Millions will be 'trapped' in areas facing environmental change

Major challenges associated with migration and environmental change 'have been underestimated', according to a major new report. The report by Foresight is based on advice from a six-strong team of experts, including Professor David Thomas and Professor Stefan Dercon from Oxford University. The 'Migration and Global Environmental Change' project is published by the Foresight project (for the Government Office for Science). It concludes that by focusing solely on those that might leave vulnerable areas, we risk neglecting those that will be 'trapped' and those that will actually move towards danger. It also shows that migration can have a transformative role in helping communities adapt to hazardous conditions, which it describes as a 'critical finding for policy makers' working to avert costly humanitarian disasters in the future. The report examines how profound changes in environmental conditions such as flooding, drought and rising sea levels will influence and interact with patterns of global human migration over the next 50 years. These patterns of human movement, 75 per cent of which are internal, will present major challenges as well as potential opportunities for communities and policy makers at both a national and international level.