Foresight: Migration and Global Environmental Change. Future challenges and opportunities

This report considers migration in the context of environmental change over the next 50 years. The scope of this report is international: it examines global migration trends, but also internal migration trends particularly within low-income countries, which are often more important in this context. The challenges of migration in the context of environmental change require a new strategic approach to policy. Policy makers will need to take action to reduce the impact of environmental change on communities yet must simultaneously plan for migration. Critical improvements to the lives of millions are more likely to be achieved where migration is seen as offering opportunities as well as challenges. It is not easy, in an area of complex interactions between multiple human and natural processes, which encompass multiple policy areas, to highlight a single area for urgent policy action. Moreover, the need for urgent action may not be correlated with quick and visible results. Most obviously, this report has concluded that actions to reduce GHG emissions, to mitigate human-induced climate change, remain urgent and critical, even if their effect on migration drivers will be most pronounced in the second half of the century. Nonetheless, from the wide range of evidence and policy solutions considered in this report, three key priorities for urgent action stand out. Find out which are they by reading the full text report.

Keywordsglobal environmental change, migration - environment nexus, migration balance, migration policy, coastal zones