 - 247.
48
conditions: The household has to take into account both potential returns from a given
action, and the probability of realizing those returns. While potential returns are a
function of factors like soil fertility, levels of input, and prices, the probability of
realizing those returns has to do with less predictable variables such as rainfall, pest
infestations, and market conditions, and this is where the weight of history on decision-
making comes into effect. 66 In short, this paper hypothesizes that the decision to
migrate is based less than the state of one’s livelihood at any given moment in time
than it is by the overall directional trend in one’s livelihood.
Despite the availability of livelihood data, there is at least one major assumption
that informs this model: that the need for food assistance correlates with food
production. I felt confident making this assumption based upon the fact that Sharp and
Devereux found that Wollo’s economy is almost exclusively based on subsistence
farming.
The second major caveat concerns droughts and floods, which I deliberately left
out of the model. Floods and, especially, droughts may “shock the system” and
undermine livelihoods in Wollo, but disasters ironically generate a greater humanitarian
response than do gradual, “slow-onset” crises like the ongoing one in Wollo. 67 In short,
thanks to factors like the “CNN effect” whereby aid flows fastest to newsworthy
extreme events, there is a greater likelihood of a robust humanitarian response to
66
Evans, Hugh Emrys and Gazala Pirzada. 1995. Rural Households as Producers: Income
Diversification and the Allocation of Resources. In The Migration Experience in Africa , ed. J.
Baker and Tade Akin Aida:87-108. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
67
Webster, Mackinnon, Justin Ginnetti, Peter Walker, Daniel Coppard, and Randolph Kent. 2008.
The Humanitarian Costs of Climate Change. Medford, MA: Feinstein International Center.
49
hydro-meteorological disasters than to a gradual “livelihood” disaster such as the
spread of destitution in Wollo. Even after the humanitarian reforms pursuant to the
Ethiopian famines of the 1980s, this continues to be a problem today, especially for
slow-onset crises driven by droughts.68 Therefore, while some disasters may trigger the
long-term deterioration of livelihoods not all of them do so, and it is due to this
uncertainty of response that I omitted extreme events from this model. If so desired,
one could add these phenomena very easily: one would simply build in a “pulse” event
that normally occurs once every 20 years; if climate change were to increase the
frequency of these events by 20 percent, one would simply adjust the amplitude and
frequency via a sine function.
A third caveat relates to its precursor and concerns food assistance and the
decision not to build it into the model. The advantage of including international food aid
and domestic food assistance (as delayed responses to the perceived shortfall in per-
capita crop production) is that these factors are certainly at play in the existing
system. Therefore, modeling them would more accurately reflect the structure of the
system and its state at any given moment in time. I chose not to incorporate them,
however, because these are endogenous factors controlled by exogenous forces
(international food-aid contributions). The humanitarian response to an ongoing, “slow-
onset” crisis like the on in Wollo depends not only on the conditions in Wollo but also
other crises and geopolitical forces. Modeling food assistance would have introduced
68
Glenzer, Kent. 2007. We Aren't the World: The Institutional Production of Partial Success. In
Niger 2005: Une Catastrophe si Naturelle, ed. Xavier Crombe and Jean-Herve Jezequel:117-144.
Paris: Medecins Sans Frontieres.
50
much more complexity into this model; furthermore, because poorly designed food-
assistance responses can even undermine the livelihood of intended beneficiaries by
distorting local market prices upon which their well being depends as has been the case
in recent humanitarian crises in Niger and the Horn of Africa. 69 Therefore, while adding
these variables would give the appearance of precision, there is no guarantee that
incorporating them would generate more accurate results.
A fourth assumption has to do with the focus on rural-urban migration. Given the
high rates of rural-rural migration within Ethiopia, many would argue that the out-
migrants from Wollo identified in this model would seek a new livelihood, or simply look
for temporary employment, in another rural locale.70 While rural-rural migration is
certainly an important trend at present, I choose to focus on rural-urban migration due
to the fact that it will likely become more pronounced if/when negative climate impacts
undermine rural livelihoods more generally in Ethiopia.
Finally, the model starts in a state of disequilibrium with respect to permanent
rural-urban migrants. Because rural-urban migration has been an ongoing phenomenon
in Ethiopia for more than half a decade, some of these forced migrants were “already in
the pipeline” as labor migrants.
Res ults an d Dis cuss io n
69
Lewin, Alexandra C. 2007. Niger's Famine and the Role of Food Aid. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University, Maxwell, Daniel. 2007. Global Factors Shaping the Future of Food Aid: The
Implications for WFP. Disasters 33, no. S1: S25-S39.
70
Ezra, Markos and Gebre-Egziabher Kiros. 2001. Rural Out-Migration in the Drought Prone
Areas of Ethiopia: A Multilevel Analysis. International Migration Review 35, no. 3: 749-771.
51
The primary analysis compares a “climate change” scenario with a baseline case
with no climate impacts. The difference in results (agricultural and livestock production,
temporary and permanent migrants) allows one to measure the impact of climate
change on existing trends. For example, Figure 8 below shows the difference in
agricultural harvests with and without climate change:
Figure 8 Harvested Crops. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
What we can see from this first graph is that climate change exacerbates the trend of
decreased crop yields that result from intensive farming practices. When we take into
account this change and population growth together, to derive a per-household
measure of financial capital (tons of cereal harvested/household), we observe a similar
pattern (Figure 9):
52
Figure 9 Financial Capital Per Household. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
Figures 10-13 below reveal the impact of climate change and rural populating
growth on other measures of household capital. As one would expect, physical capital
(livestock/household) and natural capital (arable and grazing hectares/household) both
decay exponentially, whereas human capital is more stable because rural inhabitants are
consuming a truly renewable resource: education.
53
Figure 10 Cows. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
Figure 11 Physical Capital Per Household. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
54
Figure 12 Natural Capital Per Household. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
Figure 13 Human Capital Per Household. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
55
Figures 14-18 represent the how the declining household capital stocks impact
livelihood, expected livelihood, and migration pressure. The shape of the curves in
Figure 18 clearly illustrate that declining expectations of future livelihood robustness
result in a proportional increase in migration pressure.
Figure 14 Aggregate Livelihood Score Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
56
Figure 15 Livelihood Robustness. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
Figure 16 Expected Livelihood Robustness. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
57
Figure 17 Migration Pressure. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
Figure 18 Expected Livelihood Robustness vs. Migration Pressure. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
58
Finally, Figures 19-21 below show how climate change impacts population distribution.
Figure 19 Rural Population. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
Figure 20 Temporary Rural-Urban Migrants. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
59
Figure 21 Permanent Rural-Urban Migrants. Source: Ginnetti, 2009.
The most interesting result of the graphs is how little climate change impacts
livelihood robustness and rural-urban migration compared to population growth (were it
to continue growing at its current rate). As hypothesized, climate change does clearly
amplify the trends driven by population growth, but this effect is marginal. For
example, if one subtracts the number of permanent rural-urban migrants who would
have left their agro-pastoral livelihoods with climate change turned “off” from those
that migrated with climate change “on,” the accounts for slightly less than 300,000
out of more than 5 million migrants. So 300,000 “extra” people migrated due to the
climate impact. Had we let climate change continue to reduce yields at the rate of 10
percent/decade, the result is rather surprising:
60
Figure 22 Three Climate Scenarios: No Change, Temporary Change, Permanent Change. Source:
Ginnetti, 2009.
If one compares the model-generated population figures during months 1–120,
the results mirror the actual census data. For month 120, or 2001, both the model and
Ethiopia’s CSA predict a rural population of 4.2 million in Wollo; and for 2005 both the
model and the CSA indicate a rural population of just under 4.5 million. 71 And given
what we know about the rural/urban Wollo’s population distribution and its birth rate,
we can confirm that the number of out-migrants also match. What we do not know for
certain is precisely how many of Wollo’s out-migrants moved to urban or rural areas.
