Welcome to our current episode of Audible Alps, the Zebra podcast. My name is Michael Gums and this time it is all about climate change and migration. What does this have to do with the Alps? I think we consider in a village arriving just three families and ten people, you know that if the village has just 200 inhabitants, this means a lot.
So this is the trend. Of course, if climate change is going to produce a stronger impact as we suppose on the basis of the data we collected, from these small numbers we are going to move to very, very high numbers and figures of people. This is André-Ambrété. He coordinated a research project on climate-induced migration and mobility in northern Italy.
When it comes to climate-induced migration, many people think of desert regions or sinking islands in the Pacific. Climate change is also playing an increasingly important role for migration from cities to the Alpine region. Many Alpine regions were and still are affected by out-migration. Climate change is also causing some people to migrate, at least temporarily, from the city to the mountains.
Prolonged heat waves, air pollution and new climate-related diseases. Increasingly, people's own health is at stake, as the climate is changing dramatically, for example in the northern Italian pattern plain, also known as Po-Vale around Turin, Milan and Veron. But to which extent is climate change really increasing the likelihood of people moving from urban regions to mountain regions? This is what the research project Meclimi tried to find out.
It was launched by the Italian branch of the European Climate Pact Ambassadors and completed in 2023. What role could climate change play in future for migration into Alpine regions? And why this is also a question of social justice about this and more I talked to André-Ambrété. He coordinated the project and conducts research at the University of Turin.
Definitely there is an article about climate change and migration that is very related to the northern regions. And of course, we know that there are severe problems in terms of displacement of people. You were quoting the sub-sarian regions, for example, the certification or the islands going under the water, under the sea level. But we are aware that climate change is impacting a different level also here in Europe.
And in particular, in the Alps, as the Alps are one of the most affected regions in the world, even by climate change, in terms of temperature, for example. But we wanted to analyze, to investigate to what extent climate change that is impacting even in Europe, even in Italy, is co-producing some effects in terms of migration. Because we are aware that it's not only mainly a matter of direct relationship between climate change and migration, internal migration. But it's more a matter of, to what extent climate change would represent a co-inducing factor together with other factors.
We already were investigating in recent years. So this is mainly the idea of conducting research on the propensity of people to move, or the effective movement of people from metropolitan areas to the mountain. So the region or area you were talking about is the Padana-Mentane region. And there you analyze the geographic, environmental and climatic conditions.
So not only climate change factors, but to what extent this also has an effect of course, in the lowland areas of Lombardi and Piedmont. What did you find out? What are realistic future scenarios for this region when, I mean, there are living millions of people. It's one of the most densely populated areas in Italy.
This would have a huge effect, I guess. Yes, definitely. Let's consider first of all that we have been investigating since 15 years, or even 20 years, a new reversal trend, new movement of people from metropolitan areas to the mountains, to the Alps in particular from Italy, but not only from Italy. There is a new wave of the so-called new highlanders, we call them the Mwavi Montanari in Italian.
So we already know that there is this movement. But in quantitative term, it's not so relevant. It's important, it's a trend, but it's not massive. What we were investigating with the Mckinney Project, with our transdisciplinary approach, is that the different factors that can have an impact on the quality of life of people in metropolitan areas.
So for sure, you have a solution, for example, that was already existing before we were demonetizing climate change. But climate change indeed is making it worsening. So heat waves, we are aware of how heat waves are going to have a strong impact on the quality of life of people. Already now, they are having an impact in Milan, in Venice, and they will have in the next future in terms of the even the possibility of having a well-being, a good health for people, new disease arising from this situation.
And consider that from our projections, based on climatic data, in the very next future, in the next 10, 15 years, for up to five months a year, we'd be very, very difficult to live in metropolitan areas in Padanapeline. And so we will have this push. Of course, again, this is part of a wider phenomenon, because there is already a new claim for a different lifestyle. So lifestyle migration, new values, green values, sustainability, youngsters that would like to live in the metropolitan areas, opening new activities.
But now climate change is something that is universally refocusing people on opportunities, but also risks related to this movement. But as you mentioned, for many years, it used to be the other way around. People moved away from the countryside, from the spontaneous areas, to the cities where the jobs are, the schools are, and so on. So is there already a turnaround, like more people moving into the mountains in this area than the other way around?
Or how strong is this effect? It's a scattered phenomenon in the end, because you have already and still several localities. For example, in extreme eastern Italian Alps, there are losing and losing people. And there is the aging of the population.
