Sustainable development impacts of climate change and natural disaster

Vally Koubi
ETH Zurich and University of Bern

The consequences and costs of climate change on our world will define the 21st century. Even
if nations across the planet were to take immediate steps to curb carbon emissions—a warmer
climate is inevitable. As the recent report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change noted, human-created warming will persists for centuries to millennia and will
continue to cause further long-term changes in the climate system, such as sea level rise. As
these effects progress they will have serious impacts on human society. In the coming decades
climate change will increasingly threaten human security in many parts of the world,
disproportionately affecting the least developed countries. Climate change will pose
economic, social, and political predicaments that will challenge the successful implementation
of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This is a stocktaking piece on the physical and social consequences of climate change, with a
specific focus on whether and how climate change via its effects on economic growth,
migration, and conflict challenges the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals. This
paper surveys the recent relevant literatures to identify the mechanism and contexts that give
generate the interconnection between climate-economy-migration-conflict and evaluate the
relative importance of climate as a hindrance to SDGs.
Figure A depicts how climate, the economy, migration, and conflict fit together. Consequently,
my analysis commences with the main impacts of global warming on natural systems. Section
2 discusses the interlinkages between climate change, and in particular natural disasters with
economic outcomes. Section 3 focuses on climate change and migration, while section four
looks at the climate-conflict nexus. The final section offers a set of policy recommendations
that derive from the analysis.

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1. Causes and consequences of climate change

The “greenhouse effect”

Scientists have been aware since the late 1960’s of high concentrations of carbon dioxide
(CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHG) such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxides (N2O) in
the atmosphere. It is in recent decades, though, that the link between greenhouse gases and
climate warming has caught the attention of scientists and politicians, as well as the general
public, via the well-known “greenhouse effect”. Graph 1 illustrates the basic processes behind
the greenhouse effect. As the sun’s energy hits the Earth, some of that energy is absorbed by
the earth’s crust and by the oceans, warming the planet. The rest of the energy is radiated
back toward space as infrared energy. While some of this infrared energy does radiate back
into space, some portion is absorbed and re-emitted by water vapor and other greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere. This absorbed energy helps to warm the planet’s surface and
atmosphere just like a greenhouse.

Graph 1. The “greenhouse effect”

Source: IPCC WG1 AR4 SPM

While the greenhouse effect is a naturally-occurring process and in fact, is quite necessary for
survival on Earth, the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC AR5) (2014) provides evidence that human activity has amplified this natural
effect. In particular, anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mainly driven by
economic and population growth have increased since the pre-industrial era, leading to
atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide that are
‘unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years’ (IPCC AR5 SPM-4). 1 In particular, long stable

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Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a byproduct of the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, and in particular
coal; methane (CH4) is emitted from agriculture and farming processes; and nitrous oxide (N2O) is the
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in the range of about 280 parts per million (PPM) in the atmosphere, CO2 concentrations
reached 398.93 PPM in (August) 2015 and increased to 406.99 PPM in (August) 2018 (a 2%
increase), despite a growing number of climate change mitigation policies (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Globally averaged greenhouse concentrations

Source: IPCC AP5 Figure SPM.1c

Trends in greenhouse gases emissions

Figure 2 shows that total GHG emissions have increased steadily since 1970, with trend
variations usually explained by changes in economic output, for instance the 2008-2009
recession is clearly visible in the figure. During the years 2012 to 2014, however, global GHG
emissions slowed down, especially the CO2 emissions, and remained flat in 2015 and 2016
(estimated in 2015 to be 35.9 GtCO2), bringing renewed optimism to climate policy
discussions, since it may indicate a necessary peak in global GHG emissions. This decline is
partly explained by a slowing down of global economic growth, especially with a decrease in
China’s economic growth rate. It also reflects new energy investments in renewables, in
particular solar and wind in the United States and the European Union (Olivier and Peters
2018). Yet, initial data for 2017 reported by UNEP (2018) indicated GHG emissions have
started to increase again, both globally and in key countries, reaching a new record of about
50.9 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent (Gt CO2 eq) excluding those greenhouse gases from land-
use change and 55.1 Gt when including the very land-use change emissions. 2 The increase in
global CO2 emissions in 2017, which reached 36.2 megatons was mainly due to the increase in
global coal consumption led by China and India, and oil consumption led by China, the
European Union, and the United States (Olivier and Peters 2018). However, the upward trend
in CO2 emissions continued in 2018, reaching 37.1 megatons an increase of 4.7% relative to
2015.

Figure 2: Global greenhouse gas emissions

product of a wide variety of human activities such as agriculture, fossil fuel combustion, wastewater
management and industrial processes.
2
The non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions are much more uncertain than CO2 emissions because they
originate from many different sources. Their uncertainty on a country and global level is of the order
of 30% or more, whereas for CO2 this is about ±5% for OECD countries and ±10% for most other
countries (Olivier et al 2016).
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 Source: Olivier and Peters 2018, Figure S.1

Figure 3 shows the distribution of CO2 emissions among the main emitters: In absolute values,
the largest emitters for CO2 (and total greenhouse gas emissions) are China (10.92 Gt CO2),
the United States (5.11 Gt CO2), and the European Union (3.55 Gt CO2), followed by India (2.45
Gt CO2), the Russian Federation (1.76 Gt CO2), and Japan (1.32 Gt CO2). For non-CO2 emissions
only, India and the European Union switch rank (Olivier and Peters 2018). It is worth noting
that in 2018, almost all countries are contributing to the rise, with emissions in China up 4.7%,
in the US by 2.5% and in India by 6.3% (EU's emissions are near flat). Most of the future growth
in carbon emissions is expected to come from rapidly expanding developing countries such as
China and India.

Figure 3: CO2 emissions per country and region, 1990-2017

Source: Olivier and Peters 2018, Figure 3.1

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In addition to total emissions by country, it is important to consider per capita emissions.
Figure 4 shows CO2 emissions per capita for the five main emitting countries, the European
Union, the rest of the world, and for the world average. Except for India, all main emitters
have per capita emission levels that are significantly higher than those for the rest of the world
and the world average. China, in this measure, has rank 4, rather than rank 1, which it has for
absolute emissions. With a few exceptions (e.g., Saudi Arabia and Qatar), there is an important
north-south divide in terms of per capita emissions. Most nations across sub-Saharan Africa,
South America and South Asia have per capita emissions below five tonnes per year (e.g.,
Nigeria, Egypt, Mexico, and Indonesia have 1.63, 3.35, 3.93, and 3.43 tonnes of CO2 per person
respectively). This contrasts with the global north where emissions are typically above five
tonnes per person (e.g., United States at 20, Russia at 16.3, and the EU at 6.97 tonnes of CO2
per person). The largest emitter, Qatar, has per capita emissions of 50 tonnes per year, which
is 1243 times that of Chad, the lowest emitter (Olivier and Peters 2018).

Figure 4: CO2 emissions per capita, per country and region, 1990-2017

Source: Olivier and Peters 2018, Figure 3.2

Global Warming Trends

The enhanced greenhouse effect by disrupting the Earth's climate equilibrium has led to a
warmer world. The global average temperature has risen by around 0.80C since 1880 (IPCC
AR5, SPM-5). While a clear long-term global warming trend is observed, temperatures do not
rise every single year and some years show greater temperature changes than others. These
year-to-year fluctuations in temperature are due to natural processes, such as the effects of
El Ninos, La Ninas, and the eruption of large volcanoes. Nevertheless, eighteen of the nineteen
warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred from 2000 to 2018 (Figure
5).

Figure 5: Global surface temperature increase over time

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 Source: NASA GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies)

However, not all areas of the world are warming equally. Warming is more pronounced over
land than over water and towards the poles with the Arctic warming 2.8 times faster than the
rest of the Northern Hemisphere (Box et al 2019). In fact, over a quarter of the global
population already lives in regions that have already experienced more than 1.50C of warming
in at least one season (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Observed change in surface temperature 1901-2012

Source: IPCC AR5, WG1, Figure SPM.1

In the face of ongoing global warming, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing
mass. The Arctic sea ice extent has declined by about 10 percent and the average winter ice

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thickness has thinned by approximately 1.8 m over the 1979-2012 period (IPCC AR5, WG1,
SPM-9; Box et al 2019). However, while melting ice in the Arctic is a result of global warming,
melting ice is also a cause of further warming, since open-ocean absorbs more of the sun’s
energy than ice, a phenomenon known as reduced albedo. Moreover, as the Arctic is warming,
frozen soils (permafrost) in parts of Northern Alaska and the Russian European North have
started to thaw, often for the first time in thousands of years, releasing greenhouse gases into
the atmosphere, further accelerating global warming (Turetsky et al 2019; Box et al 2019).
Moreover, soils in the permafrost region hold twice as much carbon as the atmosphere does
— almost 1,600 billion tonnes (Schuur et al 2015).
Warming temperatures also lead to the melting and shrinking of glaciers. Glaciers are
shrinking five times faster now than they were in the 1960s. The glaciers shrinking fastest are
in central Europe, the Caucasus region, western Canada, the U.S. Lower 48 states, New
Zealand and near the tropics. Glaciers in these places on average are losing more than 1
percent of their mass each year (Zemp et al 2019). While Greenland’s peripheral glaciers and
ice caps crossed an irreversible tipping point around 1997, and will continue to melt (Noël et
al 2017), the fate of each glacier will depend on both its specific characteristics, e.g., size,
slope, and elevation range, and future climate conditions .
The temperature of the oceans has also risen. The greatest ocean warming has taken place
close to the surface, with the upper 75 m of the ocean warming by an average of 0.110C each
decade between the years 1971-2010 (IPCC AR5, WG1, SPM-8). However, it seems that ocean
warming has been accelerating since the 1990s, setting a new record in 2018
(19.67±0.83×1022) surpassing 2017 (18.76±0.80×1022) and 2015 (17.99±0.70×1022), which
were the previous warmest years ever recorded (Cheng et al. 2019). The ocean warming is not
uniform over time and space and can vary at any given location with the seasons due to
variations in ocean currents and the exchange of heat between ocean and atmosphere. The
Southern Ocean (south of 30◦S) and Pacific Ocean show more warming than the Atlantic
Ocean and Indian Ocean (Cheng et al 2019). Given the ocean’s large mass and high heat
capacity that allow it to store huge amounts of energy, even if greenhouse gas concentrations
could be held at present levels into the future, sea levels would continue to rise for centuries
to millennia.
Moreover, the chemistry of the oceans is changing due to higher CO2 concentrations in the
atmosphere. Oceans absorb about 30% of the carbon dioxide humans produce every year- in
fact, oceans are the largest single carbon sink in the world. However, when carbon dioxide
dissolves in the oceans, carbonic acid is formed. This leads to higher acidity (IPCC AR5, WG1,
SPM-8). Acidification makes it harder for certain marine organisms—including coral, as well as
shellfish and certain types of plankton—to build the hard outer shells they need to survive
(Eyre et al 2018). This in turn can have a wide range of consequences for marine ecosystems
as well as humans who depend on the ocean for food and survival.
Warming temperatures also lead to rising sea levels. Sea-level rise is attributed to the melting
ice sheets and glaciers and to the fact that water expands when it is heated (Mengel at al
2016). Melting of the Greenland ice sheet and its peripheral glaciers and ice caps contributes
about 43% to contemporary sea level rise (Noël et al 2017). Between 1900 and 2016, the sea
level rose by 16–21 cm (Sweet et al 2017). More precise data gathered from satellite radar
measurements reveal an accelerating rise of 7.5 cm from 1993 to 2017 (WCRP 2018), which
is a trend of roughly 30 cm per century. Higher see level rise then can be detrimental to heavily
populated, coastal and island regions, where even a small increase in sea level can inundate

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large land areas. Coastal areas lacking capacity for flood protection are (and will) be
particularly vulnerable to higher sea level rise.
Changes in many extreme weather and climate events have been observed since about 1950
(IPCC AR5, WG1, SPM-5). Although, in absolute terms an extreme climate event varies from
place to place, for instance a hot day in the tropics may be a different temperature to a hot
day in the mid-latitudes- more, severe and harmful extreme weather events are being seen
around the world. In most regions of the globe, warm days and nights have increased and cold
days and nights have decreased; a few exceptions being daytime temprtaures in central and
eastern North America, and southern South America. Heat waves have become more frequent
since the middle of the 20th century and are lasting longer with some parts of Europe, Asia and
Australia experiencing a dispropotionate number of extreme heat waves in recent decades.
The extent of regions affected by droughts has increased as precipitation over land has
marginally decreased while evaporation has increased due to warmer conditions. Drought
prevalence is mostly increasing in large parts of Africa, the Mediterranean region, parts of
North- and South America and Southeastern Asia. Wildfires are connected to temperature and
precipitation. Thus, whenever extreme temperatures, heat waves, and drought are becoming
more likely, the risk of wildfires also increases. Warming is also causing more frequent and
intense rainfall events but results vary strongly between regions and seasons. For example,
while some regions such as Europe, North and Central America have experienced increases in
heavy precipitation, others such as southern Australia and western Asia have seen decreases
in precipitation. Generally, numbers of heavy daily precipitation events that lead to flooding
have increased, but not everywhere. The occurrence of tropical storms, and especially of
hurricanes and cyclones with their huge destructive power, is connected to climatic factors.
While the frequency of those events varies considerably from year to year, evidence suggests
that storm activity has increased in the North Antlantic region since the 1970s and that storm
severity (wind speed, rainfall rates, etc.) has also increased, although the reasons for this are
still being debated.
The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) reports that in climate
related disasters 3, that is climatological (e.g., drought and wildfire), meteorological (e.g.,
storm and extreme temperature), and hydrological (e.g., flood and landslide) events, occurred
at higher numbers relative to geophysical (e.g., earthquake and volcanic activity) accounting
for over 90% of all disasters occuring in 2015 and 2018 (Figure 7). In the year 2018 there were
fewer climate-related disasters compared to 2015, 274 and 347 respectively. In both years,
floods were the most frequent type of disaster followed by storms.