71
CSA. 2005. Population. Addis Ababa: Central Statistics Agency, Golini, Antonio, Mohammed
Said, Oliviero Casacchia, Celia Reynaud, Sara Basso, Lorenzo Cassata, and Massimiliano Crisci.
2001. Migration and Urbanization in Ethiopia, with Special Reference to Addis Ababa . In-Depth
Studies from the 1994 Population and Housing Census in Ethiopia. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and
Rome, Italy: Central Statistics Authority (CSA) and Institute for Population Research (IPR).
61
The continued climate change produces just a few more migrants than
temporary climate change. This suggests that once livelihoods have deteriorated to a
certain point, the extra impact of climate change is less significant than other factors.
Does this mean that climate change is not going to be a problem for residents of
Wollo? Of course not, and the reason is that livelihoods have not deteriorated, and are
not likely to deteriorate, as they do in the model. This is due to the fact that that
remittances, development aid, and humanitarian responses to Wollo’s disasters will
continue to support local livelihoods. What the model does say about climate change
and agro-pastoral livelihoods in Wollo is that the latter will remain very vulnerable to
the former, especially if the rural population continues to grow at the current rate.
What model also suggests is that in a world of limited resources the funds that are
allocated to Wollo should support measures that reduce population growth.
62
C HAPT ER 5
C O N CLUSIO N : A L OOK A H EAD A T F URTHER R ESEARCH O PP ORTU NIT IES
Can one extrapolate from this paper’s model to generate a global total number
of climate migrants? The answer is clearly No. Each climate-driven migration depends
on “push” and “pull” factors particular to the potential migrant’s livelihood.
Instead, what is needed most is additional livelihood mapping and data collection.
Modeling discrete livelihood clusters would be the best way to overlay anticipated
climate scenarios on top of livelihood zones. Combining these two types of regionally
specific data is the best way to scale up this research if one were interested in
generating global estimates of climate change-forced migrants.
Another pressing concern is the need to build consensus around a description to
replace “environmental,” “climate,” and “climate change” refugees. If the
sensationalism of these terms initially drew interest to this issue, that utility has long
since diminished. Within the last year, Forced Migration Review, IOM, UNHCR, and
UNESCO, have each published articles and reports that eschew the use of the terms
climate change refugee and environmental refugee and call for the adoption of a
common terminology. The recent movement away from these terms represents a step
in the right direction, but it’s just the first step. There are still gaps in the mental
models, such how to account for temporarily displaced climate migrants. Academics
and policy makers both need to begin using the same language in the same way when
writing or speaking about this complex problem.
63
With the publication of each new assessment report, IPCC scientists have stated
with increasing confidence that climate change is real and that its impacts will be felt
sooner rather than later. In step with the growing consensus, much of the recent
scholarship about the relationship between climate change and forced migration has
privileged the climate scenarios over other factors such as population growth,
economic development, the impact of infectious diseases, border and immigration
policies, or numerous other important issues.72 While it makes sense to base one’s
projections on sound footing, the authors cited above too often discount the role of—
and the interrelationship between—the other factors. Even something like timing could
play a major role, for instance, if large numbers of environmentally forced migrants
tried to cross international boundaries amid an outbreak of SARS, after a terrorist
attack on the India-Bangladesh border, or a skirmish between Kurds and Turks. One
thing this paper does reveal, however, is that the likelihood of a sudden pulse of many
thousand forced migrants would be slim.
What are especially needed are more precise epidemiological and public health
forecasts to complement our understanding of demographics and the way they relate
72
Migration, ed. J. Unroh, M.S. Krol and N. Kliot. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, Brown, Oli. 2007. Climate Change and Forced Migration: Observations, projections
and implications. Geneva: United Nations Human Development Report, Byravan, Sujatha and
Sudhir Chella Rajan. 2006. Providing New Homes for Climate Change Exiles. Climate Policy 6, no.
2: 6, Piguet, Etienne. 2008. Climate Change and Forced Migration. Geneva: UNHCR, Stern, N.
2006. Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, Warren, Rachel, Chris Hope, Michael Mastrandrea, Richard Tol, Neil Adger, and Irene
Lorenzoni. 2006. Spotlighting Impacts Functions in Integrated Assessment: Research Report
Prepared for the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Norwich, England: Tyndall
Centre for Climate Change Research, 91.
64
to climate change. More research is also needed to look for correlations from parallel
research on animal and plant migrations. There already exists a wealth of research on
changing ecosystems and on the way climate change has impacted migratory animal
species upon which many pastoral livelihoods are based; using past human and animal
migration patterns as a base line, anthropologists can anticipate future transformations
(beyond the obvious rural-to-urban migration).
The majority of research on climate change as a cause of forced migration takes
either desertification, sea-level rise, or water/food shortages as the point of departure.
More analysis is needed on other less obvious ways that environmental change will
impact vulnerable livelihoods. For example, coral bleaching and ocean acidification
threaten oceanic life as we know it and will almost certainly affect coastal populations
(if not the entire world food supply) before sea level rise becomes a problem—yet very
little is known about how people would adapt to these kinds of potentially catastrophic
changes.
Lastly, what will certainly be needed are more works like the Stern Review, which
weighs the costs of adapting now to climate change against waiting until we are forced
to adapt. Additional benefit-cost analyses like the Stern Review can be used to
convince developed states that acting now—in terms of both climate change mitigation
and anticipating adaptation measures—is in their own economic and national security
interests. Even if one were to set aside contentious issues such as past contributions
to climate change, the fact remains that wealthy industrial nations are the best
equipped to address this problem and are likely to be target destinations of climate
65
change-forced migrants. In other words, those in the North and West will pay for it one
way or another, sooner or later. The better the policy-makers from Washington to Cairo
understand the full scale of this phenomenon, the better equipped they should be to
plan for it.
66
Bib lio gr ap h y
General Assembly Resolution 428 (V) Statute of the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees. 1950. United Nations.
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. 1951. United Nations.
Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. 1967. United Nations.
Border Protection Bill. 2001.
Howard's 'Cynical' Pacific Solution Over. 2008. Herald Sun, February 9, 2008, 1.
Adepoju, A. 1995. Migration in Africa: An Overview. In The Migration Experience in Africa, ed.
Jonathan Baker and Tade Akin Aida:87-108. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
AI. 2002. Australia-Pacific: Offending human dignity--the 'Pacific Solution'. Amnesty
International.
Aid, Christian. 2007. Human Tide: The Real Migration Crisis. London: Christian Aid.
________. 2009. Our work on climate change. Christian Aid. Accessed March 19, 2009
2009. Available from
http://www.christianaid.org.uk/whatwedo/issues/climate_change.aspx.
Baker, J. 1995. Migration in Ethiopia and the Role of the State. In The Migration Experience in
Africa, ed. Jonathan Baker and Tade Akin Aida:234-56. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska
Afrikainstitutet.
Barrett, C., T. Reardon, and P. Webb. 2001. Nonfarm Income Diversification and Household
Livelihood Strategies in Rural Africa: Concepts, Dynamics, and Policy Implications:1-31.
Basso, S., O. Casacchia, L. Cassata, C. Reynaud, and M. Said. 2001. The Geographical
Distribution of Urban and Rural Population. In Migration and Urbanization in Ethiopia,
with Special Reference to Addis Ababa:7-51. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Rome, Italy:
Central Statistics Authority (CSA) and Institute for Population Research (IPR).
Becker, Charles M. Beyond urban bias in Africa : urbanization in an era of structural adjustment
/ Charles M. Becker, Andrew M. Hamer, Andrew R. Morrison.
Bem, K., N. Field, N. Maclellan, S. Meyer, and A. Morris. 2007. A Price Too High: The cost of
Australia's approach to asylum seekers. Glebe, Australia and Carlton Australia: A Just
Australia
Migration, ed. J. Unroh, M.S. Krol and N. Kliot. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer
Academic Publishers.
Berger, Thomas. 2004. Innovation as an Alternative to Migration? Exemplary Results from a
Multiple-Agent Programming Model Applied to Chile. In Environmental Change and its
Implications for Population Migration, ed. J. Unroh, M.S. Krol and N. Kliot. Dordrecht,
The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Black, Richard. 2001. Environmental Refugees: Myth or Reality? Geneva: UNHCR.
Black, Richard and Mohamed Sessay. 1997. Forced Migration, Land-Use Change and Political