The aging of the population is more or less transversal, you know, in all the Italian ark, but not only on the Italian side. So aging of the population, losing population in several villages, these are phenomenon already lasting. But at the same time, we have these reversal trends, and they are more in the direction of specific points, let's say, on this map of the Alps. And we know that when you have, first of all, the connection internet, when you have the opportunity of some mobility, but not in terms of multiple ways, in terms of it's enough to have some kind of accessibility, you are not too far from a metropolitan area in terms of driving your own car, because there is a lot of private, even private mobility.
We are witnessing these reversal trends. So we still have different movements. There are a significant movement of people from rural and mountainous areas towards not the core of the metropolitan areas, but more the fringe of the metropolitan area. And you have this reversal trend in absolute figures.
Let's say it is still a limited number of people. Consider that from a millen or three in each year, you have about the 3% of the population that are canceling their official residences from the town, from the metropolitan town and moving elsewhere. So it's not a huge number of people, but it's when you consider in absolute terms and figures, these are thousands and thousands of people. Part of them are moving to the mountains.
In the case of Milan, for example, are several thousands of people each year moving to a tiny municipalities and to some extent also to the up and ice. So when you consider in a village arriving just three families and 10 people, you know that if the village has just 200 inhabitants, this means a lot. So this is the trend. Of course, if time change is going to produce a stronger impact as we suppose on the basis of the data we collected, from these small numbers, we are going to move to very, very higher numbers and figures of people.
When we talk about new inhabitants of the mountains in this case, we always relate on official statistics that are based on official residents of the people. So if you take the residence, your main residence in a village, for example, but we know in particular after the COVID-19 pandemic peak 2020 that we have significant numbers of people that are moving to the Alps for several months per year, but they are not taking official residence there. They still are residents in Milan or in Munich or even in Paris, but they live part of the year in the mountains and they are inhabitants of the mountains. And for these people in particular, climate change is becoming something very relevant.
When I think about these people, it seems to be persons who can afford a second home somewhere in the mountains. So it's not the ones that are maybe suffering the most because they are living in the most in the hottest areas of cities. And still people who can afford a second home somewhere else are maybe inherited in the family. Yeah, definitely.
This is one of the products of globalization because when you consider international migration, often people with much more resources moving from the original place to another place. In the same case, we are witnessing this opportunity for people that, for example, do have second homes as you were saying, or are with resources in Africa to rent for several months per year through any kind of web platform or directly these facilities. At the same time, many people suffering from climate change impact are not in the conditions of affording to move to the mountains. And recently, within the project, I had conducted an in-depth qualitative investigation on one very relevant ski resort in the Alpa.
And it is clear how many people are considering now having their second homes there, not to go there only for skiing, also because now it becomes quite difficult to ski during the winter, as you know. But they are considering to stay there for longer periods in order to avoid heat waves, even in the bottom of the valleys in Switzerland or in Italy or in France. But of course, they have money to do this. And when you are talking about elderly people in Milan, in Turin, or heats from working class people, they do not have this opportunity.
So it's also a matter of social justice when we talk about climate change impact in the mountains. But also there, if you move to the mountains, climate change will still cause problems for these future inhabitants or temporary inhabitants. What kind of problems are we talking about here? Yeah, because of course, mountains are fragile.
To me, respect that you are even more fragile than urban areas as we are. So you have hydrologic risk, for example. You have the impact of extreme events. You have drugs, even in the mountains.
The scarcity of water in the past three or four summers was really dramatic. And you have other risks or factors that are not having a very good impact on your point of life. For example, you could experiment social isolation, or you may have these problems in terms of connectivity, mobility, access to welfare services. So all these issues are quite clear.
And to some extent, there was a simplification in the narrative, let's say in the media, for example, in the past three or four years, it was an easy solution, move to the mountains, and you will have a better life. At the same time, as we are discussing now, first of all, you need to have economic resources. If you do not live in a state or in a region helping you to move to the mountains, supporting your choice. If there is no policy, you need to mobilize your private resources.
And it's not the fact that everyone has these resources. And then you need to face the challenge of living the mountains, because if you will leave heatwaves, you will leave pollution for sure. You will have a very, very better environment. But at the same time, how to face these challenges?
Again, if there are no policies in supporting you, then this is the problem, the real problem. When we talk about the demography of the arts, the new trends, movement of people that we do need policies in terms of demography, migration and climate change together. Was this one of the main reasons for this project to move these policies forward, to make politics aware that they have to do something here? Yeah, sure.
Consider that this project was put in place by the network of the European Climate Pact Ambassadors, the Italian branch of this network. The idea is and was to strengthen to some extent the action, even of the European Commission and the civil society engagement through the collection of these data, the dissemination. Now we are preparing a book, a report and whatever. And so stimulating the elaboration of policies, keeping together again demography, climate change and migration in order to make science intervening in society to some extent, keeping together the two aspects.