Figure 7: Number of disasters by major category 2015 and 2018

3
A disaster event, in EM-DAT database, has to fulfill at least one of the following criteria: (i) at least 10
deaths (persons confirmed as dead and persons missing and presumed dead), (ii) 100 affected
individuals (people that have been injured, left homeless, or requiring immediate assistance during a
period of emergency, that is, requiring basic survival needs, such as food, water, shelter, sanitation,
and immediate medical assistance after a disaster), or (iii) request for national or international
assistance. The database includes both natural and technological disasters. Natural disasters are
further classified into geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, climatological, biological, and
extraterrestrial with altogether 17 additional subcategories, such as floods, storms, landslides, or
earthquakes).

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 Source: CRED 2015, 2018

Global Warming Projections

Future projections of climate change depend on the path of future emissions. However, even
if all emissions of greenhouse gases ended today, the world would continue warming for many
decades, and effects such as sea-level rise would continue for centuries, because the
environmental effects of emissions are not realized immediately (IPCC AR5 WGI, SPM-27).
In 2014, the IPCC in its AR5, based on a range models with different assumptions about future
emissions estimated that during the 21st century global average temperatures will rise within
a range most likely to be between 1.50C and 4.80C above pre-industrial levels (Figure 8b), with
the possibility to exceed 120C in the longer term (Fig. 8a), unless drastic policy action to reduce
emissions occurs (IPCC AR5, SPM-4, 15, 21). Figure 8 also shows that global mean sea level will
continue to rise during the 21st century in the ranges of 0.26 to 0.98m depending on the
applied emissions’ scenario, due to increase ocean warming and increased loss of mass from
glaciers and ice-sheets (Fig. 8d). In addition, a decrease in sea ice extent and volume is
projected for Antarctica and in particular the Arctic, with the Arctic Ocean being ice-free in the
summer by mid-century (Fig.8c), and in surface ocean pH (i.e., increase in ocean acidification)
(Fig.8e). However, the magnitude of actual warming and other effects will depend upon the
level at which atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are ultimately
stabilized.

Figure 8: Future temperature changes and impacts

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 Source: IPCC AR5, WGI

And for many years, at least since the Conference of the Parties (CoP) in Cancun, Mexico in
2010, limiting global warming to no more than 20C above pre-industrial levels was the de-facto
target for global policymakers. In December 2015, 195 countries endorsed the Paris
Agreement, which backed a long-term goal to limit global temperature rise to “well below 2C”
(relative to pre-industrial climate, meaning a future warming of less than 1.4 °C because
temperature had already increased by 0.6 °C by the end of the twentieth century) and to
“pursue efforts towards 1.5C”. As part of the text of the agreement, the UN Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) “invited” the IPCC “to provide a special report in 2018 on the
impacts of global warming of 1.50C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse
gas emission pathways”.
The 2018 IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.50C notes that human induced warming
reached approximately 10C above pre-industrial levels in 2017 and is likely to reach 1.50C
between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at current rate (IPCC, Special Report on
Global Warming of 1.50C (SR1.5, SPM: 4) (Figure 9). Hence, what appeared five years ago as a
future threat for generations to come, in the late twenty-first century and beyond, global
warming is now understood as an immediate and urgent issue.

Figure 9: Global temperatures relative to pre-industrial levels and idealized potential

pathways to meeting 1.5C limit in 2100

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 Source: IPCC SR1.5 Figure SPM.1

In general, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the report states that the potential impacts of global
warming for natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.50C than at
present, but lower than 20C. The risks are also greater if global warming exceeds 1.50C and
comes back down rather than if warming ‘gradually stabilizes at 1.50C’ (IPCC SR1.5: SPM-8).
Given that there are a lot of impacts to consider, the report includes as an illustration a ‘reason
for concern’ figure that shows how the risks of severe impacts varies with warming levels
(Figure 10). Warm water corals and the Arctic are particularly at risk from rising temperatures,
moving into the ‘very high’ category with 1.50C and 20C of warming, respectively, followed by
coastal flooding, small scale low latitude fisheries, and crop yields.

Figure 10: Impacts and risks for selected natural, managed and human systems

Confidence level transition: L=Low, M=Medium, H=High, and VH=Very high

Source: IPCC SR1.5 Figure SPM.2

In particular, coral reefs already under high risk are projected to decline by a further 70-90%
at 1.50C with larger losses (>99%) at 20C. (IPCC SR 1.5 SPM-10). Recent studies using different
approaches project that the Arctic Ocean will become ice-free in the summer under 20C
warming, whereas if warming is limited to 1.5◦C then ice will persist through the summer in

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most years (Jahn 2018). This has obviously important implications for humans and species
such as polar bears, which are dependent on sea ice for their survival. Limiting warming to
1.50C would also reduce the positive temperature feedback that would come from changing
albedo associated with reduced ice extent. Limiting warming to 1.50C would also avoid the
melting of an estimated 2 million km2 of permafrost, relative to 20C (Chadburn et al 2017).
This would significantly reduce damages to Arctic ecosystems, buildings, and infrastructure,
as well as avoid significant releases of carbon to the atmosphere, which would further
accelerate warming (Turetsky et al 2019; Box et al 2019). Similarly, the risk of triggering
irreversible melting of the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets is lower under 1.50C warming
than 20C. Reducing these risks would lower the rate of sea level rise in both the near term and
the future. Sea level rise in 2100 is projected to be approximately 0.1 m less if warming is
constrained to 1.50C compared with 20C (Nicholls et al 2018 ; Rasmussen et al 2018), with a
corresponding reduction in the global area of land lost to inundation. In turn, this is estimated
to reduce the number of people exposed to coastal flooding by 5 million annually by 2050
[including 40,000 fewer in SIDS] (Rasmussen et al 2018), to decrease the frequency of coastal
floods in the Eastern United States and in Europe (Rasmussen et al 2018), and to lower flood
risk in the vulnerable Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta (Brown et al 2018).
Risks to low-latitude fisheries due to climate change are already significant, and it is estimated
that the potential global marine fishery catch will decline by more than 1.5 million tonnes at
1.50C compared to a loss of more than 3 million tonnes at 20C of global warming (Cheung et
al 2016). In addition, climatic changes are already affecting crop yields, with more negative
impacts than positive ones, and with the positive impacts being predominantly at high
latitudes (Tol 2018). As the climate warms to 1.50C and 20C, the number of negative impacts
is expected to rise, and to become large in most world regions, although positive effects could
still be seen in some regions if CO2 fertilization occurs (Tol 2018). The negative impacts are
projected to be greatest in tropical regions, where crops are grown closer to their thermal
limits. In particular, limiting warming to 1.50C compared to 20C is projected to lower the risks
to crop production in sub-Saharan Africa, West Africa, Southeast Asia, and North, Central, and
South America (Schleussner et al 2018), including low-income countries at low latitudes
(Iizumi et al 2017). Several studies quantify climate impacts on water resources under 1.50C
warming and find significant benefits relative to 20C. For instance, under 1.50C warming, 80–
274 million fewer people will be exposed to an increase in water scarcity (Arnell and Lloyd-
Hughes 2014) and there will be a 25% reduction in freshwater stress in SIDS (Karnauskas et al
2018). In addition, by the end of the century, drought exposure is also projected to be reduced
by about 40% globally (Arnell et al 2017), with the greatest benefits reapped in the
Mediterranean, Southern Africa, and Northeast Brazil (Liu et al 2018; Gudmundsson and
Seneviratne 2016). Finally, the loss and damage caused by natural disasters are expected to
rise further in future largely due to climate change and the increased disaster exposure and
vulnerability of our modern societies (IPCC 2018, SR 1.5).

The observed and projected climatic changes have affected and will affect human life on
Earth in numerous ways. In the following sections, I highlight some of the most important of
these effects on humans, namely, the economy, migration, and conflict, all of which
endanger the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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2. Climate change and the economy
While in 2015 and 2018, there were 346 and 315 natural disasters events recorded
respectively in the EM-DAT (International Disaster Database), yet the burden was not shared
equally as Asia suffered the highest impact and accounted for 45% of disaster events followed
by Latin America and Africa (Figure 11). Weighted by land area and population, small island
states are exposed to more frequent natural disasters (Laframboise and Acevedo 2014).

Figure 11: Number of Disaster Events By Continent/Country: 2015, 2018

Source: CRED 2015, 2018

In relation to 2015, in 2018, there were fewer number of people affected (figure 12a) and
fewer deaths (Figure 12b) caused by climate-related disasters. Asia accounts again for the
majority of affected people and disaster victims followed by Africa. 2018 was a standout
year for wildfires occurring in developed countries. The Attica fires in Greece killed an
estimated 100 people, making it the deadliest wildfire recorded in Europe and in the United
States, the California wildfire season was the deadliest on record, with Camp Fire killing 88
people.

Figure 12a : Number of affected (million) by disaster type: 2018, 2015

2018
10.8 0.3 34.2 19.4 0.3

2015

50.5 1.3 27.5 10.6 0.5 13

 Figure 12b: Number of deaths by disaster type: 2018, 2015

2018
0 536 2879 1734 221

2015
35 3310 996 66
7346

Source: CRED 2015, 2018

Aside from people affected and lives lost, estimated total economic damages from climate-
related disasters are staggering. Overall, economic losses due to extreme weather events rose
by 100% from 2015 to 2018, 63.6 and 122 US$ billion respectively (Figure 13). While storms
and floods seem to cause most economic losses, yet droughts often inflict significantly greater
losses on national economies than other types of disasters, with some cases causing damage
equal to or greater than 0.5% of the GDP of the affected countries (Guha-Sapir et al 2013).
Economic damages are not homogeneous distribute across the globe: low and lower-middle
income countries carried a disproportionate burden.

