Climate, conflict and forced migration

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Abel, Guy J., Brottrager, Michael, Crespo Cuaresma, Jesus and Muttarak, Raya (2019) Climate, conflict and forced migration. Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions, 54. pp. 239-249. ISSN 0959-3780

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Abstract

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.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	asylum seeker,climate change,conflict,endogenous selection,forced migration,gravity model,refugee,simultaneous equations,spei,global and planetary change,geography, planning and development,ecology,management, monitoring, policy and law,sdg 13 - climate action,sdg 16 - peace, justice and strong institutions ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2306
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	30 Jan 2019 11:30
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2024 13:53
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/69732
DOI:	10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.12.003

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