Could a Super El Niño Displace Millions from Their Homes?

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CHAPTERS

01:38 El Niño's Global Weather Impacts

03:22 Displacement Forecasts for East Africa

09:31 Climate Stress, Conflict, and Trapped Populations

14:33 Anticipatory Action, Cost-Efficiency, and Funding Cuts

[00:00:02.980] - Julian Hattem

Every few years, the world confronts El Niño. The climate phenomenon is a naturally occurring variation in the patterns and strength of wind across the Pacific Ocean and the temperature of the water. Those fluctuations can affect weather patterns worldwide. Depending on where you live, the precise impacts can vary dramatically. El Niño can lead to more rain in some places and less in others. In certain conditions when El Niño is particularly strong, its impacts can be devastating and force people from their homes. This is Changing Climate, Changing Migration. From the Migration Policy Institute, this podcast explores the connections between the climate and human migration. I am Julian Hattem. I am the host of this podcast and the senior editor of MPI's digital magazine called the Migration Information Source. In 2026, the impacts of El Niño could be particularly intense. Climatologists have said that this year's cycle, which will probably peak around the end of the year and in early 2027, could be exceptional and, quote, a super El Niño or a Godzilla El Niño. That could mean heat waves, floods, extreme weather, and more. I'm curious what this could mean for displacement and migration, so I'm talking today with Alexander Kjærum

[00:01:23.570] - Julian Hattem

Alexander is a global advisor and senior analyst at the Danish Refugee Council, where he focuses on predictive modeling and forecasting of forced displacement. Alexander, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on today.

[00:01:35.930] - Alexander Kjærum

Oh, thanks a lot for having me.

[00:01:38.030] - Julian Hattem

So at a very basic level, what sort of weather effects does El Niño have in places around the world? And why might those repercussions be particularly impactful this year?

[00:01:49.020] - Alexander Kjærum

Yeah, so I mean, El Niño is, so you could say, a natural warming of the Pacific Ocean, and it occurs sort of every 3, 4, 5 years. So it is a natural cycle that we are looking into. But of course, as you mentioned, this year scientists are saying that it's likely to break sort of all historical records. It's going to be a super El Niño or Godzilla El Niño. And basically, I'll spare you the mechanisms, but it basically sort of scrambles the global weather system. So it's not like because it's happening in the Pacific that the impacts are confined to the Pacific Oceans and the countries in that region. It really has sort of a global effect. But those effects will be very different from region to region. So as an example, in Southeast Asia, you know, places like Afghanistan, but also Central America, And in Southern Africa, we are likely looking into more like extreme heat, drought conditions, and so on. While in, for example, the Horn of Africa, what we are expecting is sort of very severe rainfall that will cause potential flooding in many of the countries. So it is very different, the impacts from region to region.

[00:03:05.820] - Alexander Kjærum

I would say what is sort of then the commonality is, of course, that where those impacts will be most felt are in the countries that are poor and fragile and therefore also least able to cope with these extreme weather conditions.

[00:03:21.760] - Julian Hattem

And so I guess what does that mean then for, you know, human mobility and displacement? What kind of impacts are we talking about? The Danish Refugee Council, where you work, recently published a report focusing on East Africa predicting that in a worst-case scenario, as many as 3 million people could be forced to flee their homes. Because of El Niño-related extreme rains and flooding in that region. As you note, East Africa is far away from the Pacific, but how did you arrive at that number and what might that displacement look like?

[00:03:50.730] - Alexander Kjærum

Yeah, so I mean, I think, you know, one of the clear visible impacts of these extreme weather and these type of events is of course forced displacement that's very visible to see. And so When we saw the early seasonal forecast and these sort of initial predictions of a Super El Niño, we of course took that and said, okay, how is that going to potentially impact in the countries where we work? I mean, we work with displacement-affected communities in many countries around the world. We focused initially on the Horn of Africa, in particular on Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya, and Somalia to see, you know, Basically analyzing how have historical El Niño linked with displacement in these contexts. And then given the current outlook of El Niño for this season, what are the displacement scenarios we are looking into? As you mentioned, what we are seeing is somewhere between, in sort of a very mild scenario, around 800,000 people becoming displaced across those 4 countries alone. But in a more worst-case scenario, we are potentially looking at 3 million people displaced, and that's due to floods alone. And now again, there can be other impacts we'll discuss probably later, but that's sort of what we're looking at at the moment for East Africa alone.

