Commentary: Getting out of the climate migration ghetto: Understanding climate degradation and migration as processes of social inequalities
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Author | Thomas Faist |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12793 |
Commentary: Getting out of the climate
migration ghetto: Understanding climate
degradation and migration as processes of
social inequalities
Thomas Faist*
It is unproductive to speak of climate migrants or climate refugees because climate change –or cli-
mate degradation, as it is called here –is rarely the sole or exclusive mover of migration. As a rule,
there are usually multiple causes –economic, political, ecological and cultural (Black et al., 2013).
The obvious exceptions to this empirical finding are rapid-onset disaster situations, such as earth-
quakes, nuclear meltdowns or volcano eruptions. It is also true that mainstream migration research
often disregards ecological factors, and most research on migration and climate degradation does
not sufficiently contextualize ecological factors interacting with the social world (Terry, 2009; cf.
Piguet, 2013). A further step has to be taken to arrive at a plausible perspective.
Here, the argument is that it is productive to situate migration in the context of climate destruc-
tion within the broader hierarchy of social inequalities. As we know, responding to climate destruc-
tion depends on the position of agents within a structured hierarchy of power. Simultaneously, the
social and the natural world are tightly linked (Faist & Schade, 2013). Current climate degradation
is to a large extent anthropogenic and thus an endogenous process. In other words, human and thus
social behaviour is the ultimate cause of contemporary climate degradation. This is also what is
meant when we use the term Anthropocene (Rosa et al., 2015). In other words, Anthropocene
refers to a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters
the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability
observed over comparable time periods’(UNFCCC, 1992, 3).
It is hard to gauge the effects of the socio-ecological nexus on migration. The results of empirical
research so far do not allow for clear and generalizable conclusions on the impact of climate degra-
dation on migration decisions (Kniveton et al., 2008). This is partly due to different conceptual and
methodological approaches underpinning these empirical studies and variations across disciplines.
Globally valid prognoses seem to be difficult if not impossible to come by.
What we do know with certainty, however, is that cross-border viz. international migration is
only one of several responses to climate and environmental degradation. Many of those who are
affected by adverse climate change either stay and adjust (e.g. farmers), or are stalled in the regions
where they live, constituting trapped populations (e.g. many peasants). Of those who leave, most
move to larger urban conglomerates in the same country or adjacent countries and are thus internal
but not international migrants. In this way, they contribute to accelerating urbanization, increasing
the burden on cities in the global South (Lustgarten, 2020). These movements or trappings increase
*Center on Migration, Citizenship and Development (COMCAD), Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
doi: 10.1111/imig.12793
©2020 The Authors. International Migration
published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf
of International Organization for Migration.
International Migration Vol. 58 (6) 2020
ISSN 0020-7985
This is an open access article under the terms of the Crea
tive Commons Attribution License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
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