Should Europe Be Concerned About Climate Refugees?

Rob Bailey

Europe’s migration crisis is a failure of policy and politics. Granted, the scale of human displacement is without precedent in the EU—over one million refugees and migrants arrived in 2015—but the tragic scenes in the Mediterranean, internal squabbles over quotas and border controls and feverish fence building betray a lack of preparedness for what was a foreseeable outcome.

Ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the unsustainable accumulation of refugees in neighbouring countries should have been warning enough for Europe’s governments. Things are unlikely to improve any time soon. Europe is a haven of stability in a neighbourhood of fragility. From North Africa to the Middle East and across the Sahel into the Horn of Africa, a great many of Europe’s neighbours are at risk of, or experiencing, conflict.

Climate change will make a bad situation worse. As a recent report for the G7 argued, (opens in new window) it will undermine livelihoods, increase local resource competition, aggravate pre-existing tensions and destabilize markets, ultimately increasing the risk of social upheaval. In extreme cases, climate change may leave people with little option but to move. One recent analysis found temperatures in the Middle East and North Africa could be so extreme by the end of the century that some areas may become uninhabitable.

The extent to which climate change will exacerbate conflict and displacement in Europe’s near abroad will depend in large part on how effectively countries and populations adapt. Where governments and societies are able to manage the disruptions of a changing climate, the risk of turmoil will be less. Unfortunately, resilience to climate change is predicated on wealth, strong institutions and cohesive societies—all things that fragile states lack.

The article's full-text is available here.

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