Where Next? Climate Change, Migration, and the (Bio)politics of Adaptation
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12404 |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Author | Giovanni Bettini |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
Where Next? Climate Change, Migration, and
the (Bio)politics of Adaptation
Giovanni Bettini
Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, UK
Abstract
The series of recent hecatombs in the Mediterranean, together with the regressive reactions we have witnessed in and around
Europe, highlight the importance of posing the question of climate change and migration. Climate change will interact with a
number of drivers of migration, and will hit hardest on the weakest and most exposed –which often include migrants as well
as those too poor to move. However, how the climate-migration nexus can be addressed in fair and equitable ways (with
what concepts, in what fora, through what policies) is far from a simple question. This intervention proposes two main argu-
ments. First, a brief overview of recent debates suggests that we are still far from any progressive approaches to ‘climate
migration’–those that have emerged are different expressions of biopolitical discourses on sustainable development and resi-
lience. Second, this intervention invites to reconsider the widely held and depoliticising assumption that climate migration is a
‘problem to be solved’- for instance, by UNFCCC. Rather, the nexus should be seen as a set of open questions on different
alternative climate futures, as well as a symptom of the irreducibly political tensions inherent in every form of mobility as
much as in every attempt to discipline/govern it.
The adverse impacts of climate change –as well as the
measures implemented to mitigate and adapt to them –will
contribute to many ongoing and future transformations of
human settlement and mobility. Debates on climate change
and migration have been haunted by the spectre of hordes
of climate destitute jeopardizing international security –an
alarmist as much as inaccurate account of the nexus. A
more realistic and pressing concern relates to the fact that
climate change will hit hardest on least powerful and most
exposed groups (IPCC, 2014) –which often include migrants,
as well as those too poor to move. Climate and environmen-
tal change adds to and amplifies the processes of marginali-
sation that are redrawing and sharpening the contours of
inequality in today’s planetary capitalism (Chaturvedi and
Doyle, 2015; Ciplet et al., 2015). One of the tolls climate
change may take on many in the ‘majority world’is a reduc-
tion of their freedom to determine whether and how to
move, contributing to displacement, but also reducing
mobility (Black et al., 2011a; Foresight, 2011). Climate
change thus poses a number of questions in relation to
human migration. How to address them is far from straight-
forward.
In search for answers, we often look into the future –the
starting sentence of this article is a case in point. Climate
migration is predominantly narrated in the future-condi-
tional (cf. Baldwin et al., 2014). However, the current ‘migra-
tion crisis’has a lot to tell us. Not because the tragic events
in Syria were caused by climate change –as some hasty
and inaccurate accounts would suggest –but because con-
temporary politics of migration offer valuable insights, rele-
vant in particular if we are interested in discussing (policy)
interventions to address climate change and migration. Let
us begin by presenting some of these insights. First, the
ongoing series of hecatombs in the Mediterranean –a tra-
gedy of historical magnitude
1
–is a reminder of how ‘even’
liberal democracies ignore suffering and death unravelling
in front of their eyes and/or because of their (in)action. It is
not given that such capacity to administer or accept death
would disappear in the face of severe climate change. What
guarantees that international policy and legislation will actu-
ally avoid the suffering and death climate change might
cause, when something as catastrophic as the carnage in
the Mediterranean is not being averted by the same institu-
tions? Can we really rely on the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to design a ‘solution’to cli-
mate migration, whatever that might mean?
Moreover, the thousands of migrants drowning in the
Mediterranean are not dying by accident: the responsibility
resides in the complex regimes that govern migration in
and around Europe. While border enforcement –barbed
wires, walls and military vessels patrolling the seas –is obvi-
ously a key component of those regimes, they also comprise
of a broader set of practices, effects and actors. One point
that critical scholarship on the Mediterranean crisis has high-
lighted is the convergence of humanitarian, military and
security interventions and operations (De Genova, 2013; Pal-
lister-Wilkins in this issue; Tazzioli, 2015, 2016). Not merely
because the rescue of migrants in the sea is operated by
the same military that are also deployed to screen move-
ments, ‘fight’smugglers and deter further departures. But
also because the humanitarian and military responses are
part of the same framing of migration and migrants, one in
which the scenes of death, rescue and capture all feature in
the ‘spectacle’taking place at the border (De Genova, 2013),
Global Policy (2017) 8:Suppl.1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12404 ©2017 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 8 . Supplement 1 . February 2017 33
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