80: Rethinking Climate Migration: Agency and Adaptability

The climate crisis is driving more and more people around the world to leave their homes and communities, often permanently. This isn’t an issue for the distant future: 26.4 million displacements related to natural disasters and slow-onset events like drought and sea-level rise were recorded around the world in 2023 alone. Julia Blocher, a project lead at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a visiting scholar at the Baker Institute this spring, joined the “Baker Briefing” podcast to discuss the phenomenon of climate migration around the world and in the United States. Together, Blocher and David M. Satterfield explore the relationship between climate change and migration, the disproportionate impacts for disadvantaged people and marginalized groups, and why it’s important to understand migration as a possible adaptation to the climate crisis. This conversation was recorded on Feb. 18, 2025.