An obvious move
When flames approach and you don’t have a fire extinguisher, you move. By the same token, as parts of the Earth grow less habitable, people will migrate. The rich will find it easier to adapt to higher temperatures or rising sea levels, since they can afford air-conditioning and flood defences. The poor have fewer options.
A sea change
Whereas some climate migrants flee drought, others will be displaced by rising waters. In 2018 Daniel Lincke and Jochen Hinkel, two academics in Germany, used cost-benefit analyses to calculate that only 13% of the world’s coastlines would be worth defending under their most pessimistic scenario, mostly in wealthy and densely populated parts of Europe, East Asia and the eastern United States. Conversely, 65% of coastline was not worth protecting under any scenario.
Stress on the Nile
In the meantime, most climate migrants will have to stay close to home. Few of the most vulnerable places are prepared for a surge of them. In north Africa, whose inhabitants cluster by the coast, Groundswell predicts that 4.5m-13m people (2-6% of the population) will be displaced by climate change by 2050.