Measuring the effect of climate change on migration flows: Limitations of existing data and analytical frameworks

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to review quantitative large-N studies that investigate the effects of climate change on migration flows. Recent meta-analyses have shown that most studies find that climate change influences migration flows. There are however also many studies that find no effects or show that effects are dependent on specific contexts. To better understand this complexity, we argue that we need to discuss in more detail how to measure climate change and migration, how these measurements relate to each other and how we can conceptualise the relationship between these two phenomena. After a presentation of current approaches to measuring climate change, international and internal migration and their strengths and weaknesses we discuss ways to overcome the limitations of existing analytical frameworks.

A review of climate security risk assessment tools

“…Notably, the gaps mentioned in Section 5.1 should be addressed, since existing power inequalities, such as gender roles, significantly affect the climate risk outcomes and are thus central to a human-centered approach to security in a changing climate (Francis, 2024). Data advancements increasingly enable considering a broader range of relevant variables in quantitative assessments (Auffhammer et al, 2013; Donaldson & Storeygard, 2016; Helbling et al, 2023; Leyk et al, 2019; Yeh et al, 2020). Also, qualitative research can complement the quantitative analyses (de Bruin et al, 2022; Ide, 2017).…”

Modeling climate migration: dead ends and new avenues

“…Whilst the use of different migration data and different climatic and non-climatic variables considered in models account for some of the discrepancies (Beine and Parsons, 2017;Helbling et al, 2023), several other fundamental issues are present in the large majority of models introduced to date that limit what such models can contribute to our understanding of historical trends and our ability project future trajectories of climate mobility both within borders, where most of it is likely to take place (Pörtner et al, 2022), and across. Here we discuss ways to overcome these issues and highlight recent innovative approaches with the potential to replace classical methods and introduce a new generation of climate mobility models.…”