Advancing the Evidence Base of Future Warming Impacts on Human Mobility in African Drylands

Lisa Thalheimer,David S Williams,Friederike E L Otto,Kees Van Der Geest

doi:10.1029/2020ef001958

Abstract

AbstractA better understanding of climate change impacts and resulting human responses (climate‐related human mobility) have been identified as a research priority by the climate science community. Here, we provide the basis for future research efforts by identifying knowledge gaps and consolidating published evidence in the IPCC 1.5 Special Report (SR15) with recent evidence from climate science and the literature on human mobility in African drylands, a region where migrants are particularly vulnerable to climate change. We first synthesize climatic changes and their projected impacts across the region to then contextualize the projected impacts with current knowledge regarding the effect of anthropogenic climate change on human mobility. We discuss these often indirect impact channels and argue that a systems approach is needed to address the interconnectedness of climate impacts and the cascading risks of adverse consequences for human mobility.

Highlights

We provide the basis for future research efforts by identifying knowledge gaps and consolidating published evidence in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5 Special Report (SR15) with recent evidence from climate science and the literature on human mobility in African drylands, a region where migrants are vulnerable to climate change
Displacement, forced migration, and other forms of human mobility have long been recognized as a potential major impact of anthropogenic climate change
Limiting climate-related human mobility has been important in informing the goal of capping global warming at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in the Paris Agreement (Hoffmann et al, 2020; Task Force on Displacement, 2018; UNFCCC, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

Displacement, forced migration, and other forms of human mobility have long been recognized as a potential major impact of anthropogenic climate change. The most significant sectors impacting climate-related human mobility are covered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR15). We provide a comprehensive discussion of the impact channels through which future warming affects human mobility (climate-related human mobility) This Commentary aims to contribute to the ongoing, global effort toward a better understanding of climate-related human mobility (Boas et al, 2019) and to offer a directly usable approach for policy-makers. To this aim, we propose a systems approach to address the interconnectedness of climate impacts and cascading risks of future warming on human mobility in African drylands. Such an approach has been applied to a diverse range of fields such as food systems (Gaupp, 2020; Nicholson et al, 2020), but has been less used in the analysis of climate-related human mobility issues

Climate-Related Human Mobility

Mapping Climate Change Effects on African Drylands

Systems Approaches to Advance the Current Evidence

Findings

Outlook