Now I would also like to ask you a little bit about the result of this project and also an online survey that you made with people living in the urban areas. You asked them about limitations and opportunities of moving into mountain areas in a nutshell, what were the results of this survey? We conducted a big survey because it was conducted in the main metropolitan areas of all the pardana plains, so from Turin to Bologna to Venice, Treviso and Padua and whatever. So more than 2,000 people were interviewed with a statistical representative sample.
So it's quite good relevance of this data and reliability of this data. And first of all, we were investigating how much the respondents are worried about the impact of climate change, not at the global level, but in their town on their quality of life, everyday life. And they are really very worried, more than two thirds of the sample are really worried about the concrete and future impact in few months and few years of climate change. And consider that the survey was conducted in May this year.
So before this very hot summer, imagine if we were conducting the survey in September now. So, people are worried for them, for their families, for their kids, for the quality of life of their elderly people. At the same time, a majority of their interview is considered mountains as a possible solution for at least several months period. Three, four, five months.
There is a focus on this opportunity more and attention more from the male component of the population and the youngsters. So we have also differences within this sample, we are analyzing them in the report. But in any case, it's transversal, the idea that mountains represent an opportunity, also because they are very close in terms of kilometers at least from Milan to Rien and Venice, Padua in 3050 kilometers, you are reaching the mountains. At the same time, people are aware that mountains are fragile.
There is this awareness. Of course, in Italy, we had very extreme events, in particular, in the last months, even before this survey, for example, in the upper 9s, in a million mania, with people dying with the floats. So they were also asking some kind of support and training. So there is an interest for moving to the mountains at least for several months period, but people would like to have some kind of guidance.
How can I move to the mountains? What does it mean? Because I used to live in a metropolitan context. So how can I face these challenges, some kind of trainings?
And also, they are aware of the lack of policies, to some extent, connecting the mountains and the plain, in this case, in the metropolitan areas. For this reason, we call this space the metromontan space, because already there are linkages, of course, between connecting the metromontan areas and the mountains. But we are convinced that there is the need to strengthen these linkages and creating this metromontan space in order to circulate people in order to make it possible multi-local dwelling. This is a circular migration, seasonal migration, internal seasonal migration.
It's an opportunity also for, and mainly for local economies in the mountains, not only tourists, but these calls for policies at a wider level. And we need these kind of policies. So it's about temporary moving to the mountains, maybe in the hottest months of the summer, and then the other way around, again, in the colder months, people are coming back to the cities. I mean, something that we experienced these days already.
Considering all these findings, if you think about it from a person of the U, do you also move yourself to the mountains sometimes for longer time? Do you have a second home there? Yeah, I did the same as my interviewees. I am a moving to the mountains quite often.
I have a small second home in Nao-Stavale. So I am commuting some time. I am using it for smart working during the summer. And last summer, it was really different.
Working and living there at 1,500 meters of altitude instead of staying close to the land where I live usually. So it's an opportunity for the quality of life of everyone of us. You need resources to do this. There are no public policies helping people to have not mainly a second home, but even some kind of facility.
So accessing this for a few weeks a year is not part of the welfare state and welfare services at all. Okay, but you say it should be. A possibility for everyone, for example, elderly people or others who can't afford it otherwise. Definitely.
Also in the reporter, we were writing some policy recommendations. And yeah, if climate change is impacting on the quality of life of everyone, in particular, fragile people, the state, the public policies should take into the right consideration. These needs, because it's not only a matter of, as it was, I mean, it's immigration, lifetime migration, your values, my values. Now, it's a matter of even the possibility to survive, to some extent.
If you are in a fragile condition, this means that if you do not move yourself, you are obliged to live within a room with air conditions for four months a year. And then eventually you will not survive in the case because the situation, the artificial condition where you live is not the best for your health. So, yes, this is part of a discourse on social justice. But let me add that in the end, it's the same when we talk about international migration.
So we talk about the need of the people moving from a place to another place. Of course, if my village is going under the sea level, the situation is much worse than in Milan with the pollution and the heat waves. But the general framework is the same. We are in the same critical condition with respect to the climate change impact.
And so everyone should have the right to move, and the states, and the regions, and the local authorities should put in place policies in order to consider these rights, and not only leaving to the people that can afford it to move and to live elsewhere. You just heard an interview with Andrea M. Grady. He coordinated the Miklimi project on climate-induced migration and mobility in northern Italy, which was completed in 2023.
If you want to learn more about this, please check the link in our show notes of this podcast episode. Thank you for listening. My name is Michel Gams, and I'm looking forward to the next episode of Audible Ops. Let's see our podcast.