Migration and Displacement in a Changing Climate

This book provides insight into the impact of climate change on human mobility - including both migration and displacement - by synthesizing key concepts, research, methodology, policy, and emerging issues surrounding the topic. It illuminates the connections between climate change and its implications for voluntary migration, involuntary displacement, and immobility by providing examples from around the world. The chapters use the latest findings from the natural and social sciences to identify key interactions shaping current climate-related migration, displacement, and immobility; predict future changes in those patterns and methods used to model them; summarize key policy and governance instruments available to us to manage the movements of people in a changing climate; and offer directions for future research and opportunities. This book will be valuable for students, researchers, and policy makers of geography, environmental science, climate and sustainability studies, demography, sociology, public policy, and political science.

Kelsea Best is an Assistant Professor of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering and City and Regional Planning at the Ohio State University where she studies equity in climate impacts and adaptations, including climate-related mobility. She has consulted for the US Department of State and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. She is an active member of the Association of American Geographers and the Society for Risk Analysis.

Kayly Ober is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. She has worked on climate, migration, and conflict for 15 years, including as a lead author of the World Bank report “Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration.” She is currently a senior advisor for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations at the US Department of State.

Robert A. McLeman is Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. He has researched climate-related migration and displacement for more than two decades, advised many governments and international agencies on related issues, and served as coordinating lead author for the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and has been a consultant for numerous multilateral and government agencies. A former Canadian diplomat, he wrote Climate and Human Migration: Past Experiences, Future Challenges (Cambridge University Press, 2014).