TY - JOUR
T1 - Climate, conflict and forced migration
AU - Abel, Guy J.
AU - Brottrager, Michael
AU - Crespo Cuaresma, Jesus
AU - Muttarak, Raya
PY - 2019/1/21
Y1 - 2019/1/21
N2 - Despite the lack of robust empirical evidence, a growing number of media reports attempt to link climate change to the ongoing violent conflicts in Syria and other parts of the world, as well as to the migration crisis in Europe. Exploiting bilateral data on asylum seeking applications for 157 countries over the period 2006–2015, we assess the determinants of refugee flows using a gravity model which accounts for endogenous selection in order to examine the causal link between climate, conflict and forced migration. Our results indicate that climatic conditions, by affecting drought severity and the likelihood of armed conflict, played a significant role as an explanatory factor for asylum seeking in the period 2011–2015. The effect of climate on conflict occurrence is particularly relevant for countries in Western Asia in the period 2010–2012 during when many countries were undergoing political transformation. This finding suggests that the impact of climate on conflict and asylum seeking flows is limited to specific time period and contexts.
AB - Despite the lack of robust empirical evidence, a growing number of media reports attempt to link climate change to the ongoing violent conflicts in Syria and other parts of the world, as well as to the migration crisis in Europe. Exploiting bilateral data on asylum seeking applications for 157 countries over the period 2006–2015, we assess the determinants of refugee flows using a gravity model which accounts for endogenous selection in order to examine the causal link between climate, conflict and forced migration. Our results indicate that climatic conditions, by affecting drought severity and the likelihood of armed conflict, played a significant role as an explanatory factor for asylum seeking in the period 2011–2015. The effect of climate on conflict occurrence is particularly relevant for countries in Western Asia in the period 2010–2012 during when many countries were undergoing political transformation. This finding suggests that the impact of climate on conflict and asylum seeking flows is limited to specific time period and contexts.
KW - Asylum seeker
KW - Climate change
KW - Conflict
KW - Endogenous selection
KW - Forced migration
KW - Gravity model
KW - Refugee
KW - Simultaneous equations
KW - SPEI
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060244228&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.12.003
DO - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.12.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85060244228
SN - 0959-3780
VL - 54
SP - 239
EP - 249
JO - Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions
JF - Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions
ER -