Cities in Global South must prepare for climate migrants

By 2050, millions of people will seek refuge from the effects of climate change in crowded cities. What can we do to prepare?

Vittoria Zanuso is the executive director of the Mayors Migration Council, a mayor-led coalition that accelerates ambitious global action on migration and displacement. Mark Watts is the executive director of C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a global network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities that are united in action to confront the climate crisis. Vittoria and Mark are both members of the Climate Migration Council.

Eight million people on the move, all heading to just 10 major cities in the Global South to escape rising seas, extreme weather and failing agriculture. That’s the scenario outlined in a new report, released last week, if the climate crisis is allowed to continue.

If the world fails to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement targets of keeping global warming under 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, cities like Amman in Jordan, Bogotá in Colombia, and Freetown in Sierra Leone, which are already experiencing rapid population growth, will be the destination for tens or even hundreds of thousands of climate migrants.

Already today, 70% of the world’s displaced population lives in urban areas, and one in five international migrants resides in just 20 cities. With the World Bank projecting over 200 million people displaced by climate change by 2050, this trend is only going to increase.

Source: ECEEE