Economy in the Forest Region of Guinea. African Affairs 96, no. 385: 587-605.
Boano, C. 2008. Forced Migration Online (FMO) Research Guide on Climate Change and
Displacement. Oxford, UK: Forced Migration Online, Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford
Department of International Development (ODID) University of Oxford.
67
Boano, C., R. Zetter, and T. Morris. 2008. Environmentally Displaced People: Understanding the
linkages between environmental change, livelihoods, and forced migration. Oxford, UK:
Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford Department of International Development (ODID),
University of Oxford.
Bonaventure, Rutwina. 2002. Prima Facie Status and Refugee Protection. Geneva: UNHCR.
Bradshaw, William E., Peter A. Zani, and Christina M. Holzapfel. 2004. Adaptation to
Temperate Climates. Evolution 58, no. 8: 1748-1762.
Brown, Dwight A. and Philip J. Gersmehl. 1985. Migration Models for Grasses in the American
Midcontinent. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 75, no. 3: 383-394.
Bryceson, D. 2000. Rural Africa at the Crossroads: Livelihood Practices and Policies. London:
Overseas Development Institute.
Byerlee, Derek. 1974. Rural-Urban Migration in Africa: Theory, Policy and Research
Implications. International Migration Review 8, no. 4: 543-566.
Byravan, Sujatha and Sudhir Chella Rajan. 2006. Providing New Homes for Climate Change
Exiles. Climate Policy 6, no. 2: 6.
CIA. March 6, 2008 2008. CIA World Factbook: Maldives. Accessed Last accessed March 19,
2008. 2008. Available from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/geos/mv.html.
Clark, William A. V. 2008. Social and Political Contexts of Conflict. Forced Migration Review
31: 22-23.
Clarke, John Innes and Leszek A. Kosinski. 1982. Redistribution of population in Africa. London
; Exeter, N.H.: Heinemann Educational.
Crisp, Jeff. 2003. A New Asylum Paradigm? Globalization, migration and the uncertain future
of the international refugee regime. Geneva: UNHCR.
CSA. 2005. Population. Addis Ababa: Central Statistics Agency.
________. 2009. Atlas on Selected Welfare Indicators of Ethiopian Households. Addis Ababa:
Central Statistics Agency.
Daily, Gretchen C. and Paul R. Ehrlich. 1990. An Exploratory Model of the Impact of Rapid
Climate Change on the World Food Situation. Proceedings: Biological Sciences 241, no.
1302: 232-244.
Daley, Beth. 2007. A Climate Change Warning: Panel Says Humans Are Probably Causing Shifts
Around World. Boston Globe, April 7, 2007.
deMenocal, Peter B. 2001. Cultural Responses to Climate Change during the Late Holocene.
Science 292, no. 5517: 667-673.
Addis Ababa: IDS and Save the Children (UK).
DFID. 1999. Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheet. London: Department for International
Development.
Dorigo, Guido and Waldo Tobler. 1983. Push-Pull Migration Laws. Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 73, no. 1: 1-17.
Dun, Olivia and François Gemenne. 2008. Defining 'environmental migration'. Forced Migration
Review 31: 10-11.
68
ECOSOC. 2002. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2001 Revision, Data Tables and Highlights.
New York: Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Edwards, Scott. 2008. Social Breakdown in Darfur. Forced Migration Review 31: 23-24.
Evans, Hugh Emrys and Gazala Pirzada. 1995. Rural Households as Producers: Income
Diversification and the Allocation of Resources. In The Migration Experience in Africa,
ed. J. Baker and Tade Akin Aida:87-108. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
Ezra, Markos and Gebre-Egziabher Kiros. 2001. Rural Out-Migration in the Drought Prone Areas
of Ethiopia: A Multilevel Analysis. International Migration Review 35, no. 3: 749-771.
FAO/GIEWS. 1996. FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to Ethiopia.
FAO/WFP.
________. 1998. FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to Ethiopia.
FAO/WFP.
Fields, Scott. 2005. Continental Divide: Why Africa's Climate Change Burden Is Greater.
Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 8: A534-A537.
Fratkin, Elliot. 2001. East African Pastoralism in Transition: Maasai, Boran, and Rendille Cases.
African Studies Review 44, no. 3: 1-25.
Frayne, Bruce and Wade Pendleton. 2001. Migration in Namibia: Combining Macro and Micro
Approaches to Research Design and Analysis. International Migration Review 35, no. 4:
1054-1085.
Freund, Paul, Anthony Adegbulugbe, Oyvind Christophersen, Hisashi Ishitani, William Moomaw,
and Jose Moreira. 2005. Introduction. In IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide
Capture and Storage, ed. Eduardo Calvo and Eberhard Jochem:51-74. Cambridge, New
York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sào Paulo: Cambridge University Press.
Glenzer, Kent. 2007. We Aren't the World: The Institutional Production of Partial Success. In
Niger 2005: Une Catastrophe si Naturelle, ed. Xavier Crombe and Jean-Herve
Jezequel:117-144. Paris: Medecins Sans Frontieres.
Golini, Antonio, Mohammed Said, Oliviero Casacchia, Celia Reynaud, Sara Basso, Lorenzo
Cassata, and Massimiliano Crisci. 2001. Migration and Urbanization in Ethiopia, with
Special Reference to Addis Ababa. In-Depth Studies from the 1994 Population and
Housing Census in Ethiopia. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Rome, Italy: Central Statistics
Authority (CSA) and Institute for Population Research (IPR).
Goodwin-Gill, Guy S. 1989. International Law and Human Rights: Trends Concerning
International Migrants and Refugees. International Migration Review 23, no. 3: 526-546.
________. 1999. Refugee Identity and Protection's Fading Prospect. In Refugee Rights and
Realities: Evolving International Concepts and Regimes, ed. Frances Nicholson and P.
Twomey:220-249. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gould, W.T.S. 1995. Migration and Recent Economic and Environmental Change. In The
Migration Experience in Africa, ed. Jonathan Baker and Tade Akin Aida:122-48. Uppsala,
Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
Hance, William Adams. 1970. Population, migration, and urbanization in Africa. New York,:
Columbia University Press.
Held, I. M., T. L. Delworth, J. Lu, K. L. Findell, and T. R. Knutson. 2005. Simulation of Sahel
Drought in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 102, no. 50: 17891-17896.
69
Hugo, Graeme. 1996. Environmental Concerns and International Migration. International
Illinois, University of. 2007. New Ideas about Human Migration from Asia to the Americas. In
Science Daily.
IOM. 2007. Refugee Protection. International Organization for Migration. Accessed February 2,
2008 2008. Available from http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pid/281.
________. 2007. The Framework for Refugee Protection. International Organization for
Migration. Accessed February 2, 2008 2008. Available from
http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pid/612.
________. 2008. Expert Seminar: Migration and the Environment. Red Book Series:
International Dialogue on Migration. Geneva: International Organization for Migration.
Jenkyns, Hugh C. 2003. Evidence for Rapid Climate Change in the Mesozoic-Palaeogene
Greenhouse World. Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering
Sciences 361, no. 1810: 1885-1916.
John Pender, Berhanu Gebremedhin Samuel Benin Simeon Ehui. 2001. Strategies for
Sustainable Development of Less-Favoured Areas: Strategies for Sustainable
Agricultural Development in the Ethiopian Highlands. American Journal of Agricultural
Economics 83, no. 5: 1231-1240.
Jones, David K. C. 1993. Slope Instability in a Warmer Britain. The Geographical Journal 159,
no. 2: 184-195.
Keane, D. 2004. The Environmental Causes and Consequences of Migration: A Search for the
Meaning of "Environmental Refugees". Georgetown International Environmental Law
Review.
Keenlyside, N. S., M. Latif, J. Jungclaus, L. Kornblueh, and E. Roeckner. 2008. Advancing
decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector. Nature 453, no. 7191:
84-88.
Kloos, Helmut. 1982. Farm Labor Migrations in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia. International
Climate Change and Migration: Improving Methodologies to Estimate Flows. Geneva:
International Organization for Migration.
Krokfors, C. 1995. Poverty, Environmental Stress and Culture as Factors in African Migrations.
In The Migration Experience in Africa, ed. Jonathan Baker and Tade Akin Aida:54-63.
Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
Krovvidi, Adityam, Simon Francis, E.M. Rajesh, Dr. Rakesh Mohindra, Dr. Annes Hassankunju,
Mayank Dubney, Samit Shrivastava, and Satya Prasad. 2006. Developing a Disaster Risk
Profile for the Maldives (Volumes 1 & 2). Noida, India: United Nations Development
Programme.
Laney, Rheyna M. 2002. Disaggregating Induced Intensification for Land-Change Analysis: A
Case Study from Madagascar. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92,
no. 4: 702-726.
Maldives: United Nations Development Programme.
Lee, Everett S. 1966. A Theory of Migration. Demography 3, no. 1: 47-57.
70
Lenton, Timothy M., Hermann Held, Elmar Kriegler, Jim W. Hall, Wolfgang Lucht, Stefan
Rahmstorf, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. 2008. Inaugural Article: Tipping elements in
the Earth's climate system. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no.
6: 1786-1793.
Lewin, Alexandra C. 2007. Niger's Famine and the Role of Food Aid. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University.
Liu, Junguo, Steffen Fritz, C. F. A. van Wesenbeeck, Michael Fuchs, Liangzhi You, Michael
Obersteiner, and Hong Yang. 2008. A spatially explicit assessment of current and
future hotspots of hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa in the context of global change. Global
and Planetary Change 64, no. 3-4: 222-235.
