In 2015, alone, climate-related disasters displaced 14.7 million people, a new report from CARE Denmark shows. Unless governments take strong preventive action and invest in adaptation, climate change-related phenomena could push the total number of permanently displaced as high as 250 million people, between now and 2050. The report from CARE Danmark is based on the recent research of the linkages between climate change and migration.

The report outlines three scenarios for how different levels of temperature increase due to climate change will affect human migration and displacement.

The World Economic Forum has earlier pointed out, in its Global Risks Report 2016, the interconnected risks of failed climate adaptation and involuntary migration.

The “Fleeing Climate Change” report further substantiates how successful and continued adaptation is key to avoiding the human cost of migration. The report also finds that the number of people displaced from their homes due to the amplifying effects of climate change is on a stark rise and will continue to do so for decades to come.
Desertification
Increasing droughts, changing rainfall, more extreme weather events and higher temperatures are drivers of desertification (World Bank 2014). Land classified as dry has more than doubled from 10-14 percent in 1950 to 1980, to 34 percent today. Yet, this 34 percent of land is a major source of food security. More than 1.5 billion people in the world depend on degrading land, and 74 percent of them are poor. Desertification and drought causes 12 million hectares of productive land to become barren every year, which is a lost opportunity to produce 20 million tons of grain.12 It is difficult to see how the world will meet food demand from a growing population if productive land continues to decline. Once productive lands turn marginal, or become deserts, people will have no choice but to “fight or flight” (UNCCD 2014a).
Desertification causes loss of vegetation cover, soil erosion, dust storms, salinization, and a decrease in soil productivity, all of which contribute to a downward spiral that leads to a decrease in agricultural yields, loss of biodiversity, poverty, reduced human wellbeing, and migration (World Bank 2014).

Conflict and violence triggered by climate change
Key messages
• Conflict over increasingly scarce resources and displaced people creates tensions, which can exacerbate violence;
• There is an overlap between areas that have suffered droughts and desertification and conflict in the last decade. It is estimated that a 5 percent change in rainfall in Sub-Saharan Africa increased the likelihood of conflict in the following year by 50 percent;
• Over a 60-year period, 40 percent of intrastate conflicts are associated with land and natural resources.