PEOPLE
Individual extreme weather events can trigger an exodus of displaced people searching for a new home—in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, for example, about a quarter million people were displaced from New Orleans—but many others are driven by environments increasingly hostile to the life they once knew. For example, in South America, Southeast Asia, and North Africa, people relying on farming are abandoning their homes as crop failure increases The influx of people from Central America and Mexico to the US in the coming decades will correlate with the extent of climate warming. A scenario in which modest action is taken to reduce emissions would see about 680,000 migrants coming to the US border; an unabated increase in emissions raises that number to more than one million, and these exclude undocumented immigrants.
Links between mass migration, political instability, and social upheaval have been well-documented. This is one of the reasons that climate change is considered a “threat multiplier” in terms of national security with its potential to tip a society on the brink into conflict. This is an example of another feedback loop in the climate change process: changed environmental conditions spur both conflict and migration; conflict and migration continually reinforce one another.
Migration, like all other climate change consequences, is charged with cruel inequities. On the local level, it is causing residents to shift between neighborhoods within individual cities as, for example, wealthy Miami residents flee the coastline for quickly-developing hilltop neighborhoods like Liberty City, which used to be a predominantly black neighborhood whose long-time residents are finding their lives suddenly unaffordable.
By Mark Armao Photo: Grist / Mark Armao
When undocumented migrants cross the U.S.–Mexico border into southern Arizona, they face a perilous journey through the Sonoran Desert, some of the most inhospitable terrain in North America. Summer temperatures in the region routinely top…
By Andrew Freedman Photo: Annelise Capossela , Axios
Companies large and small, some with longtime roots in their neighborhoods, are on the hunt for new real estate that is less prone to weather and climate extremes.
By Oliver Milman Photo: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images
Standing in front of the partial ruins of Rome’s Colosseum, Boris Johnson explained that a motive to tackle the climate crisis could be found in the fall of the Roman empire. Then, as now, he…
By Patrick Mulholland Photo: Hoshang Hashimi/AFP via Getty Images
Developed countries must “strengthen their commitments” to the increasing number of people escaping the adverse effects of climate change, the UN Network on Migration has said at Cop26. “Enhancing the availability and accessibility of regular…
By Erol Yayboke, Catherine Nzuki and Sierra Ballard Photo: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP via Getty Images
The Biden-Harris administration released a major report on climate migration on Thursday, October 21, 2021. Strategically timed to coincide with final preparations for the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in early November…
By Moira Lavelle Photo: Seth Sidney Berry
In recent years, tens of thousands of people have fled Central American countries like Guatemala and Honduras, leaving not just because of gang violence but also drought and extreme weather conditions that have made it…
By Julie Watson, Ellen Knickmeyer and Nomaan Merchant
The Earth’s warming and resulting natural disasters are creating a more dangerous world of desperate leaders and peoples, the Biden administration said Thursday in the federal government’s starkest assessments yet of security and migration challenges…
By Hillary A. Brown and Daniel R. Brooks Photo: Patrick Fraser via Getty Images
Southern Italy’s rural Calabria region announced an innovative project in 2021 to breathe new life into its small towns. It plans to offer young professionals thousands of dollars if they move in and commit to…
By Parag Khanna and Susan Joy Hassol Photo: Getty Images
The increasingly frequent and intense floods, heat waves, wildfires and other extreme climate events jolt us into realizing that we don’t have the comfortable distance of 2040 or 2050 by which to mitigate climate change.…
By Dominico Montanaro and Liz Baker Photo: Sean Rayford , Getty Images
Even as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, from fires to floods and hurricanes, two-thirds of Americans say if their home is hit they would rather rebuild than relocate, a…
By Francis Wilkinson
Climate change is having a breakout performance this year. Throughout the U.S., the slow-motion calamity long described in scientific studies and news articles has been visible to the naked eye or felt on tingling flesh…
By Peter R. Orszag
As the risk of severe climate change rises, and efforts to reduce carbon emissions ramp up, serious thought must also be given to the movement of people that climate change stands to provoke. This migration…
10/31/21
The climate crisis is reshaping our world, as the Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization. Defined by changes in average weather conditions that persist over…
11/28/20
According to new data from the Rhodium Group analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures and changing rainfall will drive agriculture and temperate climates northward, while sea level rise will consume…
07/23/20
This article, the first in a series on global climate migration, is a partnership between ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, with support from the Pulitzer Center.
06/29/20
To provide high-quality data, analysis and expertise on internal displacement with the aim of informing policy and operational decisions that can reduce the risk of future displacement and improve the lives of internally displaced people…
02/03/20
The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) is a think tank and an educational institute devoted to the study of international migration, to the promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and…
02/03/20
Throughout human history, migration and climate have always been connected, but in the modern era, the impacts of the man-made climate crisis are likely to extensively change the patterns of human settlement.