Figure 13: Economic losses (billion US$) by disaster type: 2018, 2015

2018 9.7 19.7

0 70.8 22.8

2015
5.9 0.1 21.3 33.3 3.1

Source: CRED 2015, 2018

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In terms of total damages caused by climate-related disasters, advanced economies are the
hardest hit, mainly due to the higher cost of physical capital and infrastructure, followed by
developing Asia. For instance, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
(2019) reports that in 2018, there were 14 different natural disasters, ranging from hurricanes
to wildfires to winter storms across the United States, with a total cost of $91 billion. Eighty
percent, or $73 billion, of the total loss was attributable to just three events: Hurricane
Michael in Florida, Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas, and wildfires in the West, including
California. While natural disasters affect rich and poor countries alike, they cause more severe
destruction of life and property in the developing world. Thus, poverty and climatic stress
interact to create severe outcomes not experienced in areas with better resources for crisis
management. Assistance of wealthy donor states is often necessary to improve local adaptive
capacity and to facilitate the training of local service providers in developing countries.
Climate-related disasters do not only cause direct losses of assets that have a market value,
e.g., property and infrastructure, as well as losses of assets that do not have a market value,
e.g., loss of life and damage to natural and cultural assets. They also produce indirect losses,
including the lost output resulting from reduced productive capital and the output that is lost
as capital when it is redirected towards reconstruction of assets that were destroyed, away
from more productive uses, for example investment in human capital, thereby affecting the
country’s GDP in the long term. 4 Numerous studies have tried to estimate the direct and
indirect impacts of climate-related disasters on economic growth and often distinguish
between the short-to-medium (up to 5 years) and the long-term (10 years and beyond) terms.
Short-to-medium economic effects
Most of the current research that uses large data sets 5 finds the impact of disasters on short-
term economic growth to be negative (Panwar and Sen 2019; Lopez et al 2016; Felbermayer
and Gröschl 2014; Bertinelli and Strobl 2013; Strobl 2012; on aggregate welfare see Strulik
and Trimborn 2019). 6 For instance, Bertinelli and Strobl (2013) examines the economic impact

4
Two main approaches have been used to estimate the impacts of climate change on GDP and growth:
a) statistical analyses of the economic impacts of past climatic fluctuations, e.g, temperature or specific
climate-related disasters; and b) simulation modelling approaches, e.g., Integrated Assessment Models
(IAMs) and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models. While both approaches can provide useful
economic estimations of climate change impacts, still they have also important weaknesses. The
modelling approaches are based on disputed or uncertain damage costs assumptions, do not include
all impacts on GDP growth, and provide assessment of total costs rather than impacts on GDP.
Statistical approaches, on the other hand, rely on historical data and they are hence limited in scope,
and cannot provide reliable estimates of future projections since the link between climate and
economy in the future may be fundamentally different to those that have prevailed in the recent past.
5
A few studies focus on investigating the economic impacts of natural hazards from a regional
perspective, analyzing specific events and using more disaggregate data. For example, Elliott et al
(2015) examine the impact of typhoons on local economic activity in coastal China (1992-2010), while
Lima and Barbosa (2019) study the effect of a flash flood that occurred in the Brazilian state of Santa
Catarina in 2008. While both studies find that disasters cause substantial economic losses in the year
they occur, growth rebounds back to the pre-disaster levels shortly thereafter in all sectors but the
agricultural sector in the Brazilian case.
6
A limited number of studies show that disasters have neither negative nor positive effect on economic
growth (e.g., Hochrainer-Stigler 2015), while others find a positive effect. For instance, Cunado and
Ferreira (2014) employ a dataset on large flood events in 135 countries between 1985 and 2008 and
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of hurricane strikes in the Caribbean and report that on average hurricane strikes reduce
income growth by around 1.5% at the local level, with no effect beyond the year of the strike.
The negative impacts of relatively severe natural disasters are observed to be even stronger
since large-scale destruction and damage caused by such events are more likely to decelerate
economic growth or even trap the economy at a lower equilibrium level (Panwar and Sen
2019; Klomp 2016; Felbermayer and Gröschl 2014; Hsiang and Narita 2012). Hsiang and Narita
(2012) examine the effect of tropical cyclones across 233 countries from 1950-2008 and report
that stronger cyclones cause substantially high economic losses. In addition, developing
countries are found to be more sensitive to the economic shocks caused by disasters than
developed ones largely due to their limited capacity to cope with the economic and financial
consequences of such events (Panwar and Sen 2019; Klomp 2016; Felbermayer and Gröschl
2014; Fomby et al 2013). Klomp and Valckx (2014) perform a meta-analysis, using more than
750 natural disasters estimates from 22 quantitative studies. After controlling for a large
number of differences among the studies and estimates, related to disaster characteristics,
sample composition and estimation method, they confirm that disasters have a negative short
run effect on economic growth (see also van Bergeijk and Lazzaroni 2015). They also note that
a large part of the statistical significant effect can be attributed to a so-called publication bias
where significant results are more easily published. In addition, countries with higher levels of
per capita income, better institutional frameworks, higher literacy rates, greater trade
openness and more effective ex ante disaster risk financing mechanisms find it easier to
absorb the economic shocks of disasters (Klomp 2016; Hochrainer-Stigler 2015; Klomp and
Valckx 2014; Felbermayer and Gröschl 2014).
Several studies have also shown that higher temperatures also hamper economic growth in
less developed countries. For instance, Dell et al. (2012), using a sample of 125 countries for
the period 1950 to 2003, report that higher temperatures reduce not only the economic
growth, but also the level of output in poor countries. They estimate that a 10C temperature
increase in each year reduces economic growth by about 1.1 percentage points in poor
countries (see also Dell et al 2014). Burke et al. (2015), however, using a global dataset of 166
countries over the period 1960-2010, find that temperature appears to affect output (the
growth rate and the level of GDP) in both and rich countries alike. In addition, they report that
temperature has a non-linear effect on both overall and agricultural GDP in all countries,
meaning that the association between growth and temperature is positive up to a certain
point (i.e., 130C), before becoming negative.

Long-term effects
Turning now to the long-term economic effects of disasters the existing literature is scarcer
and its results less clear-cut than for short-run effects., The reason might be due to the fact
that existing growth theories do not provide robust inferences on the possible growth effects
of natural disasters and to the difficulty of constructing the appropriate counterfactual. Most
of the empirical studies in the focus on four hypotheses (Hsiang and Jina 2014). Firstly, the

report that flood shocks tend to have a positive and significant average impact on per capita GDP
growth. However, this effect is limited to developing countries and to moderate floods and the positive
impact of floods is larger and more significant in the agricultural sector.

16
Schumpeterian ‘creative destruction’ hypothesis postulates that there may be positive effects
of disasters on economic growth, as the physical destruction caused by these disasters may
trigger greater investment in the reconstruction and/or upgradation of existing physical
capital. Secondly, the "building back better" hypothesis proposes that the economic growth
may slow down initially due to human and physical capital losses, but the gradual replacement
of lost assets with modern unities may produce net positive effects on economic growth in
the long-run. Thirdly, the “recovery to trend” hypothesis postulates that the destruction of
human and physical capital may increase the marginal product of these two inputs, which
stimulates individuals and wealth flow to a devastating area until output recovers its pre-
disaster trend. Lastly, “no recovery hypothesis" states that an economy may have a growing
path in the long-run, but permanently below the pre-disaster path.
As already mentioned above, the empirical relationship between natural disasters and long-
run economic growth has largely remained inconclusive with existing studies reporting
negative, positive, and even no effects. For instance, Hsiang and Jina (2014) using
meteorological data on all countries experiencing tropical cyclones during the period 1950-
2008, find robust evidence that tropical cyclone strikes lead to a small suppression in annual
growth rates and that this persists for almost two decades, leading to more substantial
cumulative impacts. They estimate that the world GDP growth would have been 1.4% higher
per year, had no cyclones occurred. Moreover, both rich and poor countries experience GDP
losses, with losses magnified in countries with less historical cyclone experience, a finding that
suggests some effective adaptation in the presence of repeated events. Similarly, Berlemann
and Wenzel (2016) based on a panel of 153 countries over the period of 1960 to 2002 report
significantly negative long-term growth effects of droughts in both highly and less developed
countries. Contrary to these studies, Cavallo et al (2013) employ a synthetic control
methodology and examine the impact of natural disasters from the EM-DAT on GDP per capita
in a dataset of 196 countries covering the period 1970 to 2008, and do not find any significant
effect of natural disasters on subsequent economic growth. In addition, they find that political
instability following the disaster is the main driving factor in both cases in which natural
disasters caused reduction in economic growth. Moreover, Guo et al (2015) analyze panel
data of 577 recorded disasters from the EM-DAT in 30 provinces of China from 1985–2011,
and find that climate-related disasters promote economic growth possibly due to
government’s great emphasis on the post-disaster construction of infrastructures, raising
public awareness of disaster prevention and reduction, and improving human capital
investment.
In conclusion, the existing literature discussed here seems to agree that there are short-term
negative effects of climate change and in particular of natural disasters on economic growth.
However, the long-term evidence is more mixed, with some studies supporting a ‘creative
effect’ of disasters, while a large number finds the opposite results of a permanent GDP loss.
Moreover, it appears that the channels, i.e., consumption, investment, or trade through which
natural disasters affect GDP as well as their impact on different sectors of the economy, e.g.,
agriculture, manufacturing or services have not been fully examined. These issues should
constitute venues for future research

Estimates of the future economic impacts of climate change and SDGs

While global economic effects of future climatic changes will be significant, yet there exists a
lot of uncertainty about their magnitudes due to uncertainties in projecting the impact of
climate change on the environment (e.g., large-scale singular events) and subsequently
17
mapping them into economic effects, and in accounting for future adaptation strategies and
technological innovation in mitigating those effects. Having said that, there exist a few studies
estimating the effect of future climatic changes (mostly temperature) on economic growth
(e.g., Burke et al 2015; Burke et al 2018; Tol 2018a, b) as well as the benefits of constraining
global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C (e.g., Burke et al 2018; Pretis et al 2018; Yohe 2017).
The IPCC AR5 (2014) reported that additional temperature increases of around 20C are likely
to lead to losses equivalent to 0.2%-2% of global GDP. Recent research shows that while the
impacts of 1.5C warming on yearly global average growth rates are “near indistinguishable”
from current climate conditions, yet the negative economic growth is projected for countries
around the Equator and the Southern Hemisphere. In addition, a 2°C warming will lower
annual economic growth by up to 2% for a large set of countries around the globe (Pretis et al
2018). Similarly, Burke et al (2015) based on a statistical analysis using a historic dataset of
national temperatures and economic outcomes estimate that if future adaptation to
temperature increase mimic historic adaptation, climate change could reduce average global
GDP per capita by 23% by 2100, lowering thus the global annual growth rate by 0.28
percentage points on average, with most reductions concentrated in poor countries (see also
Burke et al 2018; Carleton and Hsiang 2016). Ahmed and Suphachalasai (2014) report similar
results from an analysis based on an IAM of six South Asia developing countries, namely
Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. Their modelling suggests that
Bangladesh, India and Nepal could all experience annual damages equivalent to roughly 2% of
the GDP in 2015 (2%, 1.8%, and 2.2% respectively). These damages are likely to reflect lower
bounds, given that the model used excludes some categories and impacts. Overall, the
aggregate economic damage for the whole group of these countries could increase
significantly to around 8% by 2100.
Studies also estimate that the net present value of global economic damage caused by climate
change (including costs associated with climate change-induced market and non-market
impacts, impacts due to sea level rise, and impacts associated with large-scale discontinuities)
to be $54 trillion and $69 trillion at 1.50C and 20C warming respectively, relative to 1961- 1990
(Pretis et al 2018). In addition, they show that developing countries especially in Africa,
Southeast Asia, and Latin America are more likely to disproportionately experience these
negative economic effects (Burke et al 2018; Pretis et al 2018; Yohe 2017). However, even rich
countries are at risk in suffering substantial economic losses as the recent Fourth US National
Climate Assessment report (2018) reveals. The report states that the US economy could lose
hundreds of billions of dollars – or, in the worst-case scenario, more than 10% of its GDP – by
the end of the century if global warming continues apace (see also Hsiang et al 2017; Yohe
2017).
Moreover, not only poor countries are more vulnerable than rich ones to future climatic
changes but also poor people are more vulnerable than rich to future global warming. It is
estimated that by 2030 (roughly approximating the 1.5°C warming predicted by the IPCC
SP1.5), 122 million additional people could experience extreme poverty, based on a ‘poverty
scenario’ of limited socio-economic progress, comparable to the Shared Socio-Economic
Pathway (SSP) 4 (inequality), mainly due to higher food prices and declining health (Hallegatte
and Rozenberg 2017). This finding implies that future climate change will increase inequality
across countries.

18
Hence, climate change threatens not only economic growth (SDG 8) but it will also act as a
poverty multiplier by increasing the number of poor people and by making poor people even
poorer (SDG 1), as well as inequality (SDG 10).

