Séminaire GREDEG : Leonie WENZ (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research - Germany)

Title:

Global analysis of climate impacts on migration

Abstract:
Climate change-induced migration poses socioeconomic and political risks, yet quantitative evidence of such effects at global scales, including within-country and cross-border migration, remains lacking. Here, we combine migration data for more than 3,000 subnational regions worldwide and 20 years with assessments of local climate conditions including extremes. Fixed-effects panel regression analysis provides strong and robust evidence that rising temperatures as well as temperature and rainfall extremes induce outward migration in low-income regions. Explicit assessment of spatial spill-overs confirms that temperature increases and extremes generate cross-border flows towards high-income countries. Combining this empirically derived migration-climate response with temperature and precipitation projections from state-of-the-art climate models, we assess the number of future climate migrants under different emissions scenarios.

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