The following is Briefer No. 24 from the Center for Climate and Security

By Sandra Fatorić, Ph.D., Research Fellow

The U.S. Department of Defense’s recently-released Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap states: “As climate change affects the availability of food and water, human migration, and competition for natural resources, the Department’s unique capability to provide logistical, material, and security assistance on a massive scale or in rapid fashion may be called upon with increasing frequency.”^[i] Within this document, “human migration” is not a throwaway line. There are real concerns across governments, including those institutions normally focused on more traditional security risks, that climate change is, and will have, a marked effect on human migration. This article posits that the developed – not just the developing – world may need to seriously consider migration as a potentially viable adaptation option to climate change. (more…)