Climate change could drive vast human migrations

Displacements are already underway, says report

		IMAGE: This is the Nile delta, with sea level rises of 1 meter (dark blue) and 2 meters (light blue), along with population density (lighter to darker browns) and urban areas... Click here for more information.

By mid-century, people may be fleeing rising seas, droughts, floods and other effects of changing climate, in migrations that could vastly exceed the scope of anything before, says a major new report. The document, authored by researchers at Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), the United Nations University and CARE International, was released today at a news conference in Bonn. The researchers say that the effects of climate are hard to sort from connected factors including political and economic conflicts, extreme weather events, population growth, human destruction of ecosystems and overuse of farmland. However, they say, climate change will eventually play a dominant role by exacerbating all of these problems, and is already having detectable effects. While the report does not attempt to put numbers to those potentially uprooted, estimates from other reports it cites range from 25 million to 50 million by 2010, to almost 700 million by 2050. "Climate is the envelope in which all of us lead our daily lives. This report sounds warning bells," said coauthor Alexander de Sherbinin, a geographer at CIESIN. "We usually categorize the poor as the ones who will suffer most—but richer societies will potentially lose as well." The report, In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement, is based on a first-time global survey of environmental change and migration. It is illustrated with a series of detailed maps, generated by CIESIN, that show how and where significant displacements may occur. Among its findings: