Thousands of people from Central America traveled through Mexico bound for the United States while world leaders met at COP26. Forced migration from Central America is driven by violence, corruption, lack of opportunity, and—increasingly—climate change. The concurrence of this migration event with COP26 underlines the growing reality that climate change will drive migration.

The World Bank estimates that more than 200 million people could migrate due to climate change by 2050, with most movement occurring within countries. Central America demonstrates limits to this internal migration hypothesis, highlighting conditions under which external migration occurs in response to climate impacts. Better understanding these realities and the relationship between foreign aid and migration can help shape funding for climate adaptation to decrease the need to migrate. Climate migration is not unique to Central America; lessons from the region can inform broader debates and policy responses.

Climate finance from rich nations to low- and middle-income countries, and particularly funding for climate adaptation, has been a contentious topic. The reluctance of donor states to allocate additional funding for climate adaptation seems counterintuitive: States are averse to high levels of migration but unwilling to spend sufficient money on alternative adaptation strategies.

The lack of enthusiasm to employ climate finance to ease migration pressures may stem in part from misunderstanding the relationship between migration and changing levels of income. Scholars find robust evidence of an “emigration life cycle,” where emigration from lower-income countries initially rises as average income increases (making migration more affordable) and falls after average income reaches a certain level (making migration less desirable). The situation is depicted in Figure 1.

This relationship has led to the conclusion that for many countries in the low- and middle-income range, foreign aid will increase migration if it spurs development. Following this logic, climate finance could promote migration rather than create alternative adaptation options.

Read the full article about KEYWORD by [u'Future Development', u'Sarah Bermeo'] at Brookings