[00:05:12.280] - Julian Hattem

Can we expand that globally a bit? I mean, I know that the UN's International Organization for Migration, the IOM, earlier this year appealed for funding to support like 4.9 million people whom it predicts might be affected by El Niño worldwide. Of that, about 1.5 million of them were in Eastern and Southern Africa, plus a million each in the Asia-Pacific region and the Western Hemisphere and some elsewhere. I guess, generally speaking, regardless of the region, who is likely to be most impacted and why?

[00:05:44.030] - Alexander Kjærum

Yeah, I mean, from our perspective, of course, also being a displacement-focused agency, typically just as is it as it is with countries, it's the most vulnerable, those least able to cope, that would be most impacted. It's the same with population groups, right? So it's the most vulnerable population groups within those countries that are likely to be affected the most. And of course, among those, displaced people are often the most vulnerable, among the most vulnerable in the countries. So that could be, of course, internally displaced people or refugees. So, I mean, again, imagine you are, you're living as an, as an IDP in, in Somalia or Afghanistan for that matter. You know, you, you probably have a shelter that's made up of sticks and a few, you know, plastic sheets. Your settlement is probably sort of on the side of the river, on the riverbank, because that's the only place where there was, it was possible to, to host the displaced people, right? And so a flood is coming, but you probably don't have access to phone services or early warning systems.

[00:06:47.230] - Julian Hattem

Right.

[00:06:47.870] - Alexander Kjærum

And even if you do, you have probably already depleted your resources. So your ability to actually do anything is very limited. So you end up, you know, having to scramble and sort of flee last minute with whatever you can carry. And that's sort of the type of dynamics where we can see, okay, this is part of the reason why displaced people are often a lot more exposed and vulnerable to these climate shocks.

[00:07:15.230] - Julian Hattem

Yeah.

[00:07:16.310] - Alexander Kjærum

And why it's important, just as IOM have come out with their appeal, to have a very specific sort of displacement lens when we are considering these climate hazards and shocks.

[00:07:27.280] - Julian Hattem

I really appreciate that example. And I wanna focus, you know, you mentioned the example of a flood, which also is what you looked at in the East Africa context. And I'm curious because, you know, we talk a lot about the difference when it comes to the climate mobility nexus, the difference between kind of fast onset disasters like floods or hurricanes and slower onset changes like desertification or sea level rise that take place over many years. Is the challenge here— it seems to be the one that you're describing is primarily around displacement related to disasters caused by El Niño directly, more directly. Or I guess, to what extent is there also some degree of, you know, slower-term migration amid longer-running, slower impact changes that might potentially be aggravated by El Niño-related effects?

[00:08:12.230] - Alexander Kjærum

Yes, I mean, I think definitely what we're looking into now in sort of the short term, in the sort of coming months, is basically, you know, millions of people that will potentially be displaced by floods, but also even more millions of already displaced people that will be impacted potentially by floods in a number of these countries, especially of course in the Horn of Africa, but also Afghanistan potentially more into 2027. But that doesn't mean that you— I mean, you also have the slow onset impacts. There are several of the countries where we are expecting more sort of drought conditions. For example, Venezuela, which is, I mean, just recovering from an earthquake, but also potentially parts of Syria, you know, recovering from many years of civil war, as well as Sudan, which is already one of the largest displacement crises.

[00:09:04.480] - Julian Hattem

Yeah.

[00:09:05.300] - Alexander Kjærum

So definitely we are also seeing these, the drought impacts are more slow onset that will of course linger and continue into 2027 and potentially also beyond. So it's also important that we don't see El Niño is not something that you could say, okay, it may peak at the end of this year, but the effects will still be there long into next year as well as we see it. Hmm.

[00:09:30.880] - Julian Hattem

So it sounds like, as is the case with East Africa, it sounds like the issue is kind of overlapping stressors of El Niño-related impacts coming on top of, in the case of Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, internal conflict, political strife, civil war, economic issues, political crises, kind of all of these things stacking on top of each other. And then also, in some cases, even though we talked about El Niño being a naturally occurring phenomenon, presumably climate change, human-caused climate change is also kind of one of those additional stressors that kind of adds to that pile of factors that can compel displacement. Is that kind of a fair description?