Makowski, Marek. 2001. Modeling Techniques for Complex Environmental Problems. In Natural
Environment Management and Applied Systems Analysis, ed. M. Makowski and H.
Nakayama:41-77. Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis.
Mannion, A. M. 1998. Global Environmental Change: The Causes and Consequences of
Disruption to Biogeochemical Cycles. The Geographical Journal 164, no. 2: 168-182.
Mattar, Vanessa and Paul White. 2005. Consistent and Predictable Responses to IDPs: A
review of UNHCR's decision-making process. Geneva: UNHCR.
Maxwell, Daniel. 2007. Global Factors Shaping the Future of Food Aid: The Implications for
WFP. Disasters 33, no. S1: S25-S39.
McDonald, Frank. 2007. U.S. and EU Deadlocked at Climate Talks. The Irish Times, December
14, 2007, 1.
McNeill, William H. 1984. Human Migration in Historical Perspective. Population and
Development Review 10, no. 1: 1-18.
Mooney, E. 2005. The Concept of Internal Displacement and the Case for Internally Displaced
Persons as a Category of Concern. Refugee Survey Quarterly 24, no. 3: 9-26.
Morawska, Ewa. 2000. Intended and Unintended Consequences of Forced Migrations: A
Neglected Aspect of East Europe's Twentieth Century History. International Migration
Review 34, no. 4: 1049-1087.
Myers, Norman. 1993. Environmental Refugees in a Globally Warmed World. BioScience 43, no.
11: 752-761.
Myers, N. 1994. Eco-refugees: a crisis in the making. People Planet 3, no. 4: 6-9.
Myers, Norman. 2002. Environmental Refugees: A Growing Phenomenon of the 21st Century.
Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 357, no. 1420: 609-613.
Newbold, K. Bruce. 2001. Counting Migrants and Migrations: Comparing Lifetime and Fixed-
Interval Return and Onward Migration. Economic Geography 77, no. 1: 23-40.
OHCHR. 2009. Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
on the relationship between climate change and human rights. Geneva: United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights.
Ott, Hermann E. 2001. Climate Change: An Important Foreign Policy Issue. International Affairs
(Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 77, no. 2: 277-296.
71
Pallis, Mark. 2002. Obligations of States towards Asylum Seekers at Sea: Interactions and
Conflicts Between Legal Regimes. International Journal of Refugee Law 14, no. 2/3:
329-364.
Pankhurst, Alula and Francois (eds) Piguet. 2004. People, Space, and the State: Migration,
Resettlement and Displacement in Ethiopia. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University.
Piguet, Etienne. 2008. Climate Change and Forced Migration. Geneva: UNHCR.
Reardon, Thomas. 1997. Using evidence of household income diversification to inform study
of the rural nonfarm labor market in Africa. World Development 25, no. 5: 735-747.
Renaud, F., J.J. Bogardi, O. Dun, and K. Warner. 2007. Control, Adapt or Flee: How to Face
Environmental Migration? Bonn: United Nations University Institute for Environment and
Human Security.
Rignot, Eric, Jonathan L. Bamber, Michiel R. van den Broeke, Curt Davis, Yonghong Li, Willem
Jan van de Berg, and Erik van Meijgaard. 2008. Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from
radar interferometry and regional climate modelling. Nature Geosci 1, no. 2: 106-110.
Roberts, Bryan R. 1989. Urbanization, Migration, and Development. Sociological Forum 4, no.
4: 665-691.
Romer, K. 2006. "Environmental" Refugees? Forced Migration Review, no. 25: 1.
Roseman, Curtis C. 1971. Migration as a Spatial and Temporal Process. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers 61, no. 3: 589-598.
Rystad, Goran. 1992. Immigration History and the Future of International Migration.
International Migration Review 26, no. 4: 1168-1199.
S. Benin, J. Pender. 2001. Impacts of land redistribution on land management and productivity
in the Ethiopian highlands. Land Degradation & Development 12, no. 6: 555-568.
S. Benin, M. Smale J. Pender B. Gebremedhin S. Ehui. 2004. The economic determinants of
cereal crop diversity on farms in the Ethiopian highlands. Agricultural Economics 31, no.
2-3: 197-208.
Schneider, S.H., S. Semenov, A. Patwardhan, I. Burton, C.H.DD. Magadza, M. Oppenheimer, A.B.
Pittock, A. Rahman, J.B. Smith, A. Suarez, and F. Yamin. 2007. Addressing Key
Vulnerabilities and the Risk from Climate Change. In Climate Change 2007: Impacts,
Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. S.H.
Schneider, S. Semenov and A. Patwardhan. Cambridge: Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
Sell, Ralph R. 1983. Analyzing Migration Decisions: The First Step--Whose Decisions?
Demography 20, no. 3: 299-311.
Shahid, A. 2008. Life on the High(er) Seas: Adapting to Climate Change in the Maldives. The
Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 32, no. 2: 8.
crisis of household and community livelihoods. Journal of Human Development and
Capabilities 5, no. 2: 227 - 247.
Sharp, Kay, Stephen Devereux, and Yared Amare. 2003. Destitution in Ethiopia's Northeastern
Highlands (Amhara National Regional State). Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Institute of
Development Studies and Save the Children (UK).
Smith, Doug M., Stephen Cusack, Andrew W. Colman, Chris K. Folland, Glen R. Harris, and
72
James M. Murphy. 2007. Improved Surface Temperature Prediction for the Coming
Decade from a Global Climate Model. Science 317, no. 5839: 796-799.
Stavropoulou, Maria. 2008. Drowned in definitions? Forced Migration Review 31: 11-12.
Sterman, John D. 2002. All Models Are Wrong: Reflections on becoming a systems scientist.
Systems Dynamics Review 18, no. 4: 501-531.
University Press.
Travis, J. M. J. 2003. Climate Change and Habitat Destruction: A Deadly Anthropogenic
Cocktail. Proceedings: Biological Sciences 270, no. 1514: 467-473.
Truscott, Claire. 2008. Giant Antarctic ice shelf breaks into the sea. The Guardian,
Wednesday, March 26, 2008.
UN. 1982. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, ed. United Nations, 98: United
Nations.
UNESCO. 2008. People on the Move: Handbook of selected terms and concepts. The Hague
and Paris: UNESCO.
UNHCR. 2002. UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2001: Refugees, Asylum-seekers and Other
Persons of Concern--Trends in Displacement, Protection and Solutions. Geneva: UNHCR.
________. 2003. Agenda for Protection. Geneva: UNHCR.
________. 2006. Rethinking durable solutions. In The State of the World's Refugees 2006.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
________. 2006. Protracted refugee situations: the search for practical solutions. In The
State of the World's Refugees. 2006. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
________. 2007. UNHCR Global Appeal 2008-2009. In Mission Statement:1. Geneva: UHNCR.
________. 2007. Protecting Refugees & The Role of UNHCR 2007-2008. Geneva: UNHCR.
________. 2007. UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2005: Trends in Displacement, Protection and
Solutions. Geneva: UNHCR.
________. 2008. Climate change, natural disasters and human displacement: a UNHCR
perspective. Geneva: UNHCR.
Verstraete, Michel M., Andreas B. Brink, Robert J. Scholes, Martin Beniston, and Mark Stafford
Smith. 2008. Climate change and desertification: Where do we stand, where should we
go? Global and Planetary Change 64, no. 3-4: 105-110.
Wallen, Carl Christian. 1986. Impact of Present Century Climate Fluctuations in the Northern
Hemisphere. Geografiska Annaler. Series A, Physical Geography 68, no. 4: 245-278.
Ward, R. Gerard. 1989. Earth's Empty Quarter? The Pacific Islands in a Pacific Century. The
Geographical Journal 155, no. 2: 235-246.
Warren, Rachel, Chris Hope, Michael Mastrandrea, Richard Tol, Neil Adger, and Irene Lorenzoni.
2006. Spotlighting Impacts Functions in Integrated Assessment: Research Report
Prepared for the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Norwich, England:
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, 91.
Webster, Mackinnon, Justin Ginnetti, Peter Walker, Daniel Coppard, and Randolph Kent. 2008.
The Humanitarian Costs of Climate Change. Medford, MA: Feinstein International Center.
Whiting, John W. M., John A. Sodergren, and Stephen M. Stigler. 1982. Winter Temperature as
a Constraint to the Migration of Preindustrial Peoples. American Anthropologist 84, no.
2: 279-298.
73
WHO. 2007. Climate Change and Human Health-Risks and Responses Summary. Geneva: World
Health Organization, World Meteorological Organization, United Nations Development
Programme.
________. 2008. World Malaria Report 2008. Geneva: World Health Organization.
Wilbanks, T.J., P. Romero Lankao, M. Bao, F. Berkhout, S. Cairncross, J.-P. Ceron, M. Kapshe, R.
Muir-Wood, and R. Zapata-Marti. 2007. Industry, Settlement and Society. In Climate
Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II
to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
ed. T. Wilbanks and P. Romero Lankao:58. Cambridge: Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
Wiles, Gregory C., Ryan P. McAllister, Nicole K. Davi, and C. Jacoby Gordon. 2003. Eolian
Response to Little Ice Age Climate Change, Tana Dunes, Chugach Mountains, Alaska,
U.S.A. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 35, no. 1: 67-73.
Wilson, Franklin D. 1985. Migration and Occupational Mobility: A Research Note. International
Woldeamlak Bewket, Declan Conway. 2007. A note on the temporal and spatial variability of
rainfall in the drought-prone Amhara region of Ethiopia. International Journal of
Climatology 27, no. 11: 1467-1477.
Zolberg, Aristide R. 1989. The Next Waves: Migration Theory for a Changing World.
International Migration Review 23, no. 3: 403-430.
Zuberi, Tukufu, Sibanda Amson, Ayaga Bawah, and Amadou Noumbissi. 2003. Population and
African Society. Annual Review of Sociology 29: 465-486.
74
Appe nd ix : Mo del Do cu me nta tion
(01) "% Households Owning Livestock"=0.816
Units: Dmnl
This is the percentage of households that own livestock. In a

