Uprooted by Climate Change: Responding to the growing risk of displacement

Abstract

Climate change is already forcing people from their land and homes, and putting many more at risk of displacement in the future. Supercharged storms, more intense droughts, rising seas and other impacts of climate change all magnify existing vulnerabilities and the likelihood of displacement, disproportionately affecting low-income countries, women, children and indigenous peoples.Responding to these growing realities demands far stronger action towards ending global climate pollution, supporting resilient communities, ensuring rights for people on the move and developing long-term strategies to ensure that those who are forced to move in the future are able to do so safely and with dignity.

An interdisciplinary framework examining culture and adaptation in migrant children and adolescents

“…Climate‐driven migration has led to the displacement of many communities worldwide, while disproportionately affecting children and adolescents (Martin & Herzberg, 2014). Additionally, the extreme changes in climate have transformed geographical regions into ones characterized by extreme drought and flooding (Richards & Bradshaw, 2017). Consequently, such conditions increase the risk of children and adolescents experiencing food insecurity, malnutrition, as well as reduced water availability; all of which have negative implications for children and adolescents health (e.g., gastrointestinal complications, heat‐related illnesses) (Sanson, Van Hoorn, & Burke, 2019).…”

Gender-based violence and environment linkages: The violence of inequality

“…This risk and vulnerability to climate change impacts is due to interlinking social, economic, cultural, institutional and legal discriminations that contribute to these groups' unequal access to vital resources that help build adaptive capacity to climate change (Braaf, 2016;Dankelman, 2016;Dwyer & Woolf, 2018). Women and girls in particular are harmed by climate change and weather-related disasters, facing heighted risks of experiencing GBV (CEDAW, 2018), especially women living in poverty and those who experience social marginalisation based on their race, ethnicity, sexuality and other factors (Richards & Bradshaw, 2017).…”

The Subjective Climate Migrant: Climate Perceptions, Their Determinants, and Relationship to Migration in Cambodia

“…As shown in Figure 4, for example, one finding of this approach is to oppose the contention (see Richards and Bradshaw 2017;Conway et al 2019) that marginal groups are more likely to migrate than others, as a result of their inability to adapt in situ. Taking the most marginal, hyperprecarious migrants from each community-in the drought-prone east, those who migrate to beg; in the alluvial riverside regions, those who migrate to debt bondage; and in the Tonle Sap and lakeside zone, ethnic Vietnamese people who lack citizenship and thus migrate without documentation-the data indicate that marginal households in each of the three agro-ecological zones are not only less likely to migrate but also less likely to perceive changes in the climate.…”

“…Connected to this, the article additionally challenges the frequently used contention that adaptation in situ is preferred among those with the resources to do so over migration (Bardsley and Hugo 2010;Zander, Petheram, and Garnett 2013;Laurice Jamero et al 2017;Stojanov et al 2017). In contrast to the recent literature on climate migration (Richards and Bradshaw 2017;Conway et al 2019), our results indicate that socially and economically marginal households are not only less likely to migrate than better-off households-results that closely align with the migration literature in general (Stark and Bloom 1985;Skeldon 2002)-but less likely also to subjectively perceive changes in the climate.…”