[00:10:10.580] - Alexander Kjærum

Yeah, no, exactly. You could say if these communities, you know, if they were only exposed to El Niño and then they would have these extreme events, but then they would have 4 or 5 years again to recover, regain, you know, their livelihoods, uh, and, and potentially be able to, to better cope with, with a future El Niño. Of course, the fact is that this is happening at the same time as, as climate change, which means that we are seeing an increase in the severity and frequency of extreme events. So in a lot of these countries, I mean, they're just coming out of, you know, extreme storms, drought conditions, and, and floods in previous years. So their coping capacity is already strained. Adding on top of that then is, of course, that conflict, civil strife in many of these countries is also part of eroding the coping capacities in these communities. And just to make matters worse or even more complex, of course, El Niño and these changing weather patterns can also play into conflict dynamics. So while in our forecasting we're only looking at specifically on floods, we could potentially also be seeing an increase in conflict-induced displacement where El Niño will be part of playing into those conflict dynamics in the countries where we work.

[00:11:26.080] - Alexander Kjærum

So for example, what we see in many contexts is of course these issues where when the climate changes, that the sort of the corridors where herders are moving their cattle or their livestock changes and that leads to potentially conflict then with farmers in those areas that can have severe consequences also for displacement. And maybe one last thing also to highlight, I mean, again, I know we focus on mobility and migration in this talk, and of course displacement and conflict are sort of very clear and visible impacts, but there are also less visible impacts that are important to note. And that is sort of the what we can call sort of the trapped populations or involuntary sort of immobility. So what also happens with a lot, for both the slow onset in particular, is that basically the ability of people to move in the face of these hazards gets eroded. So it requires resources to be able to also move in the face of these hazards. So again, you can imagine a herder in Burkina Faso, you know, where the drought has sort of, you know, wiped out access to grazing areas. His last goat dies and his ability to then uproot his family and move to an urban area hundreds of kilometers away is very limited.

[00:12:53.290] - Alexander Kjærum

So he may be sort of stuck in place with, of course, very severe humanitarian needs and consequences as a result.

[00:13:00.970] - Julian Hattem

Yeah.

[00:13:02.330] - Alexander Kjærum

So again, the link between climate change and displacement, it can both lead to displacement and movement, but it can also trap people in very vulnerable conditions.

[00:13:13.030] - Julian Hattem

Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. I mean, you're absolutely right. You know, like moving from one place to another is expensive. You need social capital. You need to know how you're going. And, you know, when a flood is coming, it's a good thing to get out of the way, right? Like you don't want to be stuck there. Yeah, no, exactly.

[00:13:30.710] - Alexander Kjærum

Yeah.

[00:13:30.870] - Julian Hattem

You said in some of your forecasting that one of the ways you predicted how many people are going to move is by looking at the past. As we have said, El Niño is a recurring phenomenon that comes around every 2 to 7 years, something like that.

[00:13:44.020] - Alexander Kjærum

Yeah.

[00:13:44.400] - Julian Hattem

I mean, what happened in the past? I mean, if past is precedent to some degree, during previous intense El Niños, were large numbers of people displaced?

[00:13:54.590] - Alexander Kjærum

Yeah, so I mean, in the last El Niño back in 2023, so again, if we focus on those 4 countries in East Africa, we saw around 1.9 million people becoming displaced in that period. So I think what we are potentially looking at now, of course, is upwards 3 million, which could be a lot more severe than what we saw back then, which was again one of the worst El Niños that has been on record so far. So comparing to the previous incidents, it does look like this year is going to be a very bad year.

[00:14:32.830] - Julian Hattem

What do we do about it? I mean, so we are recording this in mid-September before many of the kind of more severe projections about El Niño-related effects, both kind of in terms of the weather and climate, have manifested and also in terms of displacement. None of that has yet really come to pass. I mean, what can humanitarian organizations do now to prevent the worst impacts from occurring? And, you know, just as importantly, is there evidence that they are doing that?

[00:15:00.000] - Alexander Kjærum

Yeah, I mean, we can't change the weather unfortunately yet, but we can, as you say, I mean, we can try to do something about changing the impacts or the outcomes of these weather phenomenons. And I think, you know, the key message is really like, We have the warning signs, right? We have the seasonal forecast. We can even analyze what it means for displacement. So we have the information we need now to really act on these warnings. One of the ways we are doing, and a lot of humanitarian actors are trying to address this, is of course through this sort of what we call anticipatory action, which is to sort of act before the crisis hits or before the sort of peak impacts are felt. Providing support to vulnerable households, for example, providing cash so they can, in the face of a flood, can evacuate, or providing cash before drought peaks so you can support the livestock and these type of things. So there are quite a lot of things that humanitarian actors can do and are already doing in this space. And there is also, I think, a growing body of evidence that, of course, these approaches work.