Climate and Food Production

Warming has increased crop yield in some high-latitude areas (Daliakopoulos et al 2017)
because higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acts as a fertilizer allowing
plants to manage their water more efficiently. Recent studies, however, show that climatic
changes have already affected crop suitability in many areas, resulting in changes in the
production levels of the main agricultural crops in many areas around the world. In particular
temperature and precipitation trends have reduced crop production and yields, with the most
negative impacts being on wheat and maize (Frieler et al 2017), while the effects on rice and
soybean yields are uncertain and may be positive or negative (van Oort and Zwart 2018).
Temperature, precipitation and extreme weather events are projected to substantially reduce
future crop yields. The impacts are projected to be greatest in tropical regions, where crops
are grown closer to their thermal limits. In particular, limiting warming to 1.5°C compared with
2°C is projected to lower the risks to crop production in Sub-Saharan Africa, West Africa,
Southeast Asia, and North, Central, and South America, including low-income countries at low
latitudes (Schleussner et al. 2018).
Climate change affects also livestock production directly via yield quantity and quality
(Notenbaert et al 2017), as well as indirectly by affecting the livestock sector through feed
quality changes and spread of pests and diseases (Kipling et al. 2016). Climate extremes can
cause changes in physiological processes in livestock (i.e., thermal distress, sweating and high
respiratory rates), negatively affecting their growth rates and reproduction (Collier and
Gebremedhin 2015; De Rensis et al 2015). Climate change impacts on livestock are expected
to increase. Boone et al (2018) estimate that globally, a decline in livestock of 7–10% is
expected at about 2°C of warming, with associated economic losses between $9.7 and $12.6
billion.
Fisheries and aquaculture contribute to food security and to the livelihoods of millions of
people, and many countries depend on these sectors for their social, economic and nutritional
benefits. Specifically, an estimated 3.2 billion people globally get almost 20% of their average
per capita intake of animal protein from the sea (FAO 2018a). In 2016, marine fisheries
provided 79.3 million tonnes and marine aquaculture provided 28.7 million tonnes (FAO
2018a). At the same time, fisheries and aquaculture (both marine and inland) also provide
livelihoods for an estimated 10-12% of the world’s population (Barange et al. 2018), with an
estimated 14% of fishers and aquaculture workers to be women (FAO, 2018a). Temperature
increases and ocean acidification pose a risk to fisheries and aquaculture at mid-latitudes
(Clements et al 2017) and sea level rise and storm intensification threaten hatcheries and
other infrastructure (Weatherdon et al 2016). Projections of changes in national catch
potential in exclusive economic zones (EEZs) are likely to decrease between 2.8-5.3% and 7.0-
12.1% by 2050 relative to 2000 under RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 climate 19 scenarios respectively,
and are projected to increase to 16.2-25.2% under RCP8.5 by 2100 (Cheung et al 2018). While
at the global scale this average is not particularly large, the impacts are much greater at
regional scale, because projected changes in catch potential vary substantially between
regions. Although estimates are subject to significant variability, the biggest decreases can be
expected in the tropics, mostly in the South Pacific regions. For the high latitude regions, catch
potential is projected to increase, or show less of a decrease than in the tropics (Barange et al
19
2018). It is important to note that these projections only reflect changes in the capacity of the
oceans to produce fish, and do not consider the management decisions that may or may not
be taken in response to this productive capacity. This implies that interactions between ocean
changes and management responses are thus crucial to determine future directions of fish
catch change.

Climate, food production and SDGs

Climate change and extreme events by reducing crop yields, livestock, fisheries and
aquaculture threaten food availability and hence food security both at the global and regional
levels, especially in low-latitude areas. In 2017, 821 million people were undernourished (up
from 777 million in 2015), implying that 11% of the world’s population experienced food
insecurity, with higher percentages in Sub-Saharan Africa (23.2%), southern Asia (14.8%), and
the Caribbean (16.8%). Northern America and Europe account for less than 2.5% (FAO 2018b).
These figures imply that hunger is significantly worse in countries with agricultural systems
that are highly sensitive to climatic conditions and where the livelihood of a high proportion
of the population depends on agriculture. It is not surprising, then that climate variability and
extremes are considered to have being a key driver behind the recent rises in global hunger
and one of the leading causes of severe food crises (FAO 2018b). Overall, food security is
expected to be reduced at 2°C of global warming compared to 1.5°C due to reduced
agricultural production. This implies that there is a heightened risk of falling far short of
achieving the SDG target of hunger eradication by 2030 (SDG 2), and of reversing the progress
already made. Agriculture and food security are also critical to achieving other SDGs, including
poverty eradication (SDG 1), health and well-being (SDG 3), clean water (SDG 6), decent work
(SDG 8), climate action (SDG 13) the protection of ecosystems on land (SDG 14) and in water
(SDG 15), and peace (SDG 16) (IPCC SR 1.5; Perez-Escamilla 2017). Achieving the SDGs, then,
will require responses that integrate efforts directed toward providing food and feed
production while minimizing resource use and waste, improving land-use management,
decarbonizing the food systems and reducing ecosystem degradation. 7 Depending on the
current state of the social-ecological systems, responses that enable long-term provisioning
of food, feed, fibre and other ecosystem products will range from incremental to
transformative and will need to address local to regional as well as global considerations.

3. Climate change and migration

Environmental migration trends

Climatic changes and disasters have always driven people to leave their homes. According to
the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), between 2008 and 2018, about 265
million people worldwide were internally displaced as a response to disasters, which is more
than three times the number of people who were displaced by conflict (81 million) (Figure 13).
7
Biofuels have emerged as an interesting alternative to mitigate climate change by replacing
greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. Although there can be positive environmental outcomes,
and biofuels can represent an additional source of livelihood in low income countries (Renzaho et al
2017), several studies show that the use of food crops to produce biofuels can have negative
consequences for food security. The rise in food prices can be associated to the increasing use of food
crops for biofuels in countries, like the United States, Brazil, the European Union (Souza et al 2017).

20
In 2018, the number of people displaced by disasters (17.2 million) was lower by 2 million
relatively to the people displaced in 2015 (19.2 million). Moreover, in 2018, as it is often the
case most people were displaced by storms (9.3 million) followed by floods (5.4 million). While
small developing island states (SIDS) continued to be disproportionately affected by natural
hazards, South and East Asia, as well as the sub-Saharan Africa were the most affected regions
(IDMC 2019). In addition, 75 percent of the new displacements, roughly 13 million, were
triggered by only ten events 8.

Figure 13: New displacements associated with conflict, violence and disasters (2008-2018)

Source: IDMC, 2019

Those who are forced to move often lose property, crops, and other resources. However, this
kind of movement tends to be temporary. For example, storms and floods (e.g., hurricane
Katrina in USA in 2005 and the floods in Pakistan in 2010) displaced large number of people,
however, most of them returned within a year or so (Fussell et al 2010; Brickle and Thomas
2014). For some though, the displacement will be permanent, as in the case of desertification
and sea level rise, which will ultimately force people to move to avoid severe deterioration in
habitat and resources and potential risks to human lives. This unfortunate scenario is most
likely going to be the fate of some SIDS and river deltas where land will be lost along the coasts
and livelihood will be affected by salinization and coastal erosion. While the majority of
migration in the context of environmental and climate change more generally, including
disaster displacement, occurs within the countries’ own borders, some individuals are forced
to relocate across borders (Kumari Rigaud et al. 2018; Afifi et al. 2016).

Why do people move when they experience natural disasters?

The need to understand the role of climate and environment on migration decisions,
particularly in relation to when, why, how, and where individuals migrate, has increasingly
become central to current political and public debates. Earlier studies on environmental
migration draw on the neo-Malthusian approach, which focuses on pull-push factors and

8
This figure includes all forms of displacement, from people pre-emptively evacuated in
anticipation of a disaster to those fleeing their homes in response to a hazard’s impacts.

21
identifies a direct and unidirectional relationship between environmental change and
migration, creating the notion of environmental migrants 9. Recent research, however, adopts
an ‘augmented gravity model’, which emphasizes a more complex pattern of causality, in
which environmental, demographic, economic, political, and social factors are interrelated.
Understanding these interrelationships facilitates the disentanglement of environmental
factors role in population movements (Adger et al. 2015; Hunter et al. 2015; McLeman 2014;
Black et al 2011a, b; Piguet et al. 2011).
Across disciplines, environmental factors are regarded as either “stressors” or “locational
characteristics” that influence the likelihood of migration (Adger et al. 2015; Hunter et al.
2015; Lilleør and Van den Broeck 2011; Speare 1974; Wolpert 1966). That is, climate change
by exacerbating socio-economic factors of migration, such as poverty, food insecurity, lack of
employment opportunities, limited access to social protection, and the depletion of natural
resources induces migration. Environmental stress should be more important in areas prone
to natural disasters and/or where people are more directly dependent on the natural
environment for their livelihood such as farming. Under environmental stress, individuals
might consider migration to places with better environmental attributes. Nevertheless,
migration is not the “default” response to environmental/climate change. Migration is costly,
both financial (i.e., individuals need to possess at least some form of human, social, or material
capital) and sociological/psychological (i.e., individuals tend to develop strong personal bonds
with their home location over the course of their life) terms (Adams 2016; Adams and Adger
2013). Consequently, an individual will consider migration only when (1) environmental
change has a major impact on personal well-being and (2) the individual’s efforts to adapt to
and/or mitigate this impact have failed or are likely to fail in the future (see also Penning-
Rowsell et al. 2013). If environmental/climate change has a major impact and adaptation is
unlikely to succeed, the costs of migration are lower than the costs of staying in a given place
and, hence, migration becomes another adaptation strategy to environmental change (Adger
et al. 2015, 2009; Black et al 2011c). Consequently, vulnerability to environmental factors as
well as the capacity to adapt determine whether migration takes place in the occurrence of
climatic changes (Black et al. 2013; Foresight 2011; De Sherbinin et al. 2008).

Figure 14: Relationship between vulnerability to environmental change and mobility

9
There are many terms and definitions seeking to delineate the relation between migration
and the environment such as ‘environmental refugees’ (El Hinnawi 1985), which has been
heavily criticized by scholars (e.g., Black 2011). I use the term “climate and environmental
migration” as relating to persons who are displaced primarily for climatic or environmental
reasons (Foresight 2011).

22
 Source: Foresight 2011: 14

Figure 14 illustrates that vulnerability to environmental change and the ability to move
depend strongly on an individual’s wealth. Richer, educated, and socially connected
individuals are typically less vulnerable and are more capable to relocate. Conversely, poor,
uneducated, and socially isolated individuals are less mobile and hence belong to the so-called
“trapped population” (Foresight 2011). While there are several theoretical accounts on this
issue (e.g., Black and Collyer 2014; Black et al. 2013; Foresight 2011), we still lack explicit
empirical analyses on the existence of such trapped populations. 10 Moreover, political (e.g.,
institutions and government quality), economic (e.g., economic development), social (e.g.,
social networks), and household (e.g., family size) factors affect vulnerability and resilience to
climatic hazards and hence they condition migration decisions. For instance, disaster risk
reduction and climate change adaption policies can build/improve the resilience and adaptive
capacity of individuals and communities and help them to prepare for and prevent
displacement due to climate extremes. Therefore, policies aimed at reducing disaster risk can
limit displacement. 11 Consequently, to fully understand the linkages between climate change
and migration, empirical research is of paramount importance.