region of many farmers with small individual landholdings,
ownership of cattle must be spread across the entire community
for the cattle to have a postive impact on aggregate yield.
(Source: Sharp and Devereaux, 2004)
(02) Aggregate Livelihood Score=(Financial Capital Score^1.112)+(Human Capital

Score^1.144)+(Natural Capital Score^1.157)+(Phyiscal Capital Score^1.165)
Units: Dmnl
Aggregate livelihood score based on each type of capital. Each

individual score is then scaled/weighted depending on its
importance in livelihoods surveys of residents of Wollo.
(Source: Sharp and Devereux, 2004)
(03) Agricultural Carrying Capacity= INTEG (Carrying Capacity Regeneration-Carrying

Capacity Degradation, 1.1294e+006)
Units: Hectares
Given the parameters of the climate signal and soil exhaustion,

the carrying capacity will only be eroded or maintained in this
model. The three distrcits considered in ths case study compose
41,829 square kilometers, 27 percent of which is devoted to
grazing. This works out to 11,294 square kilometers, or
1,129,400 hectares, allocated for cultivation. Source (USAID,
2000).
(04) Average Duration of Temporary Migration=5
Units: Months
Average duration of temporary migration is less than a growing

season due to the difficulty of finding work (which leads to
75
return migration) and the risk of losing one's farm-based assets.
(05) Bovine Birth Rate=0.8*0.6
Units: Calves/Cow
I have assumed that 80 percent of the female cows (which compose

60 percent of the herd) have a calf each year. The reason the
herd is not split 50/50 between bulls and heiffers is that the
bulls are consumed more quickly than the heiffers, because each
individual bull (after the first bull) is marginally less useful
than the heiffers. Furthermore, most of the cattle in Ethiopia's
highlands are owned by relatively few households. If the
region's aggregate herd were divided more equitably, then the
female/male split would probably be closer to 50/50, rather than
60/40. (Source: Sharpe and Devereaux, 2004).
(06) Bovine Mortality Rate=Effect of Overgrazing on Bovine Mortality(Herd Utilization)
Units: 1/Month
Total bovine mortality is informed by beef consumption and

normal mortality; yet during droughts and floods mortality can
rise to as much as 62 percent over a 12-month period.
(07) Carrying Capacity Degradation=MIN(Planting Intensity*Planted Crops*Crop

Utilization/Degradation Delay, Maximum Degradation of Agricultural Carrying
Capacity)
Units: Hectares/Month
Amount at which carrying capacity is degraded due to the

intensity of crop cultivation (i.e., planting above the carrying
capacity).
(08) Carrying Capacity Regeneration=Agricultural Carrying Capacity*(1-Climate

Signal)/Soil Regeneration Time
76
Change in carrying capacity is based upon the existing carrying
capacity and is modified by the utilization of the land for
agricultural and grazing as well as the climate signal.
(09) Cattle Deaths=Cows*Bovine Mortality Rate
Units: Cows/Month
Number of cows that die each month in these districts of

Ethiopia.
(10) Change in Financial Capital=(Harvested Crops-Financial Capital)/TIME STEP
Units: Tons/Month
Change in financial capital due to harvest of crops.
(11) Change in Household Natural Capital=((Agricultural Carrying Capacity+Livestock

Carrying Capacity)-Natural Capital)/TIME STEP
Change in natural capital. This rate is tracked on a 12-month

basis on the assumption that farmers would sell their land only
once per year, resulting in a 12-month delay in the change of
natural capital.
(12) Change in Human Capital=(Potentially Educated Population*Enrollment-Human

Capital)/Length of Primary School
Units: People/Month
This takes a measure of change in the rural labor force as a

function of the rural population, fraction of the population
that receives education, and the average number of months of
schooling the educated population receives.
(13) Change in Livelihood Robustness=(Aggregate Livelihood Score-Livelihood

Robustness)/TIME STEP
77
Units: 1/Month
Change in aggregate livelihood robustness due to input from

individual indicators.
(14) Change in Physical Capital=(Cows-Physical Capital)/TIME STEP
Units: Cows/Month
The change in natural capital as compared to existing natural

capital. This can be growth or decay.
(15) "Climate Change On/Off Switch"=1
Units: Dmnl
0 = Off, 1 = On
(16) Climate Signal=RAMP(0.1/(120), 120, 240)*"Climate Change On/Off Switch"
Units: Dmnl
The climate signal is a 10 percent "worsening" (spread over 10

years) that begins in Month 1 of Year 10 and which ends in Month
1 of Year 20, after which the climate change would no longer
effect yields and soil regeneration.
(17) Consumption=Harvested Crops/Consumption Period
Units: Tons/Month
I have assumed that there are no surpluses--all harvested food

assets are consumed or traded.
(18) Consumption Period=12
Units: Months
78
Each harvest must last 12 months for there to be enough to last
until the following harvest.
(19) Cow Births=Cows*Bovine Birth Rate/Gestation Period
Units: Calves/Month
Number of calf births based on bovine birth rate and the number
of heifers. I have assumed that everyone tries to breed each
heifer every year. I have also assumed that all births are live
births and that no heifers die in childbirth; I accounted for
the cows who die due to drought by elevating the bovine
mortality rate in response to the climate signal.
(20) Cows= INTEG (Cow Births-Cattle Deaths, 1.25485e+006)
Units: Cows
The initial number represents total number of cows that can be

supported by these three districts of the Amhara region
multiplied the percent estimated to be by calves at the start of
the simulation.
(21) Crop Utilization=Planted Crops*Planting Intensity/Agricultural Carrying Capacity
Units: Dmnl
Amount of the potential carrying capacity that is being used by

the planted crops.
(22) Cultivation=Planted Crops*Yield Fraction*(1-Climate Signal)/Growing Season
Units: Tons/Month
Cultivation is the percent of the potential tons of agricultural

production (i.e., seeds) that reach harvest, divided by the
length of the growing season.
79
(23) Degradation Delay=12
Units: Months
Average length of time it takes for the soil erosion/exhaustion

(due to overgrazing or intensive agriculture) to take effect.
(24) Effect of Overgrazing on Bovine Mortality([(0,0)-

(2,0.1)],(0,0),(0.1,0.0125),(0.9,0.0125),(1,0.0125),(1.1,0.04),(1.5,0.045),(2,
0.05))
Units: 1/Month
Effect of overgrazing and soil degradation on bovine mortality.

In this part of Ethiopia during droughts (i.e., when the size of
the herd relative to the carrying capacity is highest), the
mortality rate is as high as 60 percent/year.
(25) Effect of Utilization on Yield([(0,0)-

(6,2)],(0,0),(0.1,0.05),(0.2,0.2),(0.3,0.3),(0.4,0.4),(0.5,0.6),(0.6,0.7),(0.7,0.8
3),(0.8,0.95),(0.9,1.05),(1,1.1),(2,1.15),(5,1.15))
Units: Dmnl
A low yield for cereals is 0.83 tons/hectare, whereas a high

yield is 1.15 tons/hectare. (Source: FAO/WFP, 1998).
(26) Enrollment=0.33
Units: Dmnl
Enrollment is shown here as the percentage of school-age

children that are enrolled in school in the Northeastern
Highlands region of Ethiopia. (Source: CSA, accessed 2009)
(27) Expected Livelihood Robustness= INTEG (Livelihood Trend,10)
Units: Dmnl
80
The expected livelihood robustness is based upon past
livelihoods: at any point in time in this model, one's expected
livelihoods is based on moving average one's livelihood over the
preceding three years.
(28) FINAL TIME = 720
Units: Month
The final time for the simulation.
(29) Financial Capital= INTEG (Change in Financial Capital, Harvested Crops)
Units: Tons
Since food is traded, and more than 90 percent of the region

earns its livelihood through food production, I have used food
assets as a proxy for financial capital. (Sources: Sharp and
Devereux, 2004; and FAO/WFP, 1998)
(30) Financial Capital Per Household=Financial Capital*People per Household/Rural

Population
Units: Tons/Household
Amount of food assets (financial capital) per person.
(31) Financial Capital Score=Financial Capital Per Household*Household Tons
Units: Dmnl
(32) "Fractional Rural-Urban Migration Rate"=0.125/12
Units: Dmnl
Portion of the population that is likely to migrate based on

demographic indicators such as age and gender. This takes into
81
account the fact that unmarried young men (i.e., not heads of
households) are most likely to migrate. (Source: Devereux 2000)
(Cf. Casacchia et al. 2001, p.61, for a lower figure.)
(33) Fractional Urban Growth Rate=0.031/12
Units: 1/Month
Fraction of the population that permanently settles in urban

areas. If Ethiopia's annual urban birth rate is roughly 2
percent, the death rate ranges from 1.4-1.8 percent, and its
annual urban growth rate is 5.05 percent, the difference in
growth must be accounted for by in-migration from rural
areas--at least 3 percent annually.
(34) Gestation Period=12
Units: Months
This reflects the fact that cows will not birth more than one
cow per year (allowing for gestation, nursing, etc.).
(35) Growing Season=8
Units: Months
Average number of months between planting and harvest seasons.
(36) Harvested Crops= INTEG (Cultivation-Consumption, 941167/(0.83*(1-Climate

