On the effect of international human migration on nations’ abilities to attain CO2 emission-reduction targets

Abstract

I merge publicly available data on CO2 emissions, with patterns of human movement, to analyze the anticipated effects of human migration on the abilities of nations to attain 2030 UNFCCC CO2 emission targets. I do so at both global (175 countries) and national (Canada and the USA) scales. The analyses reveal that mean per capita CO2 emissions are nearly three times higher in countries with net immigration than in countries with net emigration. Those differences project a cumulative migration-induced annual increase in global emissions of approximately 1.7 billion tonnes. For Canada and the United States, the projected total emissions attributable to migration from 2021 to 2030 vary between 0.7 and 0.9 billion tonnes. Although staggering, the annual and total emissions represent a small fraction of current global emissions totalling 36 billion tonnes per annum. Even so, the projected decadal immigration of nearly 4 million humans to Canada, and 10 million to the USA, represent significant additional challenges in reducing CO2 emissions. The challenges pale in comparison with poor nations that are minor contributors to climate change. Such nations face the incomprehensible burden of improving the quality of their citizens’ lives without increasing global CO2 emissions. National and international strategies aimed at lowering emissions must thus acknowledge, and cooperatively address, consumptive inequities and expected increases in human population size and migration.

Environmental outcomes of climate migration and local governance: an empirical study of Ontario

“…These figures imply that many cities around the world are facing a mass influx of migrants. With increased migrant settlements, the demand for locally provided goods and services is increased, accessing to common resources becomes more limited (Squalli, 2010), public services are overburdened, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are increased (Morris, 2021). Moreover, municipality level standards, such as the quality of waste management and environmental protection services, will be under pressure (Squalli, 2009).…”

“…Studies revealed that per capita CO 2 emissions are nearly three times higher in countries with net immigration than in countries with net emigration (Morris, 2021), and the higher migrant settlements are associated with worse environmental outcomes, such as per capita waste, per capita distributed freshwater and wastewater (Aksoy and Tumen, 2021). The mass influx of population into cities will accelerate the process of urbanization, leading to urban greening reduction.…”

“…Rapid population growth results in additional use of natural resources and public resources, stressing the environment and challenging the sustainable management of the region (Berchin et al , 2017). The interactions among human migration, climate change and environmental degradation are recognized as significant global concerns in the two important compacts on human movements: the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Migration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2018 (Morris, 2021). Similarly, IOM recognizes “the need to better integrate migration into global climate and environmental mechanisms, and for climate change mechanisms to incorporate human mobility aspects” (Oakes et al , 2020).…”

“…Numerous authors have focused on the impacts of climate migration or refugees on the labor supply market (Ruiz and Silva, 2015; Fallah et al , 2019), public health system (Cutlip, 2019; Palinkas, 2020), public infrastructure (Drolet et al , 2018), land use (Maystadt et al , 2020) and cultural integration (Mohamed and Bastug, 2021), assessing the sustainable livelihoods of migrants and limits of political and institutional frameworks to deal with such problems. Others also examined the effects of the greater population of migrants on environmental outcomes, such as effects on greenhouse emission (Morris, 2021), air pollution (Cramer, 1998), land use (Maystadt et al , 2020) and water pollution (Rafiq et al , 2017; Aliu et al , 2021). However, few studies systematically investigate the relationship between climate migration, environmental outcomes and local municipal environmental governance.…”

Using Alternative Sources of Energy for Decarbonization: A Piece of Cake, but How to Cook This Cake?

“…Based on the data provided in [18][19][20][21]. During the last five years, the average annual carbon dioxide emissions have been 30-38 billion metric tons [22][23][24]. As we can see, the current annual figure of anthropogenic carbonization is comparable with the natural flows of this gas between the troposphere and stratosphere.…”