Climate-induced Migration

Analyzing Causes and Impacts of Climate-induced Migration in the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands

The project has now produced four reports (a Summary for Policymakers, full Case Study Report, and two briefs on COFA and Marshallese Perspectives on Migration), along with an updated website (maps forthcoming). Several other publications have since resulted from the project, including an article in the Journal of Disaster Research: The Ongoingness of Migration: Marshallese Well-Being in the United States (Wheeler, Fitzpatrick and van der Geest 2022); a blog post in the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) Vibrant Environment Blog: Marshallese Migration: Considering Environmental, Legal, and Moral Connectivities (Wheeler 2022); and a brief on the U.S.-based policy landscape for the Marshallese: Negotiating Their Future: A Marshallese Geography of U.S. Policy (Wheeler 2023), which does not engage climate directly, but does speak to health and well-being concerns that formed the U.S.-based analysis of the original project.

In partnership with the University of Hawai‘i, the Pacific RISA is investigating climate-induced migration in the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI) and its potential impact on Hawai‘i. This project identifies and employs pioneering social science methods and mapping techniques to more accurately link migration to climate change and climate variability-related events.

The current estimated population of the RMI is 53,167 (United Nations Population Division, 2018). More than half the population of the Marshall Islands currently lives on Majuro – a marked departure from half a century ago, when slightly less than a quarter did. The 2011 RMI census shows that population growth slowed to an annual rate of 0.4 percent in the 1999–2011 intercensal period, and the outer islands’ populations, apart from three, have all decreased since 1999. The increasing dominance of urban centers within the RMI is important as both an indicator of internal migration and a primary place of departure, including to the United States (U.S.). The number of Marshallese currently residing in the U.S. is roughly 30,000, and has risen rapidly over the past two decades. Overall, the population has increased four-fold between 2000 and 2010, and has sustained continued growth in the 2010s.

There is scientific consensus that global air and water temperatures will increase, sea levels will rise due to thermal expansion and glacier melting, oceans will absorb more carbon dioxide causing acidification (IPCC AR5, 2014), and extreme weather events are expected to become more intense (IPCC, 2012).

Climate change also has the potential to reduce the level of ecosystem services by causing environmental degradation, especially in atoll environments (Staudinger et al., 2012; Stege, 2018). Persistent climatic shocks and El Niño events are already affecting livelihoods in the RMI. Rising sea levels mean that the RMI’s coastal areas are increasingly vulnerable to flooding, wave inundation, erosion from storms, shifts in precipitation and resulting drought, surface temperature increases, hurricanes, and tsunamis, as well as the associated impacts on freshwater supply and habitable land (Keener at al., 2012; Marra et al., 2017). Going forward, the Marshall Islands will see increased temperatures, increased heat stress days, and decreased annual rainfall.

This study aims to clarify the extent to which Marshallese people are already migrating because of climate change, and the role affected ecosystem services play in their migration decisions. The research also aims to better understand the effects of this migration on migrants themselves, among communities in the RMI (in the capital of Majuro, and on Mejit and Maleolap), and in destination states (Hawai‘i, Oregon, and Washington).

Finally, the research provides an analysis of shared views found within Marshallese perceptions on these subjects, which allows for a more fulsome assessment of the current state of well-being for Marshallese migrants, contributes to a more informed discussion regarding whether migration is a successful adaptation strategy, and provides context for assessing which legal, economic, and social services the Marshallese may need and desire in coming years.

The Marshall Islands Climate and Migration Project (MICMP) asked three primary research questions:

1. To what extent are climate-related stressors—and their impacts on ecosystems, livelihoods, and habitability—driving migration in the Marshall Islands and from the Marshall Islands to the U.S.?
2. What are the impacts of migration on migrants themselves and their home communities?
3. Which shared views on climate change, environment, migration, and future habitability exist within the study population?

Respondents in the RMI perceive that the main drivers of migration in and from the RMI are related to education, health care, work, and family networks. Very few respondents in the RMI cite climate impacts or environmental change as drivers of migration. This was the case for past migrations (of the respondents), current migrations (of siblings and children), and future migrations (of household members). In the U.S., a higher proportion of respondents stated that environmental problems and sea-level rise had influenced their decision to migrate to the U.S.

Decision-makers at local and state levels in both the RMI and the U.S. require better information on the factors contributing to current migration in order to anticipate possible future impacts of the changing climate on human migration, and to act appropriately in regard to policy and service provision. The findings in this report provide a mixed-methods, multi-site analysis of the ways in which migration impacts livelihoods and well-being in the places in which migrants arrive and settle, as well as the rationales informing migration that has already occurred and is yet to come.

The next stage of the Marshall Islands Climate and Migration Project (MICMP) leverages the legal research being done within the Pacific Research and Integrated Science Association (Pacific RISA) program to support the critical quantitative and qualitative social science research on which optimal policy framework analysis relies.

Lead Researcher

Maxine Burkett, Associate Professor of Law, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

Team Members

Juno Fitzpatrick, Hawaiʻi Project Manager,  Environmental Law Program, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai’i Manoa

Kees van der Geest, Post-Doctoral Social Science Researcher, Environmental Law Program, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai’i

Mark Stege, Environmental Law Fellow, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai’i

Brittany Lauren Wheeler, PhD Candidate, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University

References

U.S. Census Bureau. (2012.) The Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Population: 2010. (U.S. Census Brief No. C2010BR-12.) Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Census Bureau.

Blair, C. (2015, October 21). Health Care: Migration is Often a Matter of Survival. Civil Beat. Retrieved December 22, 2015, from http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/10/health-care-migration-is-often-a-matter-of-survival/

Donna Davis (2014), Modeling Scenarios of Sea-level Rise and Human Migration: Rita Village, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, University of Arkansas.

Letman, J. “Micronesians in Hawai‘i face uncertain future. Al Jazeera America,” 2013. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/10/micronesians-Hawai‘i-face-uncertain-future-201310191535637288.html

Piguet, E. (2011). The migration/climate change nexus: an assessment. Rethinking migration: climate, resource conflicts, and migration in Europe. Retrieved from http://migration-history.org/rethinking-migration-2011/2/papers/Piguet.pdf.

Thomas, A. (2014). Protecting people displaced by weather-related disasters and climate change: experience from the field. Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, 15: 803-808. Retrieved from http://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/files/2014/06/Thomas_forprint.pdf.

Warner, K, Afifi, T, Henry, K, Rawe, T, Smith, C, and de Sherbinin, A. (2012). Where the rain falls: climate change, food and livelihood security, and migration. CARE and UNU-EHS. Retrieved from http://wheretherainfalls.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2755WTRF_report_lowres.pdf.