THE FUTURE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN POPULATION MOVEMENTS: SEPARATING EVIDENCE FROM FICTION
Julia Blocher / United Nations University

While media headlines repeat projections of as many as a billion “climate refugees”, scholars have many reasons to debunk these estimates and criticize this alarmist narrative. This presentation addresses the climate-migration nexus through empirical case studies in Papua New Guinea, Tanzania and Ethiopia. A distinction is drawn between people displaced by disasters and people who employ migration among strategies to adapt to climate changes. These assessments consider the intersectionality of different, inter- and intra-community inequalities that motivate migratory decisions.