Signal)))
Units: Tons
Amount of food tons that reach harvest and can be used for
consumption or trading. In this model, cereals are standing in
for all crop production because they account for most of Wollo’s
agriculture.
(37) Hectares Per Cow=1.3

82
Units: Hectares/Cow
Number of hectares needed for the average farmer in this region

to support each cow.
(38) Herd Utilization=Hectares Per Cow*Cows/Livestock Carrying Capacity
Units: Dmnl
Represents how much of the land is being utilized by the cattle

herd, based on the carrying capacity, the required amount of
grazing land needed per cow, and the number of cows.
(39) Household Cows=1
Units: Household/Cow
Normalization variable.
(40) Household Hectares=1
Units: Household/Hectares
Normalization variable needed to remove units from the natural

capital per household variable, which is necessary to calculate
the per-household natural capital score.
(41) Household People=1
Units: Household/People
Normalization variable needed to remove units from the human

capital per household variable, which is necessary to calculate
the per-household human capital score.
(42) Household Tons=1
83
Units: Household/Ton
Normalization variable needed to calculate the financial capital score.
(43) Human Capital= INTEG (Change in Human Capital, (Enrollment*Potentially

Educated Population))
Units: People
This model defines human capital as a function of people and

education.
(44) Human Capital Per Household=Human Capital*People per Household/Rural

Population
Units: People/Household
Number of educated people per household.
(45) Human Capital Score=Household People*Human Capital Per Household
Units: Dmnl
(46) INITIAL TIME = 0
Units: Month
The initial time for the simulation.
(47) Length of Primary School=72
Units: Months
Maximum number of months (including time between sessions) that

children would be in primary school. (Source: CSA, accessed 2009)
(48) Livelihood Robustness= INTEG (Change in Livelihood Robustness, Aggregate

Livelihood Score)
84
Units: Dmnl
This is the stock of livelihood. It grows or is depleted by the

variables from Wollo's agricultural production. The initial
livelihood is merely the aggregate livelihood score.
(49) Livelihood Trend=(Livelihood Robustness-Expected Livelihood

Robustness)/Weight of History
Units: 1/Month
(50) Livestock Carrying Capacity= INTEG (Regeneration-Overgrazing, 1.6313e+006)
Units: Hectares
The three districts considered in this case study compose 41,829

square kilometers, 39 percent of which is devoted to grazing.
This works out to 16,313 square kilometers, or 1,631,300
hectares. (Source: USAID, 2000).
(51) Maximum Degradation of Agricultural Carrying Capacity=0.4*Agricultural

Carrying Capacity/Degradation Delay
Absolute limit to how much the agricultural carrying capacity

can be degraded each month. Here we have limited it at 40
percent of the total agricultural carrying capacity because we
will allow that some land is being set aside to fallow or that
some crops are rotated.
(52) Maximum Degradation of Livestock Carrying Capacity=0.4*Livestock Carrying

Capacity/Degradation Delay
Absolute limit to how much the livestock carrying capacity can

be degraded each month. This is capped at 80 percent per year in
this model to accommodate for the fact that at a certain point
85
farmers will shift their cattle onto someone else's land,
legally or not.
(53) Migration Delay=1
Units: Month
Average length of it takes someone to migrate after having

decided to do so. Where distances are great and more preparation
is required, this delay may be more than one month. On the other
hand, some research suggests that for many forced migrants there
is no delay.
(54) Migration Pressure=(Robustness of Reference Livelihood-Expected Livelihood

Robustness)/Expected Livelihood Robustness
Units: Dmnl
Pressure to migrate based on a comparison of one's Expected

Livelihood Robustness to the Robustness of a Reference
Livelihood (i.e., the robustness of the livelihood to which one
had been accustomed).
(55) Natural Capital= INTEG (Change in Household Natural Capital, (Agricultural

Carrying Capacity+Livestock Carrying Capacity))
Units: Hectares
In this model, natural capital is the total area of available

arable land available at a given time.
(56) Natural Capital Per Household=Natural Capital*People per Household/Rural

Population
Units: Hectares/Household
This is the natural capital expressed normalized per household.

As population grows the number of households proliferates,
particularly given a pyramidal population distribution weighted
toward a younger demographic, there will be significant decrease
86
in natural capital per household even without climate change.
(57) Natural Capital Score=Household Hectares*Natural Capital Per Household
Units: Dmnl
(58) Overgrazing=MIN(Hectares Per Cow*Cows*(1+Herd Utilization)/Degradation

Delay, Maximum Degradation of Livestock Carrying Capacity)
Amount of grazing land lost each month due to too many cattle
for the region's carrying capacity.
(59) People per Household=5
Units: People/Household
Average number of people/household in this part of the Amhara

district. It ranges from 4 (in the poorest households) to 7 (in
the wealthiest). (Source: Devereux, 2000)
(60) Per Hectare Planting Limit=0.83
Units: Tons/Hectare
Maximum amount of grains one would plant per hectare of their

available arable land.
(61) "Permanent Rural-Urban Migrants"= INTEG (Settlement, 0)
Units: People
This is the number of permanent migrants. They have found some

form of livelihood and are sending remittances back to family
members.
(62) Phyiscal Capital Score=Household Cows*Physical Capital Per Household

87
Units: Dmnl
(63) Physical Capital= INTEG (Change in Physical Capital, Cows)
Units: Cows
Amount of physical capital on hand, using livestock as a proxy

(Source: Devereux, 2000)
(64) Physical Capital Per Household="% Households Owning Livestock"*Physical

Capital*People per Household/Rural Population
Units: Cows/Household
Number of cows per household.
(65) Planted Crops= INTEG (Planting-Cultivation, 941167)
Units: Tons
Number of potential tons of crops planted in the ground.

Potential tons rather than "tons" because the seeds weigh less
than the final plant organisms.
(66) Planting=Agricultural Carrying Capacity*Per Hectare Planting Limit/Planting Delay
Units: Tons/Month
Tons/month of potential agricultural capital (i.e., seeds)

planted.
(67) Planting Delay=4
Units: Months
This artificial planting delay was created to account for the

fact that the cereal growing season is 8 months and that there is
88
only one harvest per year for Wollo’s main crops. If one ran the
model simulations without the delay, there would be three harvests
every 24 months rather than two.
(68) Planting Intensity=1.2
Units: Hectares/Ton
Average number of hectares required to produce one ton of

cereals and pulses in the northeastern highlands of Ethiopia.
(Source: FAO/GIEWS, 1996)
(69) Potentially Educated Population=Rural Population-Rural Births*TIME STEP/12*7
Units: People
Number of Potential Students. This model normalizes monthly

births on an annual basis and then subtracts the children under
seven years old from the larger population.
(70) Regeneration=Livestock Carrying Capacity*(1-Climate Signal)/Soil Regeneration

Time
Rate at which the soil recovers from grazing. The soil

regeneration time for the cattle grazing has been reduced from
three years to one year
(71) Return Migration="Temporary Rural-Urban Migrants"/Average Duration of