By Lindsey Jacobson 09/16/21
The rain fell steadily at Curt Dyer’s Miami Beach, Florida, home on a mid-July day this summer. He opened the door to the garage and pointed to the flood already collecting in his driveway. He…
By Peter R. Orszag Photo: Wilfredo Lee , AP 09/16/21
As the risk of severe climate change rises, and efforts to reduce carbon emissions ramp up, serious thought must also be given to the movement of people that climate change stands to provoke. This migration…
By Renata Brito 09/13/21
Climate change could push more than 200 million people to leave their homes in the next three decades and create migration hot spots unless urgent action is taken to reduce global emissions and bridge the…
By Renata Brito Photo: Patrick Ngugi , Associated Press 09/13/21
Climate change could push more than 200 million people to leave their homes in the next three decades and create migration hot spots unless urgent action is taken to reduce global emissions and bridge the…
By Joe Mozingo Photo: Gina Ferrazi , Los Angeles Times 08/04/21
The nomads of Butte County must hide or keep moving — scope out a little wooded draw to park a trailer unnoticed, head down the mountain to rotate between driveways in Chico, or bivouac in…
By Chris Hayes Photo: Getty Images 07/21/21
One of the most interesting questions, perhaps the most interesting question, about where America will be in 25 years is where Americans, literally, will live. And that's inextricably linked to the most pressing unknown we…
By Jamie Beck Alexander 07/20/21
It was the trees that my family loved most about California: the coast redwoods, Monterey cypress and giant sequoias that have stood watch and borne witness to the passage of time for a million years. And it was the trees,…
05/23/21
"Climate change refugees" are moving due to unsustainable weather conditions.
By Deutsche Welle Photo: S. Bandopadhyay 05/21/21
Storms, floods, wildfires and droughts drove more than 30 million people from their homes last year, as rising temperatures wrought extra chaos on the climate, according to a report published Thursday by the Internal Displacement…
By Sara Schonhardt Photo: Sarah Silbige 05/06/21
Vice President Kamala Harris is describing climate change as a driver of migration from Central America, and she's pushing for adaptation efforts as a way to address it. Her comments mark a seismic shift in…
By Shanelle Loren Photo by Warren Faidley 01/26/21
Last week, the U.S. rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement. But even if its targets are met — and most countries are far from hitting them — the world will still likely be headed for a 3°C global temperature rise.…
By Annie Ropeik Photo by Dan Tuohy 01/22/21
The impacts of climate change could prompt millions of Americans to relocate in coming decades, moving inland away from rising seas, or north to escape rising temperatures.
By Diane Taylor Photo: Wu Hong/EPA-EFE 01/15/21
Call for world leaders to act in wake of French extradition case that turned on environmental concerns
By Cameron Ramey Photo: Neil Palmer, CIAT 01/05/21
Reporting personal stories illustrating the impacts of climate change bears importance beyond feeding reader interest or even good journalism practice. Personal stories give a human face to one of the most tangible consequences of unmitigated…
By Lori Townsend 10/16/20
Lori Townsend talks with Jocelyn Fenton, Transportation and Infrastructure Protection Program Manager for the Denali Commission and Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer, Senior Project Manager for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
By Alex Domash Photo: Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty Images 10/02/20
While the US closes the doors on climate migrants from abroad, it must acknowledge that the problem has already come home.
By Eric Sandweiss and Janet McCabe 10/02/20
The Great Migration of 6 million Black Americans fleeing the Jim Crow South The Dust Bowl journey of 2.5 million people headed west from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri;
By Libby Peterson 09/19/20
A Times Magazine series examines how climate change will force millions worldwide to move. Recently, Meridith Kohut photographed people on the front lines of this shift. In America.
By Abrahm Lustgarten 09/15/20
August besieged California with a heat unseen in generations. A surge in air-conditioning broke the state’s electrical grid, leaving a population already ravaged by the coronavirus to work remotely by the dim light of their…
By Tim McDonnell 09/01/20
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, St. Tammany parish was a rural, sparsely populated corner of southeastern Louisiana best known for sawmills and a smattering of fancy resorts. It hugs the north shore of…
By Abrahm Lustgarten Photo: Meridith Kohut 07/23/20
Early in 2019, a year before the world shut its borders completely, Jorge A. knew he had to get out of Guatemala. The land was turning against him. For five years, it almost never rained.…
By Alexandra Tempus Photo By Josh Haner 03/14/20
Apocalyptic predictions may grab our attention, but they can also stoke xenophobia and miss the full picture of what’s happening on the ground
By Steve Trent 02/08/20
By Steve Trent Imagine if you couldn't feed your children and had to leave your home because of fossil fuels burned in a far-off country. That's what people on the front lines of climate change…
01/23/20
The decision may open the door for climate refugee claims down the line.
by Elisabeth Ilboudo-Nébié 01/22/20
Sorting out the factors that drive migration can help countries to plan ahead and provide support systems.
