When Climate Forces People to Move: Migration in the Global South

Kordofan Lark

17-09-2025

Kingfisher is unsure if he is too worried, but every time he counts the fish in the pond, the number of fish seems to decrease. The hot and stressful weather also makes his feathers molt and grow slower. The situation seems life-threatening!

In “GHG Emissions”; Wild Wise Weird [1]

© Wix AI

Climate change is no longer a distant threat—it is already reshaping where and how people live. A major new review in npj Climate Action shows that by 2050, climate stressors could displace around 143 million people across the Global South, with consequences reaching far beyond borders [2].

The study systematically examined how three climate stressors—rising temperatures, water stress and drought, and floods and sea-level rise—are driving migration and displacement. Across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific, the evidence is stark. In South Asia, for example, deadly floods and rising seas are destroying homes and farmland, threatening nearly 800 million people with deteriorating living conditions [2]. In the Sahel, shrinking water resources like Lake Chad over the past five decades have forced people in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon toward urban centers [3]. The Pacific Islands face the prospect of entire communities relocating as rising seas submerge ancestral lands [4].

Migration is not only about sudden disasters. Slow-onset stressors such as drought and temperature rise steadily erode livelihoods, forcing people to leave in search of survival. In northeastern Brazil, prolonged drought has cut agricultural output by nearly 80%, pushing rural households southward. Yet, not everyone can move: poverty, gender, and social barriers trap many in unsafe areas, highlighting inequalities in adaptive capacity [2].

The study stresses that migration is shaped by more than climate alone. Institutional gaps, poor governance, and lack of international support amplify risks. Without adequate planning, climate migration could worsen humanitarian crises and strain security systems [5]. Conversely, well-managed migration can serve as a form of adaptation, offering communities pathways to safety and resilience.

Ecological breakdown directly determines human survival, while human choices—such as fossil fuel use and land management—drive ecological risk. Cultivating Nature Quotient (NQ) among society will help people recognize these interdependencies and understand that protecting people from climate displacement is inseparable from protecting the ecosystems that sustain them [6]. In a society of high-NQ people, the migration policies will be humane, forward-looking, and grounded in ecological reality [7].

References

[1] Vuong QH. (2024). Wild Wise Weird. https://books.google.com/books?id=N10jEQAAQBAJ

[2] Almulhim AI, et al. (2024). Climate-induced migration in the Global South: an in depth analysis. npj Climate Action, 3, 47. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-024-00133-1

[3] Giannini A. (2015). Climate change comes to the Sahel. Nature Climate Change, 5, 720-721. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2739

[4] McNamara K, Westoby R, Chandra A. (2021). Exploring climate-driven non-economic loss and damage in the Pacific islands. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 50, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.07.004

[5] IPCC. (2023). AR6 synthesis report climate change. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

[6] Vuong QH, Nguyen MH. (2025). On Nature Quotient. Pacific Conservation Biology, 31, PC25028. https://doi.org/10.1071/PC25028 

[7] Nguyen MH. (2024). How can satirical fables offer us a vision for sustainability? Visions for Sustainability, 23(11267), 323-328. https://doi.org/10.13135/2384-8677/11267