Climate change and migration:
a European social science
network
Andrew Baldwin introduces an
exciting multidisciplinary research
initiative at Durham University to
address issues of climate change and
human migration
The effects that climate change may
have on human mobility are hard to
predict and may pose a formidable
challenge to societies around the world.
The impacts of climate change are
not certain and human mobility is not
attributable to climate change alone, so
the human mobility effects of climate
change are not easily understood using
the normal procedures of scientific
research.
Some interpretations of the science of
climate change suggest that climate
change-induced human migration is
inevitable, as rising sea levels and
unpredictable climatic variability will
dramatically alter the habitability of
many parts of the world. When these
environmental effects take hold, people
will move.
However, the science of climate change
involves uncertainty and the resulting
challenge is familiar to many in the
climate change policy community: How
should we act in the face of uncertain
science? Moreover, for a growing
number of scholars around the world,
the challenges posed by the human
mobility effects of climate change are
not solely a problem of uncertainty in
environmental science. Such challenges
also demand a rigorous social science
if they are to be properly diagnosed and
managed.
phenomenon from a unique perspective,
each posing unique sets of questions,
and each organised around unique
methods and literatures.
This is why a group of European social
scientists recently banded together to
form an exciting new pan-European
research network on climate change and
migration based at Durham University:
COST Action IS1101 Climate change
and migration: knowledge, law and
policy, and theory. The network
recognises that while individual
research can make a difference, a more
concerted effort is required to address
fully the complex social, political,
cultural and economic challenges posed
by the phenomenon of climate changeinduced human mobility.
•
Working Group II (Law and Policy)
aims to develop our basic
understanding of the issue.
The Action provides the