By Allison Joyce Photo by Allison Joyce 01/21/20
Governments must take into account the risks of climate change when considering a refugee’s claim for asylum, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has ruled in a landmark case. The decision could protect refugees from…
By Luke Baker 01/21/20
The world needs to prepare for millions of people being driven from their homes by the impact of climate change, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Tuesday.
Photo by Getty Images 01/20/20
People fleeing immediate danger due to the climate crisis cannot be forced to return home, the UN has said. The landmark ruling centres on the case of Ioane Teitiota, whose home - the Pacific Island…
12/18/19
As the big dry bites and temperature records tumble, Aboriginal people in Alice Springs say global heating threatens their culture and very survival.
12/16/19
Today, International Migrants Day, is an opportunity to highlight the inextricable link between climate and migrant justice and how these struggles are struggles for human rights. The climate crisis has already created extreme conditions across…
12/05/19
A prototype model considers climate and socioeconomic factors to see if displacements of people can be predicted and better explained.
12/05/19
Poverty and violence in Central America are major factors driving migration to the United States. But there's another force that's often overlooked: climate change.None NoneRetired Lt. Cmdr. Oliver Leighton Barrett is with the Center for…
By Jayla Lundstrom Photo: Getty/Orlando Sierra/AFP 12/03/19
Since at least 2014, a growing number of asylum-seekers from Central America have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border. While the response from the Obama administration raised genuine protection concerns, the Trump administration has taken the…
12/02/19
Over the past decade, climate-fueled disasters drove over 20 million people a year from their homes, concluded a report released by Oxfam on Monday. The Oxfam study, titled "Forced from Home," was released as two…
12/02/19
Fiercer weather and worsening wildfires drove more than 20 million people from their homes over the last decade ― a problem set to worsen unless leaders act swiftly to head off surging climate threats, anti-poverty…
11/05/19
In "Lowland Kids," two teenagers grapple with leaving an island that's sinking before their very eyes.
By Alexander C. Kaufman 10/23/19
The legislation, while unlikely to pass under President Trump, fleshes out how a Green New Deal could address one of the most pressing crises of global warming.
09/23/19
The Trump administration ignored its own evidence on how climate change is impacting migration and food security when setting new policies for cutting aid to Central America, NBC reports.NoneAn internal Customs and Border Protection research…
By Prashant Gopal Photo by Jayme Gershen/Bloomberg 09/20/19
Mass migration begins as coastal homes are bulldozed in the state facing the biggest threat from climate-driven inundation.
09/13/19
In another sign of the climate crisis, a record seven million people were displaced from their homes by extreme weather events during the first half of 2019, The New York Times reported Thursday.The number comes…
09/13/19
Four of the presidential candidates sponsored a bill to admit Bahamians fleeing hurricane destruction. But the issue was never raised at the debate in Houston.
By Miranda Cady Hallett Photo: Todd Post/Bread for the World Institute 09/06/19
Rising global temperatures, the spread of crop disease and extreme weather events have made coffee harvests unreliable in places like El Salvador. On top of that, market prices are unpredictable.
By Marcello Rossi 08/07/19
Buffalo, Cincinnati, and Duluth could become a new home for those fleeing from wildfires, hurricanes, and extreme heat in other places.
By Maia Wikler Photo: Getty 06/11/19
"If we aren’t in solidarity with refugees, migrants, and people displaced by climate change, war, and violence, we are doing ourselves a disservice."
By Susan Cosier 04/24/19
In 2006, the British economist Nicholas Stern warned that one of the biggest dangers of climate change would be mass migration. “Climate-related shocks have sparked violent conflict in the past,” he wrote, “and conflict is…
By Kirk Semple 04/13/19
Farmers, agricultural scientists and industry officials say a new threat has been ruining harvests, upending lives and adding to the surge of families migrating to the United States: climate change.
By Katie Warren Photo: Sean Pavone/Shutterstock 12/05/18
These young professionals are buying up land as a backup plan in case a climate-change disaster devastates their urban homes, The Times said.
By Steve LeVine Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty 11/26/18
In recent decades, climate change has exacerbated civil unrest, led to war, and put migrants on the road out of their countries, according to the National Climate Assessment released last week.
By Gabriele Spilker, Vally Koubi, Lena Schaffer and Tobias Böhmelt Photo by Farshad Usyan/AFP/Getty Images 10/15/18
With the intensified debates on the consequences of climate change comes a renewed concern about climate-change-induced migration. Will the effects of climate change prompt large flows of environmental migrants and, in turn, increase the risk…
By Oliver Milman 09/24/18
By the end of this century, sea level rises alone could displace 13 million people in the US. Many states will have to grapple with hordes of residents seeking dry ground. But, as one expert…