Temporary Migration
Units: People/Month
People per month who return to their pastoral livelihood after a

temporary stay in a city.
(72) Robustness of Reference Livelihood=15
89
Units: Dmnl
This variable refers to livelihood robustness of a viable rural

livelihood in Wollo. Potential migrants and temporary
rural-urban migrants weigh the expected rural livelihood
robustness against this one, and if there is a discrepancy it
will generate pressure to migrate. Given the poverty rates and
destitution in Wollo, the reference livelihood score must, by
definition, be greater than the inputs from the agro-pastoral
production model--at least when initializing the model.
(73) Rural Birth Rate=0.038/12
Units: 1/Month
Amhara's annual birth rate is 38 births per 1,000 people, which

has been rephrased here as a per-month rate. Initially, I
established this using a fertility rate (using births/woman) and
percent of the female population of childbearing age, but the
results were similar and these extra steps added unnecessary
complexity to the model; this may be useful however if one were
testing a more demographic hypothesis (i.e., the effect of
education on migration) rather than climate change on
rural-urban migration).
(74) Rural Births=Rural Birth Rate*Rural Population
Units: People/Month
Monthly Rural Births.
(75) Rural Deaths=Rural Mortality Rate*Rural Population
Units: People/Month
Monthly deaths in rural areas of the Northeastern Highlands.
(76) Rural Mortality Rate=0.016/12
90
Units: 1/Month
The mortality rate is 16 per 1000 people, rephrased here as a

monthly rate. (Source: CSA, accessed 2009)
(77) Rural Population= INTEG (Return Migration+Rural Births-Rural Deaths-"Rural-

Urban Migration", 3.32381e+006)
Units: People
Total rural population of Wag Hamra, Southern Wello, and

Northern Wello Administrative Zones of Ethiopia in 1994,
initially 91 percent of total population for these districts.
(Source: Sharp and Devereux, 2004)
(78) "Rural-Urban Migration"="Fractional Rural-Urban Migration Rate"*Rural

Population*Migration Pressure
/Migration Delay
Units: People/Month
Number of people per month who seek temporary employment in an

urban area. These are seasonal migrations, which have been
aggregated here on an annual basis (because it is not crucial
for this model and analysis to capture the seasonality).
(79) SAVEPER = TIME STEP
Units: Month [0,?]
The frequency with which output is stored.
(80) Settlement="Temporary Rural-Urban Migrants"*Migration Pressure*Fractional

Urban Growth Rate
Units: People/Month
Number of people per month who have decided to stay in the urban
destination area.
91
(81) Soil Regeneration Time=36
Units: Months
Time it takes for agricultural fields to recover their full

productivity after having been cultivated.
(82) "Temporary Rural-Urban Migrants"= INTEG ("Rural-Urban Migration"-Return

Migration-Settlement, (Rural Population*"Fractional Rural-Urban Migration Rate"))
Units: People
People who have temporarily left their agricultural livelihood

to seek employment in an urban area.
(83) TIME STEP = 1
Units: Month [0,?]
The time step for the simulation.
(84) Weight of History=36
Units: Months
This "information delay" captures how much one weighs one's

current livelihood against historical norms. The greater the
length of time, the greater the weight of history on one's
expected livelihood. Here, I have estimated that one's
perspective will be three years (36 months).
(85) Yield Fraction=Effect of Utilization on Yield(Crop Utilization)
Units: Dmnl
The actual yield is based on the yield-increasing effect of

owning at least one cow or ox to plow, as well as the
yield-reducing effects of floods and droughts.
92

A SYSTEMS DYNAMICAL ANALYSIS OF RURAL OUT-MIGRATION IN WOLLO, ETHIOPIA © 2009 ... (PDFDrive)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

A SYSTEMS DYNAMICAL ANALYSIS OF RURAL OUT-MIGRATION IN WOLLO, ETHIOPIA © 2009 ... (PDFDrive)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

CLIMATE CHANGE, LIVELIHOODS, AND FORCED MIGRATION

A SYSTEMS DYNAMICAL ANALYSIS OF RURAL OUT-MIGRATION IN

Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy Thesis

© 2009 Justin Ginnetti

C HAPT ER 1: I NTR ODU CTI O N 3

The Scale an d S cope o f Climate Ch an ge -Ind uced M igrat ion

C HAPT ER 2: P R OBLEM D EFI NIT IO N A ND TH E P R OBLEM OF D EFIN ITI ON 6

Climate C han ge Re fu ge es , th e P rot e ction Ga p, an d Du ra ble S olut io ns

C HAPT ER 3: L IT ERA TURE R EVI EW 22

Effo rts t o Ex am in e th e R ela tions h ip Bet wee n C lim ate Cha n ge a nd

C HAPT ER 4: S YST EMS D Y NA MI CS A ND C LI MAT E C H AN G E -F ORC ED M IGR ATI ON 41

Live liho od s an d Mig rat io n in Wo llo , Et hiop ia

A Lo ok Ah ead a t Fu rt her Res ear ch O pp ort un it ies

I NTRO DUCT IO N : T H E S CAL E AN D S COP E OF C L I MAT E C H AN GE -I N DUC ED M I GRATI O N

Antarctica. Climate-related phenomena at the other end of the spectrum, such as

indirect, cause of human migrations. 1

What is the magnitude of climate change’s impact on human migration? Once

change-related phenomena, often sea-level rise or desertification, while others draw

deforestation; some predictions consider environmentally driven labor migration, others

measure migration flows against temperature rise. As expected, the differences in

underlying assumptions have yielded vastly different predictions.

Table 1 Sample of Estimates of Climate Change-Induced Migration

knowledge and avenues of future research will be highlighted.

profitable consideration of potential migration flows should be based upon existing

importantly, “rural-urban migration and the transformation of rural settlements into

home and move to an urban center.

P ROBL EM D EFI NITI ON AN D TH E P R OBL EM OF D EFINITI O N : C LI M ATE C HA NG E R EFUG EES , TH E

P ROT ECTI ON G AP , A ND D URABL E S OLUTI O NS

“environmental,” “climate,” or “climate change” “refugees” could total 150 million

rages on as of this writing.

One crucial definitional problem, often understated even by the experts

property and decides to sharecrop in a more productive region.

Recently, a number of important stakeholders have weighed in on the issue of

terminology to compel the acceptance of a common definition. The United Nations

Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published People on the

Move, a handbook of terms and concepts that advocates for “environmentally

displaced person(s)” or “environmental forced migrant(s).”7

purposes, “the interest in developing a definition lies in understanding the factors

underlying migration decisions. While this is also of interest and concern to

professional incentive to define the climate change-induced migrants narrowly so that

instances, those vulnerable to climate change and hydro-meteorological disasters (i.e.,

responsibility and accountability, as well as a sense of urgency for impending

disasters.”10 According to Stavropoulou, the opposition to the term refugee—and,

therefore, the barrier to a common definition—is political because irresponsible

of protection by one’s own state, then international protection considerations arise.”11

or “environmental” refugees. 12 Instead, Black argues that one’s decision to migrate is

across as a “climate denier.”

role of climate change and environmental degradation in human migrations. Unlike

juridical status recognized by UN Convention of 1951, referring to any person having a

‘well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality,

membership of a particular social group or political opinion.’”14 As Piguet recognizes,

of climate change, human rights, and displacement, it states:

Persons moving voluntarily or forcibly across an international border due

to environmental factors would be entitled to general human rights

to that State. Persons forcibly displaced across borders for environmental

reasons have been referred to as “climate refugees” or “environmental

refugees.” The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, and other

humanitarian organizations have advised that these terms have no legal

basis in international refugee law and should be avoided in order not to

undermine the international legal regime for the protection of refugees. 15

be, “climate,” “climate change,” or “environmental” refugees until the UN Convention

and Protocol framework on refugees is amended to incorporate this category of forced