What do we know?
During the last decade, a surge in data availability and improvements in tools and techniques,
e.g., survey and econometric methodologies, have contributed to a steady rise in empirical

10
Two recent studies provide empirical evidence of trapped populations. Nawrotzki and DeWaard
(2018) show that in Zambia, the association between adverse climate conditions and migration is
positive only for wealthy migrant-sending districts. Koubi et al (2017) based on a study comprising 5
developing countries find that older, poorer, and unskilled individuals are less likely to move even in
the presence of natural disasters (sudden-onset events).
11
Disaster risk reduction policies commonly include structural measures to protect people and assets
(such as dykes and sea walls) and land-use planning and relocation policies to limit exposure to
hazards.
23
studies on climatic changes and migration. A large body of literature examines the impacts of
climatic changes on internal and international migration using macro-level (e.g., Call et al.
2017; Lu et al. 2016; Beine and Parsons 2015) or micro-level (e.g., Bohra-Mishra et al. 2017;
Koubi et al. 2016a,b; Thiede et al. 2016; Mastrorillo et al. 2016) data, as well as a diverse
range of approaches, including quantitative methods and qualitative research. However, our
empirical knowledge in the field remains varied and desultory (IPCC SR 1.5 2018; Adger et al.
2015; Hunter et al. 2015; IPCC 2014). There is simply no conclusive evidence on the direction
and magnitude of the influence of climate (or environment in general) on migration. It may
range from limited (Beine and Parson 2017, 2015) and indirect, through changing agricultural
yields and livelihood sources, (Bohra-Mishra et al 2017; Cai et al 2016) to significant impacts
(Baez et al 2017a,b; Backhaus et al 2015). This empirical ambiguity may be due to: a) lack of
theoretical work that guides the empirical analysis; b) lack of common standards in data
measurement (operationalization of climate and migration); and c) failure to account for
climatic changes’ different impacts on migration given individual and/or household
characteristics as well as local institutional conditions (see also Adger et al. 2015; Hunter et al.
2015, McLeman 2014; Black et al. 2011a,b). Consequently, only an adequate understanding
and quantification of the multiple interconnected components that contribute to livelihood
and migration decision-making, at appropriate spatial and temporal resolutions, will allow us
to construct relevant models reflecting the reality and its potential future.
Having said that, results from the existing literature identify the effects of climate on
migration as multidimensional and heterogeneous. Migration varies according to the type of
climatic event (sudden-onset vs and gradual events) the nature of damage caused to property,
infrastructure, and livelihoods. The size of migration that ensues is further moderated by the
capacity of individuals, households, communities, governments, and humanitarian
organizations to provide assistance. Very recent research suggests that climate has most likely
a significantly positive impact on migration mainly via its effects on agriculture.
The following section summarizes the main findings from the quantitative literature on
climatic conditions and international and internal migration on which the above mentioned
conclusion derives.

International migration
Temperature and precipitation
Using bilateral migration flows 12 between a large number of origin and destination countries,
a number of articles examine the ‘direct’ effect of climatic factors 13, mainly temperature and

12
The International Migration Database (IMD) from the OECD and the Global Bilateral Migration
Database (GBMD) provided by the World Bank are the most frequently used data sets in the macro-
level literature on climate, natural disasters, and international migration.
13
Temperature and precipitation are the most often used climate indicators. However, they have been
operationalized in quite different ways; for instance, in absolute terms (averaged over certain time-
period) year-to-year variation, or standardized anomalies (the difference of actual
temperature/precipitation and their respective means, normalized by their standard deviation). The
data usually come from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (MLOST dataset),
Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (HadCRUT and CRU TS datasets), or the Goddard
Space Flight Center of the NASA (GPCP dataset). The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the
Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) have been also used extensively as
measures of drought.
24
precipitation on international migration with inconclusive evidence. A few studies show that
increases in both temperature and precipitation are associated with increases in migration
flows to destination countries (Backhaus et al 2015); excessive rainfall as well as severe
decreases in temperature during rainy season are associated with large outmigration in less
developed countries and towards developed countries in particular Europe (Coniglio and
Pesce 2015); and rainfall deficits increase migration from Mexico to the USA (Leyk et al 2017;
Nawrotzki and DeWaard 2016). Others, however, do not find a direct effect of temperature
and precipitation anomalies on emigration (Beine and Parsons 2015; Drabo and Mbaye 2015)
and when they find one, it is conditional upon the economic development of the affected
country. In particular, these studies show that rainfall and temperature anomalies deter
emigration from middle- (Beine and Parsons 2017) and poor-income (Cattaneo and Peri 2016)
countries, presumably due to the existence of severe liquidity constraints which prevent
people from emigrating.
In recent time, the linkages between climate change (and its variability) and migration that
operates through the agriculture channel (the ‘indirect effect’) have received increased
attention. The idea here is that climatic changes destabilize livelihoods by negatively affecting
agricultural income, employment opportunities, or food production for sustenance. When the
in-situ (in place) adaptation strategies, e.g., changing farming practices, borrowing money
from relatives/friends, selling assets, and accessing public assistance programs are exhausted
or insufficient, individuals and households may resort to migration to improve their livelihood
security. A number of studies show consistent evidence that higher temperatures in
agriculture-dependent countries tend to induce outmigration (Cai et al 2016; Cattaneo and
Peri 2016; Coniglio and Pesce 2015; Marchiori et al 2012; Feng et al 2010). For instance, Cai et
al (2016) use bilateral migration flows between 163 origin countries and 42 destination
countries, mainly from the OECD, during the period 1980-2010. They find that temperature
increases significantly induce outmigration in agriculture-dependent countries only and that
climate-induced migration reinforces flows in already established migration routes,
potentially presenting challenges to major migrant-receiving countries, mostly industrialized.

Natural disasters
The literature on natural disasters and international migration has produced similarly
inconclusive evidence for a ‘direct’ effect. While several studies report statistically significant
linkages between natural disasters, e.g., floods and storms/typhoons/hurricanes and
international migration especially for less developing countries (Loebach2016; Coniglio and
Pesce 2015; Drabo and Mbaye 2015), others do not find evidence for such an effect (Gröschl
and Steinwachs 2017; Cattaneo and Peri 2016; Beine and Parson 2015). And yet, others find
that international migration varies considerably from one climate event to another. Nawrotzki
and Bakhtsivarava (2017) show that excessive precipitation increases international migration
from Senegal, while heat waves decrease international mobility in Burkina Faso. Past
hurricanes in Central America seem to have generated international migration within the
region, typically along pre-existing social networks (Loebach 2016).
However, interesting patters are discerned when this relationship is conditioned upon country
characteristics or when the agricultural channel is considered. For instance, Beine and Parson
(2015) focus on the dyadic characteristics between origin and sending countries, and find that
while, on aggregate, natural disasters decrease migration in both poor and middle-income
countries, they spur emigration to former colonies and countries which share a common
border. Gröschl and Steinwachs (2017) consider the economic development of the origin
25
countries and find that natural hazards have positive push and negative pull effects in middle-
income countries which are neither financially constrained (like low income countries), nor do
they show high insurance penetration rates (as in high-income countries). Finally, Nawrotzki
and Bakhtsivarava (2017) find that climate change effects show a clear seasonal pattern, with
the strongest effects appearing when heat waves overlap with the growing season and when
excessive precipitation occurs prior to the growing season.

Internal migration
Temperature and precipitation
Most of the empirical research explores the effects of climate on internal migration in
countries with relatively low levels of development, predominantly located in either Africa,
South Asia, or South America due to the exposure and vulnerability of these regions to
extreme climatic conditions. Studies employ both precipitation and temperature anomalies
to measure climate. While both climatic measures deliver inconsistent results (e.g., Dallmann
and Millock 2017; Baez et al 2017 a,b; Koubi et al 2016a,b; Thiede et al 2016; Mastrorillo et al
2016), recent findings again suggest that temperature anomalies have a consistent positive
effect on migration via the agricultural channel (e.g., Gray and Wise 2016; Kubik and Maurel,
2016; Bohra-Mishra et al. 2014, 2017; Mueller et al. 2014).
Overall, precipitation shows weak and inconsistent ‘direct’ relationships with migration across
countries (Bohra-Mishra et al. 2017; Thiede and Gray 2017). Both low and excessive levels of
precipitation decrease inter-provincial migration in eight South American countries (Thiede et
al 2016), foster outmigration at the inter-district level in South Africa, especially for poor Black
affected populations (Mastrorillo et al 2016), and do not seem to affect out-of-village
migration in any systematic way in Pakistan (Mueller et al 2014). In addition, Dallmann and
Millock (2017) find that while precipitation deficits systematically increase outmigration,
excess precipitation lowers outmigration in India.
Similarly, inconsistent results are obtained regarding temperature anomalies. In South
America, for instance, both positive and negative temperature shocks increase youth inter-
state migration (Thiede et al 2016). Migration tends to increase with temperature anomalies
in Uganda, to decrease with temperature anomalies in Kenya and Burkina Faso, and shows no
consistent relationship with temperature in Nigeria and Senegal (Gray and Wise 2016).
Temperature has a nonlinear effect on migration in Indonesia, in that whenever average
annual temperature exceeds 25.30C, it leads to an increase in outmigration and the other way
around (Bohra-Mishra et al 2014). Droughts increase outmigration in Pakistan (Mueller et al
2014), Indonesia (Thiede and Gray 2017), and northern Ethiopia (Hermans and Garbe 2019),
as well as rural-to urban migration in Northern Latin America and the Caribbean (Baez et al
2017a) and in Central America (Baez et al 2017b) mostly for young females and young
uneducated males. Drought, however, is also found to have an insignificant effect in South
America (Thiede et al 2016) and to decrease the likelihood of migration in Vietnam, Peru,
Uganda, Vietnam, and Cambodia (Koubi et al 2016a, b).
Recent studies provide systematic evidence that temperature and precipitation anomalies
increase migration via a reduction in agricultural yields in Philippines (Bohra-Misha et al 2017),
India (Viswanathan and Kumar 2015), and Pakistan (Mueller et al 2014) as well as income in
India (Dallmann and Millock 2017) and Tanzania (Kubik and Maurel 2016). In particular, Bohra-
Misha et al (2017) study inter-provincial migration within the Philippines and find that higher
26
temperatures have significant negative effects on rice yields generating more outmigration
from provinces that are more agriculturally dependent and have a larger share of rural
population. Mueller et al (2014) find that drought during the wheat season increases
migration especially for males in Pakistan. Similarly, Kubik and Maurel (2016) find that in
Tanzania, a 1 per cent reduction in agricultural income induced by weather shock increases
the probability of migration by 13 percentage points on average within the following year but
only for households whose income is highly dependent on agriculture, and those who are in
the middle of the wealth distribution respond to the weather shock by spatially diversifying
their income sources.

Natural disasters
The effect of natural disasters on internal migration depends on the type and the severity of
the disaster. Overall, sudden-onset natural disasters tend to have a great likelihood of
inducing migration (Koubi et al 2016) - ‘People flee to save their lives’ (Warner 2010: 405).
However, while the short-term migration consequences of natural disasters are to be
expected, it is more interesting to know whether affected individuals and households migrate
permanently. A number of studies have thus focused on specific disasters and examined their
effects producing inconclusive results once more. Starting with floods, while several studies
find that floods increase the likelihood of migration in Vietnam, Cambodia, Uganda, Nicaragua,
and Peru (Koubi et al (2016) as well as in Costa Rica (Robalino et al 2015), others report either
a no effect in Ghana (Goldbach 2017), Bangladesh (Chen and Mueller 2018), and Indonesia
(Goldbach 2017; Bohra-Mishra et al 2014) or a significant negative one in Bangladesh (Chen
et al 2017; Mueller et al 2014). The latter result may imply that individuals are either trapped
or that broader benefits from extreme flooding outweigh the short-term costs, as flooding can
improve overall soil quality and yields in subsequent crop cycles potentially increasing the
opportunity cost of migration.
Extreme storms, tropical cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes can also have considerable
potential to stimulate displacement, with the potential for subsequent migration. Bohra-
Misha et al (2017) show that in Philippines typhoons generate more outmigration from
agriculturally dependent provinces and males, younger individuals, and those with higher
levels of education are more likely to migrate. Similarly, cyclones in Bangladesh often force
households to migrate from the affected area when they fail to derive a secure income in the
aftermath of the disaster (Saha 2016). It is worth noting, however, that a recent study by Lu
et al. (2016), which tracked population movements around the time Cyclone Mahasen stroke
Bangladesh in 2013 using mobile phone network data, finds that population flows were largely
unchanged by this event implying that no substantial migration took place. Hurricanes tend to
increase migration in Northern Latin America and the Caribbean (Baez et al 2017a). In the
United States, coastal counties often experience increased outmigration after hurricanes by
people who are on average wealthier than out-migrants at other times (Ouattara and Strobl
2014). This migration often flows along existing social networks to predictable destinations,
with post-disaster reconstruction employment opportunities potentially attracting new
migrants to the affected areas (Curtis et al 2015; DeWaard et al 2016).
Later this century, sea level rise (SLR) is expected to have widespread impacts on populations
living in low elevation coastal zones and atolls (IPCC SR 1.5C). The key physical risks to
settlements include increased rates of inland penetration of storm surges and groundwater
contamination by salt water, and eventual inundation and submergence (McLeman 2018). SLR

27
could thus force people to migrate and, in the extreme case, the resettlement of small coastal
settlements around the world, particularly from small pacific islands such as Tuvalu, may be
required. So far, the evidence suggests that these vulnerable communities resist migration
due to cultural and social ties to that specific place. In fear these places may be lost, individuals
prefer in-situ adaptation, as is the case with residents in Maldives (Stojanov et al 2017) and
small-island communities in the Philippines (Jamero et al 2017). Moreover, residents in
Maldives rarely identify the potential of future climate impacts as influencing their migration
decisions, which are mostly motived by better job opportunities and standard of living via
improved services (Kelman et al 2019). People in Funafuti and Tuvalu are more concerned
about economic issues, food, water, and overcrowding than climate change (McCubbin et al
2015). In coastal Louisiana, USA, communities tend to resist leaving exposed settlements until
a neighborhood community loses at least 50% of its land area (Hauer et al 2019). Lastly,
salinity also induces migration in Bangladesh but mobility is restricted to certain locations
mostly close to the affected areas (Chen and Mueller 2018).

