The main purpose of this report is to contribute to the ongoing integration of EU policies on climate change, adaptation and migration.

The specific objectives are:

• to identify associations between climate change and displacement in Africa, in recent decades;
• to provide spatially explicit estimates of populations exposed and vulnerable to climate  change impacts up to 2070 for several scenarios of climate change and socio-economic development, and to discuss the implications for climate-driven migration in Africa.

For the part dealing with the future, the report quantifies the size of population that could be exposed and vulnerable to climate change impacts on agricultural productivity.

The main findings of the report are summarised below.

PROJECTIONS OF POPULATIONS EXPOSED AND VULNERABLE TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Regions in Africa are among the most exposed to climate change impacts. This high level of exposure is driven by population growth and by the impacts of climate change on agricultural productivity, which are expected to be more severe in tropical and subtropical regions than in temperate regions.

Our results indicate that within Africa the most affected region in terms of overall size of exposed population would be Western Africa. According to the most impactful scenarios, by 2070, up to 15% of the population in Western Africa would be exposed to the negative impacts of climate change, here defined as living in areas where agricultural productivity drops by 20% or more.

While the level of exposure in the projections mainly depends on the level of greenhouse gas emissions, the vulnerability of exposed population depends mainly on socio-economic development. This underlines the need to address the adverse consequences of climate change through both climate and development policies. A reduction of emissions can reduce population exposure, but improvements in education, poverty and urbanisation will be critical when considering conditions of vulnerability.

The quantification of the number of migrants within exposed and vulnerable populations is a complex task that faces several challenges and uncertainties, such as the difficulty to disentangle climate change from other migration drivers. Despite the challenges, evidence from the recent past can shed light on the climate change-migration nexus.

FROM EXPOSURE AND VULNERABILITY TO MIGRATION: THE NEXUS BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND NET MIGRATION IN THE RECENT PAST

We were not able to find a statistically significant and unequivocal relationship between climate change and displacement across the entire African continent. What emerges from our analyses is rather a patchwork of signals of associations between climate change and displacement, that vary from one African region to another.

The results show that population growth and/or the level of urbanisation are the prevailing factors which influence migration in the Northern African territories, while climate change impacts appear less important in such demographic processes.

In Western Africa, a positive association between extreme temperatures, drought severity and displacement emerges only when focusing on the specific context of the Sahel region with its already established seasonal migrations, often linked to recurrent droughts and food shortages.

In Eastern Africa, the lack of a clear association between displacement and climate change could be due to the influence of climate effects on the occurrence of conflicts. Climate-induced migration may increase the competition for resources (e.g., food and employment) in the host areas and exacerbate ethnic tensions with the host communities.

Results for Southern Africa are useful to show how the impact of climate change on displacement is mediated by effects of climate change on agricultural productivity. In Southern Africa, we find a positive association between extreme temperatures and displacement, which could be connected in particular to the declining yields of maize. Moreover, a link between rainfall and displacement was found only for the upper-middle income countries of the regions. This supports the findings from other studies that migration can be an adaptation strategy to climate change only in those contexts where people have the economic means to migrate.

INDIVIDUAL PERCEPTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND DESIRE TO MIGRATE

A recent survey show than half of the respondents have heard about climate change and this awareness is highest in urban areas. Overall, in Africa, about half of the respondents think that climate conditions for agricultural production in their area has gotten worse or much worse. However, only 0.16% of those who declare they would like to emigrate report natural disasters as the most important reason for leaving the country.

People with low education who are expected to be more vulnerable to climate change impacts, are also less likely to consider migration as an adaptation strategy to climate change.

LIMITATIONS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

The limitations and uncertainties in quantifying the impacts of climate change on migration, which are also stressed in the scientific literature, should not represent a justification for remaining inactive in the face of the potentially large consequences of climate change on human systems. There is a high probability that large populations will suffer from drops in agricultural productivity.

These conclusions highlight the importance of orienting the focus of the policy discourse from a possible threat of an incoming exodus induced by climate change to the needs for adaptation. In addition, they stress the need for a joint effort in migration, climate adaptation and development policies to cater for the needs of those who will be trapped in conditions of extreme environmental degradation, without having necessarily the means to revert to migration as an adaption strategy.