Climate Change and Migration: What Are the Connections?

The Jakarta Post recently reported experts as saying that ‘[e]xtreme weather caused by climate change has given people another reason to migrate’. The comment was made in reference to a soon-to-be released report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) titled Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific. The report seeks to illuminate ways in which climate will alter regional migration dynamics, and comes at a time when proclamations that climate change may cause large-scale global population movements largely dominate discussions. Early indications suggest that the ADB publication will present more tempered findings that identify climate change as a ‘relatively minor’ driver of migration among the many motivations to move. Such findings could contribute to a needed shift away from apocalyptic climate displacement analysis towards more nuanced approaches to the relationship between climate change and migration.