Estimates of future climate migration flows

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Reports in 2014 and 2018 postulate that
climate change is very likely to create mass-population displacements, particularly in
developing countries with low income (IPCC AR5 2014: 4-6 and SR 1.5 2018: SPM-11). While
the evidence on the links between climate variability and migration show that climatic changes
influence migration, there is high uncertainty about how this will play out in the future as using
the past to understand the present and future may be problematic due to the dynamic nature
of climate and society’s adaptive capacity (Lutz and Muttarak 2017). Projections of future
migration flows due to climatic changes have largely been focused on the number of people
who will migrate or become displaced. Estimates have gone from coarse studies based on the
number of people living in vulnerable areas (i.e. exposure mapping) (Laczko and Aghazarm
2009; Myers 2002) to more complex models including different RCPs and SSPs (Rigaud et al
2018).
The most encompassing forecasting project to date has been the World Bank’s Groundswell
project, which developed gravity models of potential internal population displacements by
2050 in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America under various standardized
greenhouse gas emissions and development scenarios (Kumari Rigaud 2018). The authors
report that in a high-emissions/low development scenario, slow-onset climate hazards (e.g.,
droughts) could internally displace approximately 140 million people. Alternative estimates,
combining climate and statistical models, show that in sub-Saharan Africa 11.8 million would
been displaced between 2000 and 2100 (Marchiori et al 2012), and that that climate change
by exerting more stress on vulnerable populations around the world increase asylum
applications to the European Union between 98000 (RCP4.5) and 660000 (RCP8.5) by 2100
(Missirian and Schlenker 2017). However, the evidence they provide is weak, because they do
not account for different levels of vulnerability to climatic change and potential adaptation
strategies, which, to a great extent, depend on the economic and political conditions of
countries in which affected populations reside (Koubi 2019; Adger et al. 2015; Hunter et al.
2015). That said, it remains challenging to detect and assess the effect of climatic changes on
migration with any degree of confidence since the social, economic, political, and
environmental factors underlying migration are quite complex and varied (Cramer et al. 2014).
It is not then surprising that the IPCC Reports stress that there is low confidence in quantitative
projections of future migration flows, although the likelihood of migration is currently high.
28
In addition, while large-scale models seeking to project future migration patterns due to
climate change are becoming more complex, they are still not able to answer detailed
questions about what migration will look like in the future. There is thus limited evidence on
the future impacts of climate change and natural disasters on migration patterns, but studies
agree that migration will increase in the future. More research is needed on more detailed
projections of future migration patterns in the context of climate change and disasters.
Research needs to provide a better understanding of the differences between countries and
sub-national regions in terms of future migration patterns, as well as projections regarding
trapped populations and people using other adaptation strategies than migration. Projections
of future migration patterns also need to incorporate an understanding how adaptive
capacities might change in the future. There is also a great need for better migration data. The
fact that a climate migrant is not legally recognized has hindered the collection of official data
on the number of people that have moved from their homes due to climate change directly
or indirectly due to socio-economic and/or political changes (including conflict) triggered or
exacerbated by climate change, especially when it comes to international migration.
It is worth noting that climate migration and displacement were not explicitly mentioned in
any SDG. Other SDGs, specifically SDGs 8, 10 and 17, point to the need for facilitated, planned
and well-managed migration policies – but do not make the connection with climate change.
Therefore, the ways in which migration may be altered by climate change and the challenges
this poses for policy and planning are not directly addressed in the SDGs. Nor are the broader
challenges that human mobility presents to meeting goals on mitigating and adapting to the
impacts of climate change. Migration will affect progress on SDG13, yet, given the uncertainty
surrounding migration projections as well as the destination(s) of future climate migrants, it
is hard to anticipate the precise impact of migration on achieving these targets. Nevertheless,
one could safely say that climate migration could make the implementation of some SDGs
difficult. To start, (rural) migrants tend to move to urban 14 settings and are particularly
vulnerable to climate change impacts due to low levels of social support and greater exposure
to typically urban hazards such as flooding (Waters and Adger 2017). They may also come from
other environmental, social and cultural settings and therefore, the may be unfamiliar with
how to respond to the unfamiliar climate extremes, e.g., heat waves. Similarly, those left
behind in places where emigration is high may become even more vulnerable to climate
change, especially women and children since they are less able to manage the farming
activities and deal with floods and other extreme weather events. Consequently, climate
change could compromise SDGs 1-8, 10-11, and 13.
A final observation of the framing of climate migration since it has been show that there are
important linkages between the framing of climate and migration and the nature of
subsequent policy discussions and recommendations. For example, the government of Kiribati
has advocated for a ‘migration-with-dignity’ approach, which sees freer labor migration
between vulnerable countries and developed nations as a means of harnessing skills and
remittances earned abroad for building adaptive capacity at home, while at the same time
enhancing skills and expertise of young people and improving development prospects in
general (McNamara 2015). By contrast, the “threat multiplier” interpretation was invoked
frequently in media and policy discussions following anecdotal, poorly documented reports
that drought-related migration caused the civil conflict in Syria, and may have influenced

14
That climate migrants and environmental migrants move to cities from rural areas is a
conjecture and not a fact corroborated by rigorous scientific evidence.
29
European policy responses to the 2015-16 refugee crisis (Selby et al 2017). It is consequently
important that future policymaking discussions regarding climate and displacement mandated
under the Paris Agreement, and on how best to address climate-migration challenges within
the context of meeting SDGs, be framed in such a way that they reflect empirical data and not
contested political narratives.

4. Climate Change and Conflict

In 2007, the IPCC 4th Assessment Report stated that climate change could become a major
contributing factor to conflicts by exacerbating the scarcity of important natural resources,
such as freshwater, and triggering mass population dislocations (migration) due to extreme
weather events. Subsequently, governmental agencies (CNA 2007) and high-ranking policy-
makers such as President Obama and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon have issued
statements linking climate change to conflict on many occasions. With the acceleration of
climate change and the focus on climate change as a security threat, the academic literature
on climate change and conflict saw exponential growth. During the last decade, numerous
academic studies have sought to explore whether a climate change-conflict link exists and how
climate change is – or could be – linked to conflict.

How is climate change linked to conflict?

There exist two potential channels linking climate to conflict:
The first one views climate as affecting the likelihood of interpersonal conflict, i.e., violence
among individuals such as murder, assault, rape, and robbery, via physiological and/or
psychological factors. That is, warmer (colder) temperatures by elevating levels of discomfort
and aggressiveness increase hostility and violence (Anderson and Bushman 2002).
The second channel postulates that climate leads to intergroup conflict 15 i.e., conflict among
groups such as civil war, civil conflict, protest, or riots, via resource scarcity. Consequently,
most of the existing literature theorizes that the effect of climate on conflict operates through
economic conditions such as reduced economic output and crop yields as well as increased
food prices and increased migration flows.
There also exist several possible theoretical explanations (mechanisms) on why climate
depressed economic conditions could lead to conflict.
Economic channel: lower income and limited future economic opportunities (Hsiang and Meng
2015; Burke et al. 2015; Dell et al. 2012) can lead to conflict by decreasing the opportunity
cost of rebellion (the low opportunity cost of rebellion argument). That is, since individuals
expect lower returns from peaceful employment (e.g., farming), they are more likely to be
attracted to selective benefits of rebel leaders and hence they are more likely to join insurgent
groups (Chassang and Padro-i-Miguel 2009). Furthermore, climatic variability by reducing crop
production decreases crop supply, which in turn increases food prices. Temporary food price
increases are likely to amplify the opportunity cost of rebellion mechanism, since they likely
reduce the short-term opportunity cost of more fighting (Chassang and Padró i Miquel 2009).
Climate-driven economic downturns are also likely to exacerbate actual or perceived

15
Intrastate (domestic) conflict measures range from violence against the government (civil wars
(1,000 deaths) and civil conflict (25 deaths)) to low intensity conflict (e.g., protests and riots), and inter-
communal violence (conflict occurring between competing groups within a state).

30
economic and political inequalities in a society, which increase the likelihood of conflict by
motivating individuals/groups to attempt to redistribute wealth and political power (the
grievances argument) (Cederman et al. 2013). Moreover, Climatic changes by decreasing
economic output also reduce resources available to the government (e.g., reduced tax
revenue). In turn, this curtails government’s strength and ability to provide good and services
to people, making it easier for opponents to organize political resistance, e.g., a coup or a
revolution to remove the leader from office (the weak state capacity argument) (Bueno de
Mesquita and Smith 2017).
Migration channel: climate-induced migration might lead to conflict in the receiving areas due
to competition for jobs, public goods and services, and ethno-political concerns that arise
when migrants and residents belong to different ethnic groups and the arrival of newcomers
upsets an unstable ethnic balance (Reuveny 2007).
Context matters: Whether climate ultimately leads to conflict, however, depends on socio-
economic and political factors that would condition or intensify (weaken) the effect of climate
on conflict. For instance, high levels of poverty and high dependence on renewable resources,
e.g., agriculture, increase the likelihood that weather shocks produce detrimental economic
conditions for large sections of the population (Ide et al. 2014). Climate induced migration,
especially in underdeveloped countries, might exacerbate the likelihood of conflict since these
countries find it typically more difficult to absorb and manage an influx of migrants in (urban)
receiving areas (Reuveny 2007). In addition, political institutions and government capacity at
multiple levels are important in addressing acute resource shortages and resolving these in a
peaceful manner (Linke et al. 2017).

What do we know?
Interpersonal violence
Numerous empirical studies report a positive relationship between temperature and different
forms of interpersonal violence, e.g., murder (Ranson (2014), assault (Anderson et al 1997),
homicide (Mares and Moffetti (2016), domestic violence within households (Card and Dahl
2011), the use of force during police training (Vrij et al 1994), inter-player violence during
sporting events (Larrick et al 2011), and horn-honking while driving (Kenrick and Mcfarlane
1986) for different time periods and geographical regions. For example, Mares and Moffetti
(2016) find that homicide rates increase as temperatures rise in a sample of 57 countries for
the period 1995-2012. They also claim that this positive relation will continue as global
warming raises average temperatures around the world and predict that each degree Celsius
increase in global temperature will increase homicide rates by 6%. Ranson (2014) examines
the impact of temperature on the prevalence of criminal activity in 2,997 US counties for a
period of 30 years and reports that temperature has a strong positive effect on violent crime,
such as murder but a non-linear effect on property crime, with property crime increasing up
until about 700F. Overall, these studies suggest that temperature has an immediate effect
upon criminal activity, especially violent crime, even though the exact physiological
mechanisms linking temperature to aggression are not yet known. While the physiological
mechanism has not been observed in intergroup conflict, Hsiang et al (2013: 4) note that since
aggression at high temperature increases the probability that intergroup conflicts escalate in
some contexts (e.g., in football stadiums) and also the probability that police officers use force
(e.g., during training), it is possible that this mechanism could affect the occurrence of larger
scale group-level conflicts.

