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Where do we go from here?: See how humans are moving, amid climate change
The shift has already begun.
“Climate change is not a distant threat. We can already see the impacts of it. People are being rendered homeless or jobless because of it, are moving because of it,” says Alice Baillat.
A climate governance researcher, Baillat is a policy advisor with the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), one of the world's leading data sources on displacement (set up by the not-for-profit organisation Norwegian Refugee Council).
“Displacement has long-term impacts on economies, on societies. Every country needs to integrate displacement into national planning,” says Baillat. “Climate change is what we call a risk multiplier.”
What does she mean, and what should we be doing?
Well, as a species, we have always moved to alleviate risk.
Now, Baillat points out, the climate crisis is amplifying pre-existing vulnerabilities, intensifying the impacts of poverty, threatening basic infrastructure and the idea of a safe life or livelihood for many.
Since 2008, IDMC has tracked one key area of impact: Displacement. They track this across four parameters.
1) extreme weather events such as storms, floods and wildfires.
2) geophysical hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis.
3) slow-onset hazards such as drought, desertification, sea-level rise and water salinisation.
4) geopolitical conflict and violence.
The numbers tell a clear story.
According to the latest GRID (Global Report on Internal Displacement) published by IDMC in May, there were an estimated 46 million displacements due to natural disaster (the first three of the four categories above) in 2024 alone.
The upward trend has been steady, with the numbers rising from a total of 17.2 million in 2018 to 24.9 million in 2019, 30.7 million in 2020, 32.6 million in 2022 and 26.4 million in 2023.
(IDMC, incidentally, draws its data from national government agencies, UN bodies and organisations such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. See the chart alongside for how the countrywide displacement figures have risen too.)
SHUTTERED ISLANDS
Internal displacement, of course, is just one part of the story.
Most people who lose their homes or livelihoods to a natural disaster move from one part of their country to another. This is thought to be a less traumatic and more sustainable shift.
Already, this isn't an option for some.
In recognition of this, Australia in 2023 made a pact with the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu, offering special visas for up to 280 Tuvaluans a year, so they can migrate or move freely between the two countries. The latter country, made up of nine tiny islands home to an estimated 9,500, sits somewhere between Australia and Hawaii and will likely be among the first to disappear into the rising seas.
Desperate attempts at preservation have ranged from plans to have Tuvalu live on in the metaverse; to the simple but inevitably short-term tactic of piling sandbags on its shores (see image alongside).
This year, New Zealand introduced something similar: a Pacific Access Category (PAC) ballot that will use a lottery system to offer residency to applicants from endangered island countries such as Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Kiribati, and Tuvalu.
EXTENDED LEAVE
Massive, intensifying storms and cyclones are currently wreaking the most havoc.
In highly exposed countries such as Bangladesh (2.4 million internally displaced), China (3.9 million), the Philippines (nearly 9 million) and the US (11 million), they triggered more than half the movements reported in 2024.
In the US, Hurricane Milton alone triggered almost 6 million displacements in October 2024 alone.
The list of countries with the most people thus displaced has been topped by more or less the same countries for the past 10 years: China, the Philippines, India, USA, Somalia.
Of course, population and population density play an important role in determining which countries top these charts. So does the geographical volatility of the Pacific and of South Asia.
But the truth is, no one is safe.
“The US has recorded its highest level of disaster displacement in 2024 because of severe hurricanes, with 11 million displacements — nearly a quarter of the global total,” Baillat says. “This is a global phenomenon that affects everyone, everywhere. Even wealthy European countries such as Spain, France and Germany are seeing the number of displacements rise because of floods, storms and wildfires.”
Brazil, meanwhile, reported its highest figure on record (1.1 million) in 2024. Most of these displacements were triggered by floods in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, “where above-average rains inundated an area the size of the United Kingdom,” the IDMC report states.
Yemen also reported its highest number of disaster displacements on record last year. Three provinces, home to nearly half the country's population of 4.8 million, were hit by floods between July and September. This followed bombings by Israel, destroying homes, farms and livelihoods in a poverty- and strife-riven region.
Some in Yemen were displaced a second time within the same year. These were not even the worst-off.
“The most vulnerable, worldwide, are those who cannot move because they simply don't have the social networks or money to do so,” Baillat says.
It is worth mentioning here that, while displacement figures indicate the severity of a natural disaster, there is another metric that can hint at the country's ability to cope. A national action plan, funding and infrastructure, including a focus on data-gathering, are typically crucial differentiators. (As are personal wealth and the ability to craft an individual resilience plan.)
In the US, for instance, of the 11 million people displaced, only 22,000 were still listed as such by the end of the year.
In Somalia, meanwhile, over 2 million were displaced in 2023, and there are no figures available for how many still bore this tag at the end of that year.
A WAY BACK HOME
The countries least affected, at the moment, are concentrated in mainland Europe and Central Asia. Together, they accounted for less than 1% of total natural-disaster-linked displacements in 2024. Some are small and wealthy microstates such as Andorra that have built strong infrastructure. But the truth is that many are simply shielded from ravages along major rivers and along coastlines.
There is good news.
Globally, many of the displacements in 2024 were pre-emptive evacuations.
New policies are taking shape too.
Bangladesh adopted a national strategy on internal displacement in 2021.
The Philippines introduced legislation in 2016 that includes specific provisions to ensure children displaced by disasters have continued access to education.
Since 2019, Fiji has been moving villages to new settlements on higher ground.
Across the Global North, countries are framing 100-year coastal adaptation plans that use comprehensive modelling to identify threats, and potentially effective mitigation strategies.
“India currently lacks a comprehensive framework for climate mitigation or coastal rehabilitation,” says Aysha Jennath, a climate mobility researcher with the independent research organisation Indian Institute for Human Settlements. “There is still very little localised data even, for instance, on sea level rise. Long-term, localised, high-resolution data is the only way forward, when it comes to framing appropriate adaptation strategies. What we need to be changing or improving right now starts with good data. Every good policy starts with good data.”
India also has no national policy on internal displacement.
How could we get started on one? Read the story alongside for more.
Source: HindustanTimes
Related Posts: HTWknd,Climate,climate change,climate crisis,global displacement,storm
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