The world could see up to
1 BILLION climate migrants
In October 2014, the US Department of Defense declared that climate change “poses immediate risks to US national security” and “will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict (among other impacts).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that extreme weather and other climate-related hazards pose a threat to global food stocks and human security.
The migration of South Americans toward the United States caused a great deal of concern in this country.
(2014) Climate change poses “immediate risks” to national security and will have broad and costly impacts on the way the U.S. military carries out its missions, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says. In a statement, Hagel called global warming a “threat multiplier,” saying rising seas and increasing numbers of severe weather events could exacerbate the dangers posed by threats ranging from infectious disease to terrorism. Hagel was in Peru on Monday for the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas, where he planned to discuss a Defense Department report titled “2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap.”
By 2050, unmitigated climate change has the potential to push more than 140 million people – or almost three percent of the global population – from just three regions of the world to move from their homes, exacerbating an already growing migration crisis.
These mass migrations anticipated in Sub-Saharan African, Latin America, and South Asia could intensify and affect other drivers of conflict.
“…the scope and scale of human migration due to climate change will test the limits of national and global governance as well as international cooperation.” — Brookings Blum Roundtable on Global Poverty
Between 2010 and 2011, adverse weather wiped out crops worldwide – Canada, the US, China, Australia, Russia, and Ukraine were among the countries hit with a variety of climate disasters, ranging from extreme rainfall to droughts and fires.
Additional reading:
National Public Radio, “How Could A Drought Spark A Civil War?,” September 8, 2013.
The UNESCO Courier, “Climate changes raises conflict concerns,” February 2018.