Conference Agenda

Human migration is considered a potentially critical response to anthropogenic climate change. Yet, global quantitative evidence linking climate conditions to both internal and cross-border migration remains limited. Here we combine annual migration data from over 3,000 subnational regions across two decades with high-resolution climate metrics in fixed effects panel regressions. We find that higher temperatures, along with temperature and precipitation extremes, significantly increase outward migration from low-income regions. A complementary spatial spillover analysis shows temperature-driven migration toward high-income countries, while precipitation extremes lead to migration among low-income regions. Projections based on these estimates indicate high climate migration pressures by mid-century.

Global climate projections become increasingly pessimistic as the world suffers from a lack in consensus about rapid reductions in greenhouse gases emissions. This fact puts a huge pressure not only on the natural environment in which we live, but also on our societies and economies. Climate change will cause significant damages to many aspects of economic activity in multiple areas of the world through diminishing productivity, destroying local amenities and reducing life quality. Millions of people will experience income losses and poverty, some of whom will decide to move over short or long distances to flee the hazardous areas. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model of the world economy that projects economic and demographic variables until 2090 and quantifies the impact that future climate change has on the global economy, the spatial allocation of people and human migration movements at various spatial scales. The main findings of this exercise lead to a pessimistic conclusion that within current strict barriers to migrate, migration of people is not a plausible solution to upcoming climate challenges. In contrast, climate immobility of people generates huge economic losses and pushes millions into extreme poverty.

Approximately one-seventh of the world’s population lived within 5 km of organized violence as of 2023. Many of these areas are also highly vulnerable to climatic shocks, compounding insecurity and competition over scarce resources. Yet, little is known about how simultaneous exposure to climate extremes and violent conflict shapes migration decisions. To address this gap, we merge geo-referenced Gallup World Poll interviews from 144 countries over the period 2009 to 2022 with high-resolution measures of conflict and drought events. We analyze this dataset using a linear-probability model with a rich set of fixed effects and estimate the joint effect of conflict and drought events on migration aspirations. We find that conflict exposure and drought both exert significant positive effects on respondents’ aspirations to migrate. When individuals experience both shocks simultaneously, their probability of expressing migration aspirations roughly doubles, rising from an average of 23 percent to 45 percent. These compound effects of overlapping stressors are larger in poorer and less democratic countries, and among women, youth, and the less educated. Our findings highlight how conflict and climate risks can interact to heighten migration pressures and provide evidence for an integrated perspective in policy and research that considers both risks jointly.

Understanding resilience and adaptive capacity is essential for analyzing how households respond to environmental shocks. While prior research has focused extensively on the role of human capital and work-related income in shaping adaptive capacity, less is known about the impact of non-work income—such as remittances or support from neighbors, NGOs, or governments—on migration decisions. This study examines how non-work income is associated with in situ well-being and migration choices in the aftermath of environmental shocks. We argue that non-work income may enable both in situ adaptation and migration as a successful adaptation strategy. Unlike work-related income, which is often disrupted during environmental shocks, non-work income may function as a stable safety net, allowing households to address immediate needs. Using original panel survey data from approximately 1,700 household heads along the Jamuna River in Bangladesh—a region highly vulnerable to floods and riverbank erosion—we examine self-reported affectedness over three consecutive monsoon seasons. Controlling for household characteristics, findings indicate that under environmental shocks, non-work income is associated with higher capability to migrate. However, the type of non-work income matters, with remittances linked to more sustained benefits than intermittent aid from NGOs or government. These findings underscore the importance of integrating targeted, reliable non-work income support - such as remittance facilitation, government subsidies, community-based programs, and access to loans and savings - within broader climate adaptation policies.

The use of migration as an adaptation strategy is now recognized by scholars and policymakers as a key response to climate change. Cash transfer programs, now being implemented worldwide, also have the potential to facilitate adaptation and promote resilience in low- and middle-income countries. We investigate the extent to which a cash transfer program in Kenya promoted the mobility of household members due to climate shocks, leveraging exogenous variation in local deviations from the historical climate and the administration of the program through a randomized controlled trial. Our findings indicate that beneficiary households were less likely to reduce migration amid cold spells, likely via shifts in education-related migration. We also find that heat spells ubiquitously encourage new members to join the household, while cold spells have the opposite effect, and that cash transfers do not appear to alter these relationships. Together the results suggest that cold spells can trap migrants in temperate, low resource settings and that cash transfers can partially alleviate these constraints. Modeling migration and complementary strategies in the presence of climate tipping points will become necessary to predict when more permanent migration will be triggered and modifying social assistance will become necessary.