Climate change as a migration driver from rural and urban Mexico

Nawrotzki, Raphael J.; Hunter, Lori M.; Runfola, Daniel Miller; Riosmena, Fernando

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/11/114023

Cited by 99 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…3P), but nonagricultural workers in Mexico move in response to temperature more rapidly than farm laborers (173), and some of the poorest countries show no emigration response (167). In Africa, flows from urban to foreign locations appear responsive to weather (174), but U.S.-bound migration from urban Mexico is unaffected by heat waves (175). Climatological natural disasters that influence incomes, such as hurricanes and flooding, appear to have limited impact on total migration in low-income contexts (171,176,177) and cause simultaneous inflow and outflow of migrants in the United States (178,179).…”

Section: Demographic Effects: Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social and economic impacts of climate

Carleton

Hsiang

2016

Science

928

509

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BACKGROUND: For centuries, thinkers have considered whether and how climatic conditions influence the nature of societies and the performance of economies. A multidisciplinary renaissance of quantitative empirical research has begun to illuminate key linkages in the coupling of these complex natural and human systems, uncovering notable effects of climate on health, agriculture, economics, conflict, migration, and demographics.ADVANCES: Past scholars of climate-society interactions were limited to theorizing on the basis of anecdotal evidence; advances in computing, data availability, and study design now allow researchers to draw generalizable causal inferences tying climatic events to social outcomes. This endeavor has demonstrated that a range of climate factors have substantial influence on societies and economies, both past and present, with important implications for the future.Temperature, in particular, exerts remarkable influence over human systems at many social scales; heat induces mortality, has lasting impact on fetuses and infants, and incites aggression and violence while lowering human productivity. High temperatures also damage crops, inflate electricity demand, and may trigger population movements within and across national borders. Tropical cyclones cause mortality, damage assets, and reduce economic output for long periods. Precipitation extremes harm economies and populations predominately in agriculturally dependent settings. These effects are often quantitatively substantial; for example, we compute that temperature depresses current U.S. maize yields roughly 48%, warming trends since 1980 elevated conflict risk in Africa by 11%, and future warming may slow global economic growth rates by 0.28 percentage points year −1 . Much research aims to forecast impacts of future climate change, but we point out that society may also benefit from attending to ongoing impacts of climate in the present, because current climatic conditions impose economic and social burdens on populations today that rival in magnitude the projected end-ofcentury impacts of climate change. For instance, we calculate that current temperature climatologies slow global economic growth roughly 0.25 percentage points year −1 , comparable to the additional slowing of 0.28 percentage points year −1 projected from future warming. Both current and future losses can theoretically be avoided if populations adapt to fully insulate themselves from the climate-why this has not already occurred everywhere remains a critical open question. For example, clear patterns of adaptation in health impacts and in response to tropical cyclones contrast strongly with limited adaptation in agricultural and macroeconomic responses to temperature. Although some theories suggest these various levels of adaptation ought to be economically optimal, in the sense that costs of additional adaptive actions should exactly balance the benefits of avoided climate-related losses, there is no evidence that allows us to determine how closely observed "adaptation...

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Section: Demographic Effects: Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social and economic impacts of climate

Carleton

Hsiang

2016

Science

928

509

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“…As underlined by [61], the most frequent migration pattern is that occurring between rural areas. In fact, the lack of information available to people coming from rural areas and the limited opportunities, in terms of labor market prospects open to them, may prevent such people from moving internally to urban areas or internationally [58,59,62]. How the amount of available information affects internal migration patterns in Indonesia is an issue tackled by [63].…”

Section: Climate Shocks and Internal Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change, Agriculture and Migration: A Survey

2018

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This paper proposes a selective review of the classical economics-based literature on climate change and migration, focusing on the extent to which agriculture might be considered a key mediating channel linking climate change to migration. Overall, climate change is expected to have large and negative effects on the global economy. These effects are even more evident whenever the economic sector considered is the agricultural one, particularly in developing countries. Hence, migration can be viewed as a specific form of adaptation implemented by individuals and households, enabling them to cope, among other things, with weather-induced risk. We show that the importance of agriculture emerges from both plenty of micro-level country studies and relatively few macro-level analyses using cross-sectional data over longer time periods. Thus, policy actions targeted to sustainable agriculture and rural development can both help tackle the challenges posed by climate change and create opportunities in the face of growing migration issues. However, we also stress that much of the current evidence is based on statistical associations that have nothing to do with causal inferences. This calls for the use of a more structural approach and more sophisticated research designs, enabling the researchers to better discriminate among different mechanisms concurrently at work. In addition, further research should be addressed to the role played by food security, a complex dimension largely missing in the current debates on climate change and migration.

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“…Connections with migration have been demonstrated in that rainfall shortage is associated with international migration, particularly from rural areas with strong migration networks (Hunter, Murray and Riosmena 2013; Nawrotzki, Hunter et al 2015; Nawrotzki, Riosmena and Hunter 2013; Nawrotzki, Riosmena et al 2015). In addition, migration from drought-stricken regions is highest 2–3 years following substantial decline in rainfall, suggesting migration as shorter-term adaptation to environmental stress (Nawrotzki and DeWaard 2016).…”

Section: 0 Theoretical Background and Prior Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%