New Research on Climate Change Migration and Displacement: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

While there is little doubt that climate change has a major impact on human migration and displacement, questions still remain. Do households use migration as an adaptation strategy and if so, how does this play out at the family level? How can the human rights of those crossing international borders because of climate change be upheld?

On September 26, the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement and the Georgetown University Institute for the Study of International Migration hosted leading climate change and human mobility researchers for a discussion of their recent research on climate change migration and displacement. Panelists included: Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Walter Kälin, professor at the University of Bern and former Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons; Koko Warner with United Nations University; and Roger Zetter with the Refugee Studies Center at the University of Oxford. Senior Fellow Elizabeth Ferris, co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement, provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.