Europe will see increasing numbers of desperate people fleeing their home countries
Linking migration to climate change is controversial.
Yet , scientists are clear that rising temperatures and extreme weather are likely to increase migration , So,it is difficult to separate this factor from the myriad other factors that drive people to flee their homes.
Mr Hsiang , professor at Berkeley, University of California, and author of a previous study linking conflict and climate change, who was not involved with the current research, said the world must prepare. “We will need to build new institutions and systems to manage this steady flow of asylum-seekers. As we have seen from recent experience in Europe, there are tremendous costs, both for refugees and their hosts, when we are caught flat-footed.”
Wolfram Schlenker , professor at the school of international and public affairs at Columbia University in New York, and lead author of the study, said a rise in migration owing to climate change could exacerbate political tensions further. “Europe is already conflicted about how many refugees to admit. Though poorer countries in hotter regions are most vulnerable to climate change, our findings highlight the extent to which countries are interlinked.”
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