Dr. David Robinson

A New Perspective on Climate Change and Migration

The First Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change1 (IPCC AR1) in 1990 noted that the greatest single impact of climate change might be on human migration. The report estimated that by 2050, 150 million people could be displaced by climate change related phenomenon like desertification, increasing water scarcity, floods and storm etc.

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in 2006 and a Christian Aid report in 2007 estimated displacement of respectively 200 million and 250 million people by climate change related phenomena.

These are terrifying numbers, especially when you realize that the reports tend to be fairly conservative about the effects of climate change. More recent IPCC reports have actually pulled back the more dramatic predictions about migration even as they intensify warnings about global warming.

A recent study, “Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Migration and Conflict” by Clionadh Raleigh, Lisa Jordan and Idean Salehyan, surveyed the available literature on disaster migration. They wanted to develop reasonable projections on future migration patterns in response to the direct and indirect changes due to climate change. They concluded that international migration is likely to be quite limited.

This is a result that contradicts what I thought I knew. It may or may not be correct. If it is, climate change could be less disruptive and fewer people will die trying to find new places to live. One key, according to Raleigh, Jordan and Salehyan, is that developed nations have to put in place adaptation and disaster response sytems that help the poorest and most vunerable populations deal with crises. I hope that they are right, and I hope we act on their advice.

Published by Dr. David Robinson

Dr. David Robinson is an economist, now retired from Laurentian University. He has been a Green Party Candidate for the Sudbury Riding. He is best known for over 150 columns in local media focusing on Northern economic issues, for starting the McEwan School of Architecture, and for being the first to identify and promote the mining supply and services sector in Northeastern Ontario as a key economic driver for Sudbury David taught public policy, resource economics, environmental economics, as well as econometrics and general theory for 33 years. He is the author two books, numerous book chapters on Northern Ontario Development, and a handful of published poems and is currently teaching a course on Sustainable Northern Ontario Economic development. Working with his family, he was instrumental in bringing the playwright development organization Pat the Dog to Sudbury, and drove the creation of a park in his neighbourhood which is now part of Rainbow routes. He was a member of the founding board of social-action-oriented Gallery 6500 located in the local Steelworkers Hall, served on the Senate of Laurentian University, as Director of the Institute for Northern Ontario Development, and was a senior fellow at the Northern Ontario Policy Institute.

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