Charting a Smart Agenda for Managing Climate Migration

A growing body of evidence links climate events such as sea-level rise or droughts to migration—both within and across borders. As climate change amplifies the risks and severity of disasters, policymakers should better understand their options for managing how environmental change interacts with mobility. Held ahead of the COP29 United Nations Climate Change Conference, this webinar offered concrete examples of how governments across the globe can respond to the nexus of climate change and migration. Speakers discussed priorities on climate migration across a range of policy areas, from labor migration and entrepreneurship, to climate adaptation planning, to humanitarian and development cooperation.  The discussion drew on a newly released series of MPI policy briefs that chart an agenda for policymakers to manage climate mobility. The briefs tackle questions such as how can governments, international organizations, and philanthropists work most effectively with local communities to design and implement programs to manage climate migration? How can immigrant workers fill jobs and promote innovation and growth in the green economy? What policy and legal tools are available for people displaced across borders by disasters and climate change? And what are the cues that will shape how receiving communities react to the arrival of climate migrants?