The Geography of Climate Migration

This paper investigates the long-term effects of climate change on the size, skill composition and geography of labor migration. Our world economy model distinguishes between many spatial units and fully endogenizes the dyadic structure of migration. The model is calibrated to match international and internal mobility data by education level from the last 30 years, and is then simulated under climate change variants. Depending on the climate scenario, we predict mobility responses in the range of 100 to 230 million adult people over the course of the 21st century.
Most of these movements are local or inter-regional. South-South international migration responses are negligible, while the South-North migration response is of the ”brain drain” type and induces a permanent increase in the stock of foreigners in the OECD countries in the range of 5 to 10% only. Changes in the sea level mainly translate into local movements. On the contrary, inter-regional and international movements are sensitive to temperature-related changes in productivity. We finally
show that relaxing international migration restrictions may exacerbate the poverty effect of climate change if policymakers are unable to select/screen individuals in extreme poverty.