31
Intergroup violence, the direct channel 16
Turning to intergroup conflict, empirical studies a) focus mostly on Africa and
regions/countries within it and, to a lesser extent, on Asia, since these continents are highly
dependent on agriculture for income and food generation and already suffer from climatic
changes; and b) rely almost exclusively on simple meteorological indicators, such as
temperature and/or rainfall, as well as natural disasters (e.g., floods, storms, or droughts), as
possible correlates of intergroup conflict. Most of this research, although it accounted for
some contextual factors, such as economic development and differing political systems,
provides little evidence for a strong direct link between climate variability and/or natural
disasters and conflict (Koubi 2019; Buhaug 2015). For instance, some studies report either a
positive effect of temperature and precipitation or natural disasters on civil conflict/war (e.g.,
O’ Loughlin et al 2014; Hendrix and Salehyan 2014), as well as on communal conflict (Maystadt
et al. 2015; Ember et al 2014). Other studies find no effect (e.g., Detges 2014; Wischnath and
Buhaug 2014a; Böhmelt et al. 2014). 17 However, there is some evidence that natural disasters
lengthen civil conflict (Eastin 2016) and the outbreak of armed conflict is more likely to follow
disasters in non-democratic (Koubi et al 2012) and ethnically fractionalized countries
(Schleussner et al 2016). Nevertheless, research also suggests that disasters may precipitate
peace rather than conflict (Tubi and Feitelson 2016; Nardulli 2015).
Climate variability, e.g., less precipitation by reducing the supply of water in transboundary
river basins, can threaten the well-being and national security of the riparian states, thus
increasing the probability of interstate conflict. Research largely indicates that while river
sharing does not increase conflict over and beyond the increase in conflict due to proximity,
i.e., sharing a border (Brochmann and Gleditsch 2012), water scarcity increases the risk of
conflict in river sharing dyads relative to other pairs of countries (Gleditsch et al. 2006) and
the risk of conflict is more pronounced in upstream/downstream configurations (Brochmann
and Gleditsch 2012). The most recent study on this topic (Devlin and Hendrix 2014), however,
finds that joint precipitation scarcity, i.e., when both members of a dyad experience drier than
average conditions, reduces the likelihood of an interstate militarized dispute (MID). Other
studies report that water scarcity enhances the incentives of riparians to cooperate (Dinar et
al. 2011), and that the existence of transboundary treaties (Tir and Stinnett 2012), the specific
design of international water agreements (Dinar et al. 2015), and effective international
frameworks for water allocation and prevention of climate-induced geo-hazards in shared
river basins can mitigate the risk of conflict (Bernauer and Siegfried 2012). Link et al. (2016),

16
Climate change affects the likelihood of intragroup violence via the scarcity of renewable resources
such as freshwater, arable land, forests, and fisheries. Following a neo-Malthusian line of argument, it
is assumed that adverse climatic conditions, e.g., high temperatures or low rainfall coupled with
overpopulation reduce the resources needed to sustain human livelihood. Reduced resources increase
competition, which leads to conflict (Homer-Dixon 2001). At the national level, for instance, less rainfall
or high temperatures could lead to conflict among consumers of water, e.g., farmers and herders,
urban unrest, insurrections, and other forms of civil violence, especially in the developing world. This
line of argumentation has been criticized as being overly deterministic since it removes violent conflict
from its local, social and political contexts (Raleigh et al. 2014), and dismissive of the fact that
substitution, technological innovation, investment, and international trade can overcome resource
scarcity.
17
Lower rainfall, however, increases the duration of civil conflict: as rainfall declines, there is a
reduction in resources available to both the government and the rebel group, leading to a stalemate
in fighting (Keels 2017).
32
however, note that successful management of shared river basins in times of climatic changes
should not be based on only water allocation schemes but also consider other socioeconomic
and political factors affecting water availability such as adaptive capacity and construction of
dams, and hence conflict (see also Feitelson and Tubi 2017 and De Stefano et al. 2017). 18
Admittedly, the inconclusiveness of the empirical results might be due to the differences in:
a) datasets regarding the operationalization of both conflict (e.g., civil war, civil conflict,
intergroup conflict, and protests) 19 and climate (e.g., temperature, precipitation and
precipitation anomalies, droughts, floods) variables; b) temporal (e.g., month, quarter, and
year) and spatial (e.g., grid, national, and global levels) domains; c) model specification (e.g.,
fixed effects, and inclusion of control variables); and d) heterogeneity that can play an
important role. That is, studies examining the direct effect of climate on conflict assume that
the effect is the same within a country and across different types of countries or regions.
However, given that neither climatic shocks nor conflict risk affect a state’s entire territory in
the same way it seems unlikely that a given climatic shock would have the same effect across
different countries and socio-economic and political contexts: climatic shocks usually do not
lead to conflicts in wealthy and politically stable countries. Consequently, criticism has arisen
that these direct connections between climate and civil conflict are a type of environmental
determinism (Raleigh et al. 2014). Several scholars indeed note that other factors, e.g.,
population pressure, political regime, low economic development, and ethno-political
exclusion, are likely to either condition this relationship (Buhaug 2015; Ide et al 2014) or to
have a stronger impact on conflict risk than adverse climatic conditions (O’Loughlin et al 2014;
Böhmelt et al. 2014).
Nevertheless, seeking to examine the climate-conflict relationship, Hsiang et al. (2013)
systematically conduct a meta-analysis based on 60 studies whose empirical analysis could be
specified as fixed-effect panel regressions of a reduced form equation, i.e., regress climatic
variables on conflict. They conclude that deviations from mild temperatures and normal
precipitation systematically increase conflict risk, often substantially and estimate that on
average, a one standard deviation change in weather variables increases intergroup conflict
by 14% (see also Hsiang and Burke (2014) for another meta-analysis of 50 studies). Buhaug et
al. (2014), however, criticize this study with respect to sample selection, selection of indicators
and interpretation of results and point out that the conclusion is misleading and at odds with
recent empirical evidence (Buhaug et al. 2014, 3). The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC AR5), however, supports Buhaug et al.’s assessment
stating that ‘collectively the research does not conclude there is a strong positive relationship
between warming and armed conflict’ (Ref 3, p. 16). The report also affirms that climatic
changes can indirectly increase the risk of conflict by amplifying well-documented drivers of
conflict such as poverty and economic shocks.

18
Climate change could contribute to abundances that could contribute to interstate conflict. For
instance, higher temperatures by causing the melting of the polar ice cap in the Arctic will improve
accessibility to Arctic ports, reduce costs of oil and mineral exploration and exploitation, and open up
new shipping lanes. Under these circumstances, however, competition and conflict could become the
Arctic reality if cooperative mechanisms cannot keep pace with developments or otherwise prove
inadequate to settle international disputes in the region. Future research could examine whether
climate change could act as a “threat multiplier” also for interstate conflict in the Arctic (Koubi 2019).
19
Most research rely on data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program Dataset (UCDP/PRIO), the Social
Conflict Analysis Database (SCAD), and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED).
33
Intergroup violence, the indirect effect
While climatic changes per se are unlikely to cause conflict, they still could act as a “threat
multiplier” (CAN 2007) since they have the potential to exacerbate a wide range of existing
and often interacting conflict drivers such as high population growth, resource scarcity,
poverty, poor governance, and unmanaged migration. Hence, a new wave of empirical
research examines the climate-conflict nexus in a multiple-stage fashion considering
conditional effects such as political institutions and migration and indirect links such as
economic growth and agricultural production.

Climate, national income, economic growth, and conflict

There are only a few quantitative studies, which explicitly examine the causal pathway linking
climate to violent conflict via national economic conditions. Building on an influential study by
Miguel et al. (2004), these studies use mainly rainfall and/or temperature as instrument for
economic conditions under the assumption that climate influences conflict only through the
national economy. Miguel et al. (2004) study 41 African countries in 1981-1999 and report
that lower rainfall growth reduce economic growth, which in turn increase civil conflict onset
and incidence (see also Hodler and Raschky 2014). Ciccone (2011), however, disagrees.
Extending the time period to 2009, he re-evaluates Miguel et al.’s result using rainfall levels
instead of rainfall growth rates, due to the mean-reverting nature of rainfall, and reports that
conflict is unrelated to rainfall. Miguel and Satyanath (2011) attribute the contradictory results
to the difference of the temporal domains of the two studies rather than to the measurement
of the rainfall arguing that the relationship between rainfall shocks and civil conflict appears
to be weaker in Africa after 1999 mainly due to Africa’s unprecedented economic growth in
non-agricultural sectors and perhaps to the spread of democratization. Koubi et al. (2012)
using a global dataset as well as an African sub-sample for the 1980-2004 period also do not
find evidence that climatic variability, measured as deviations in temperature and
precipitation from their 30years long- run past levels (a 30 years moving average), increases
the risk of civil conflict via their negative effect on economic growth (Van Weezel 2015,
Wischnath and Buhaug 2014a; see Bergholt and Lujala (2012) on natural disasters). They also
find than non-democratic countries are more likely to experience civil conflict when economic
conditions deteriorate thus providing evidence that the effect of climate-driven economic
downturns on conflict is conditional on the type of political system. Overall, there is no
evidence for a strong relationship between climate (temperature, precipitation or extreme
weather events), deteriorating economic conditions, and conflict.

Climate, agriculture production and income, and conflict

Given the natural relationship between weather and agricultural production, agriculture has
been the focus of much of the recent literature on climate and conflict. Several studies provide
evidence for a climate-induced adverse agricultural production and conflict relationship across
many centuries. However, they disagree on which particular type of climatic change is the
most influential one. Two studies based on data stretching back 1,000 years show that cooler
temperatures caused conflict in the northern hemisphere (Zhang et al 2011) and increased
the frequency of conflict in Eastern China by reducing agricultural production (Zhang et al
2007). Similarly, Anderson et al (2015) employ panel data from 1100 to 1800 and show that
colder growing seasons led to greater expulsion of the Jewish population from European cities
during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, and that the effect was stronger in societies with
lower state capacity. Jia (2014), however, using panel analysis for the period 1470 and 1900,
34
shows that drought triggered peasant rebellions in China, and that technological innovation
in the form of the introduction of drought-resistant sweet potatoes mitigated the drought’s
effect on rebellion.
Studies using recent data focus on areas where agriculture represents a large share of the
national income and with predominantly rain-fed crops such as sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
With the exception of Buhaug et al. (2015), these report that adverse climatic conditions via
their negative effect on agricultural production and incomes affect various types and
characteristics of conflict. In particular, Gawande et al. (2017) find that rainfall shocks increase
the intensity of conflict, measured as number of killings, in the Maoist belt in India by reducing
agricultural production. Similarly, Eastin (2018) shows that excess rainfall, typhoons, and
declines in agricultural productivity increase violence in armed intrastate conflict in the
Philippines. Drought increases the incidence of most crimes, including burglary, banditry,
rape, riots, and murder in India (Blakeslee and Fishman 2017) and property crimes in South
and South East Asia (Papaioannou 2017). Rainfall extremes increase the number of Hindu-
Muslims riots in India (Sarsons 2015). Drought increases the likelihood of riots in sub-Saharan
Africa (Almer et al. 2017).
Furthermore, a few studies seeking to construct a better measure of agricultural production
exploit within-year variation in the timing of climate shocks, which occur during the growing
season of the main crop(s) cultivated in an area (country or grid) (e.g., Harari and La Ferrara
2018; Jun 2017; Caruso et al. 2016). These studies find that lower or higher temperatures
during the core month of the rice-growing season in Indonesia (Caruso et al. 2016) or the
maize-growing season in sub-Saharan Africa (Jun 2017) reduce the crops’ yield, which in turn
increase the incidence of civil conflict. Similarly, Harari and La Ferrara (2018) show that
weather shocks such as above-average temperatures or below-average rainfall during the
growing season of several types of crops in 39 African countries have a larger impact on
conflict-related incidents than weather shocks outside of the growing season. Finally, Crost et
al (2018) show that abnormally heavy rainfall during the wet season in Philippines growth
leads to an increase in violent events, mainly in agricultural provinces one year later, by
harming crop. This violence occurs predominantly among rebel groups that take advantage of
the chaos created by a bad harvest season.
In addition to fostering income shocks for agricultural producers, adverse climate can also
affect consumers by increasing the prices of the affected crops, and hence food prices. Higher
food prices lead to various forms of social unrest, such as demonstrations, riots, and
government crises, e.g., the so called ‘food riots’. For instance, it is often stated that rising
food prices played a role in fomenting the Arab Spring unrest across North Africa and the
Middle East in 2011 (Johnstone and Mazo 2011). It is worth noting, that higher food prices
might not necessarily be the result of reduced crop availability at the local level: hiked global
food prices may be the results of failed harvest further away from home, as in the case of
waves and wildfires in Russia, China, and other food-growing countries in the summer of 2010
that hiked global food prices in the following months. Several studies report a positive
relationship between higher food prices caused by adverse climatic conditions and the
outbreak of urban unrest in African countries (Smith 2014), civil conflict in Africa (Fjelde 2015;
Raleigh et al. 2015), and the incidence of social unrest globally (Bellemare 2015). It is worth
noting, that reduced crop availability may not only have local effects.

