How Climate Change is Impacting Human Migration

Columbia Energy Exchange

Throughout the world, climate change is influencing human mobility.

In a 2022 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that devastating floods and storms have triggered the displacement of 20 million people per year since 2008. While migration is influenced by many factors, including socio-economic status and political stability, research by the IPCC and others tells us that climate change is increasingly significant.

So, how is climate change impacting human mobility? And what can policymakers do to address climate migration?

This week host Bill Loveless talks with Shana Tabak about how climate change influences migration both within and across borders.

Shana is a human rights lawyer and the director of immigration strategy at Emerson Collective, where she leads engagement at the intersection of global migration and the climate crisis. She is also an adjunct professor of human rights at the Georgetown University Law Center and an affiliated scholar with Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of International Migration.