Context matters

35
As mentioned above, the effects of climate on conflict are likely to vary with national and local
economic development as well as the political institutions and administrative capacity of
national and local governments. Recent studies interact and/or combine climatic variables
with socioeconomic and political factors to examine when and where conflict occurs (see Ide
2015 for an opposing view). Overall, these studies reveal (and figure 15 illustrates) that
‘context matters’ since adverse climatic conditions are more likely to increase the likelihood
of sustained violence in regions, which are already hot with agriculturally dependent and
politically excluded groups (Bagozzi et al. 2017; Von Uexkull et al. 2016; Schleussner et al.
2016; Bretthauer 2015), institutions are ineffective (Linke et al. 2015; Linke et al. 2017), and
essential public services are difficult to obtain (Detges 2016; Jones et al. 2017). For instance,
Schleussner et al (2016) report that the initiation of civil conflict follows drought more often
than is to be statistically expected in cases in which there is a high degree of ethnic
fractionalization within a country. Furthermore, von Uexkuell et al (2016) find a significant
statistical correlation between drought and conflict in areas where minority groups are
excluded from political participation while being dependent on agriculture for income. In
addition, this relationship seems to be more pronounced for civil conflict intensity than for
conflict onset, which implies that climatic magnifies the consequences of conflict.
Figure 15 displays these relationships: drought and conflict coexist in countries or regions that
already suffer from adverse climatic changes, are highly dependent on agriculture for income
and food generation, have few capabilities to cope with these changes, and are characterized
by pre-existing tensions and conflict. In turn, conflicts contribute to environmental
degradation and undermine the ability to adapt to climate change, thus creating a vicious
circle of increasing vulnerability. The Lake Chad basin exemplifies this vicious circle scenario:
it is vulnerable to climatic changes and at the same time is characterized by low socio-
economic development, high levels of poverty, low levels of national integration, historical
government neglect, perceived and actual marginalization, and political violence.

Figure 15: Drought Trends and Civil Conflict (1989-2014)

36
Data: NOAA PDSI and UCDP GEO v17.1. Conflict incidents occurring during the 2005-2014
period are shaded darker than conflicts occurring during the 1989-2004 period.
Source: Koubi 2019

The migration channel

The migration channel through which changes in the climate could significantly increase the
probability of conflict has been rarely explored systematically (Burke et al 2015a). Qualitative
work, on the one hand, provides some evidence that mass population movements induced by
climatic shocks could destabilize (fragile) countries and result in conflict, an example of this is
Syria (Kelley et al. 2015). However, in this case, these connections have not been established
conclusively. Several scholars have vigorously contested the links between drought, migration,
and conflict (Selby et al 2017; Frohlich 2016; Chatel 2014). On the other hand, existent
empirical evidence based on large-N studies is mostly inconclusive regarding the onset of new
conflicts (e.g., Brzoska and Fröhlich 2015; Bernauer et al. 2012). Several studies, however, find
that climatic conditions could lead to low levels of political violence and prolong conflict. For
instance, Bhavnani and Lacina (2015) show that greater rates of internal migration due to
irregular rainfall are associated with a higher risk of riots in migrant–sending Indian states.
Ghimire et al. (2015) report that displacement caused by catastrophic floods is likely to
lengthen the duration of an existing civil conflict but it does not affect the risk of new conflict
outbreaks. Finally, De Juan (2015) finds that in Darfur, conflict was more prevalent in areas
that experienced higher water availability and more vegetation, and showed higher levels of
immigration.
The lack of conclusive evidence linking climatic changes with migration and conflict is largely
due to the difficulties in isolating the effect of climatic change from the many other
determinants of conflict and to inability of the existing research to model adequately the
complexity of this relationship. For instance, most of the existing literature assumes that all
types of climatic change, i.e., floods or droughts, lead to conflict and that all environmental
migrants are equally prone to conflictive behavior, yet neither is accurate. For example,
migration due to a sudden/short-term climatic event, e.g., flood, is less likely to cause conflict
compared to migration after a long-term climatic event such as a drought. This is because the
migrants of sudden-onset climatic events are welcomed as they do not have any other option
than to flee but they also are expected to leave as soon as the impact of the climatic event
fades out. Moreover, the distribution of humanitarian aid is likely to alleviate immediate
scarcities. Koubi et al. (2018) focus on the individual and argue that migrants who experience
gradual/long-term climatic events such as droughts or desertification in their place of origin
relative to the ones who experience sudden/short-term climatic events such as floods and
storms, are more likely to have developed grievances that lead to heightened conflict
perceptions in their new location. Relying on individual-level survey data from five developing
countries, they find that migrants of long-term climatic changes show significantly higher
levels of perceived conflict in their new location. This indicates that climate migration could
only lead to conflict under specific climatic conditions. Consequently, it is crucial to
understand the exact causes of why migrants leave their homes and how residents in the host
locations perceive them in order to be able to prevent potential conflict at the receiving areas.
This is one of the most important priorities for future research on the security implications of
climate change.

37
Projections of future ‘climate conflicts’ and the SDGs
There exists an extremely small number of studies making projections on future climate
conflicts. On the one hand, Burke et al (2009) predict that if future conflicts in sub-Saharan
Africa are on average as deadly as present conflicts, and assuming linear increases in
temperature to 2030, this warming will increase armed conflict incidence by roughly 54%, or
an additional 393,000 battle deaths by 2030. On the other hand, based on a statistical model
of the historical effect of key socioeconomic variables on country-specific conflict incidence
for the period 1960–2013, Hegre et al (2015) forecast the annual incidence of conflict for the
2014–2100 period along the five shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). They show that
broader socioeconomic development, expressed by higher growth in education and poverty
alleviation, could help in offsetting most of the conflict risk in developing countries associated
with reduced economic growth due to implementation of policies to curb GHG emissions.
However, predictions based on historical models provide a weak foundation for projecting
future conflict risk under future climate scenarios since we do not know how conflict patterns
will evolve over time under anthropogenic climate change. Research needs to simulate future
conflict risk along alternative configurations of representative concentration pathways and
shared socioeconomic pathways, while at the same time accounting for feedbacks from
conflict onto economic activity.
Although climatic conditions seem to affect the characteristics of conflict, in particular
duration and intensity, rather than its onset, they can still endanger the successful
implementation not only of SDG 13 but almost all SDGs. Conflict is development in reverse:
conflict does not only undermine the capacity of governments (and non-governmental actors)
to reduce greenhouse emissions and to provide adequate protection from natural disasters,
but it is also a major driver of climatic/environmental vulnerability via its negative effects on
economic growth, education, food security, and environmental destruction. Hence, ending
violent conflict may be one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to improve social
resilience to natural disasters and climate change in general.

5. Policy Recommendations
In an attempt to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, it becomes imperative to recognize
that climate change, the economy, migration, and conflict are interconnected and are a
function of larger global challenges. Moreover, it appears that agriculture is the main
mechanism behind this interconnection. This implies that effective policies aiming at reducing
the vulnerability and strengthen the resilience of agricultural communities could substantially
increase the likelihood that the Sustainable Development Goals would be met by 2030. The
need for new (or the redesigned old) policies and programs that foster sustainable agriculture
will require creative responses that are international in scope yet tailored to unique local and
regional situations. Thus, reaching the SDG targets will simply not be possible without a strong
and sustainable agricultural sector.
My recommendations focus primarily on what can be done to adopt sustainable agriculture
and, to a lesser extent, on what specific policies should be implemented to deal with
migration, the presence of climatic changes. In particular, promoting sustainable agriculture
should be central to responses to climate, economic growth, migration, and conflict
challenges, as it fosters the adaptation and mitigation of climate change and also reduces
other root causes of migration and conflict such as rural poverty, food insecurity, and
38
inequality. Sustainable agriculture should have targets that focus on both domestic and
international efforts. The following is a list of such targets:
- Increase agriculture production in developing countries through sustainable agricultural
practices such as rotating crops and embracing diversity, reducing or eliminating tillage,
integrating livestock and crops, and adopting agroforestry practices.
- Ensure access by small farmers to land and security of land tenure, particularly women,
indigenous peoples and people living in vulnerable areas/situations and to credit, markets,
and marketing facilities.
- Improve social safety nets to enable farmers and the rural poor to cope with external shocks,
such as climate-related disasters. This includes implementing a range of policies that support
the economic viability of smallholder and subsistence agriculture and reduce their
vulnerability.
- Develop and transition to ecological farming through national agriculture policy frameworks
that, in particular, increase emphasis on the conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity,
fostering healthy soils, and developing and sharing water harvesting and other water
management techniques
- Implement a research and knowledge-sharing agenda towards sustainable agriculture.
Research and development efforts must be refocused towards sustainable agriculture, while
at the same time strengthening existing farmer knowledge and innovation.
- Stimulate rural development by adopting or enhancing comprehensive plans and activities,
including raising the living conditions, infrastructure, and work opportunities and incomes of
rural communities in especially developing countries.
All of the above require that national leaders look at the role of agriculture, forestry, and
fisheries in such fashion that situates these sectors in a more prominent and adequate place
in the national development trajectory. Furthermore, in order to achieve said targets, the
means of implementation and a genuine global partnership for development are
prerequisites. This would include the provision of finance, e.g., via the Green Climate Fund,
transfer of appropriate technology and capacity building for the adoption of sustainable
agriculture practices.

Integrating ‘climate migration’ into national climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction
policies and plans, and sustainable development is vital in order to effectively manage its
challenges. For national policymakers, this implies that adaptation policies should include
awareness raising, capacity building and education on climate change to ensure that people
are aware of the risks they face as well as the impacts their behavior might have on the
environment, wherever they live.

Proactive investment in adaptive capacity building in high-risk natural disaster areas to protect
the wellbeing of exposed populations reduces the potential for large-scale distress migration
and of having to relocate people at tremendous expense afterwards, which is also likely to be
more efficient than reactive (and often unsuccessful) border enforcement. Understanding
affected populations’ subjective experience of place is also crucial to ensuring that the right
solutions (protection, assistance with resettlement, or facilitating migration) are
implemented. In the short run, relevant international organizations should improve

39
coordination of humanitarian assistance following catastrophic events, anticipating a higher
frequency and severity of these events in the future.

Climate-related migration is seen as a successful adaptation strategy. Yet, this depends on

whether residents in receiving areas see the presence of migrants as a threat or a benefit. Tied
up with the wider securitization of migration discourse, currently, climate-migrants are largely
framed as a security threat. Solutions to climate change migration, therefore, lie within the
promotion of alternative, positive discourses of migrants that can pave a way for more open
border regimes. Given, however that the majority of climate migrants will move within their
own countries or to countries with shared borders, countries vary in the degree to which their
borders are open and migrants and refugees are securitized, solutions lie in supporting climate
migrants, their host communities, and/or countries in the Global South.

Further delays in sharply reducing GHG emissions will inflict large economic damage on future
generations, both in rich and poor countries, and are likely to increase social conflict and
violence particularly in parts of the Global South that already suffer from such problems today.
Nonetheless, by unevenly imposing higher opportunity costs on certain sectors, individuals,
or geographic areas, drastic cuts in GHG emissions have strong distributional effects within
countries. Moreover, they also require painful trade-offs between reduced economic growth
in the short or even medium term and avoid large economic damage from climate change in
the long-term, which may cause severe social conflict and migration and even worse social
conflict accordingly. Such distributional problems and trade-offs are very difficult to deal with
even in rich countries, as the recent “Gilet Jaune” unrest in France demonstrates, and are
probably even more challenging in poorer countries, making these problems a top priority
both in climate and in development policy. Scientific research should then contribute to such
policy efforts by advancing quantitative assessments of the net effects of different GHG
mitigation strategies both on economic welfare and social conflict.

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