[00:16:14.780] - Alexander Kjærum

We had a— during the last El Niño in 2023 and the floods we saw in Somalia, actually our own office in Beledweyne in Somalia flooded during that time.

[00:16:27.260] - Julian Hattem

Hmm.

[00:16:27.820] - Alexander Kjærum

But we had set up a mechanism actually to support internally displaced people in Beledweyne with cash so they were able to evacuate sort of before the peak floods. And what we could then see in our data afterwards were, I think, sort of 2 key things. One is that they had a much higher sort of food security. They had really improved on their food security.

[00:16:51.340] - Julian Hattem

Hmm.

[00:16:51.680] - Alexander Kjærum

And one of the explanations for that was, well, because they were able to evacuate earlier and more orderly, they could bring more productive assets with them, but they could also access the markets so they could restock. before, uh, sort of supply routes were, you could say, flooded or wiped out, which of course meant that there was a lot less food available after the flood, and also that the prices of the food that was left of course skyrocketed, right? But because they had moved early, they, they moved before those impacts on, on the markets, so they were in a good condition to sort of cope with that sort of market failure afterwards.

[00:17:27.110] - Julian Hattem

That's interesting. I mean, to get back to our previous mention, so it's not just about, um, it's in some cases preventing the forced immobility. It's helping people to become displaced, but in a displacement that is organized and planned and kind of—

[00:17:43.690] - Alexander Kjærum

Yeah, exactly. Systematic, I guess. Exactly. I mean, as you mentioned, we're, we're not talking about preventing displacement when we talk floods typically, because you, you don't want to keep people in their houses if it's, if it's flooded, right? But you want to make sure that when they leave, that it That it's in a safe and orderly manner, that it's sort of planned in a way, and also that you can prepare where they're arriving in the host communities and so on. So it becomes a lot more safe for everyone. And that was sort of the other thing we could also see, that sort of what we typically call sort of protection incidents severely also decreased among these sort of beneficiaries of anti-discrimination. So we saw a lot less sort of incidence of children being recruited for armed groups or being separated from the families and also sort of gender-based violence in the homes and the families. Again, because you take off a lot of the stress from the households and because you can do it in a, so yeah, again, more orderly fashion. And the thing is that we can document all these sort of very positive impacts on humanitarian needs, But we can also see, and a lot of studies have shown that, that doing this sort of more proactive and situational responses typically also is a lot more sort of cost-efficient.

[00:19:00.890] - Alexander Kjærum

So it's also a smart way of doing humanitarian assistance. And several studies have sort of shown that you typically get sort of a $3 to $7 return on every dollar you spend on early action.

[00:19:15.680] - Julian Hattem

So there's also sort of a good sort of cost-efficiency argument That is, that cost efficiency argument is perhaps very resonant at this moment when major donor countries around the world have sharply cut their funding for kind of aid and humanitarian support. I mean, with that context in mind, has the global community's approach to humanitarian issues changed? Yeah, I think so. Has that impacted some of these efforts to be more proactive in responding to displacement preemptively?

[00:19:52.920] - Alexander Kjærum

Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, first of all, of course, anticipatory action, like any humanitarian work, requires financing and funding. So when the pool of humanitarian financing decreases, so does the money typically also for anticipatory action. I mean, what we've seen so far is actually that the funding has remained stable, at least last year. But of course, it remains to be seen if there's a decrease this year for fund situation financing. I would say one of the more negative impacts of the funding cuts has also been more in the data landscape. Again, to do anticipatory action, you need to be able to rely on some sort of forecast which builds on data, right? And we've seen that in many of the contexts where we work, the aid cuts has really hampered data collection. timely delivery quality data on the ground. And in some cases, it's even sort of completely sort of shut down data collection processes entirely, which means that there are countries, there are contexts where we are more or less flying blind. And of course, if you're flying blind, it's very difficult to then try to even see into the future, right?

[00:20:59.730] - Alexander Kjærum

When you don't even know what the status is at the moment. But again, I mean, going to also your question, There is also, I don't know, I don't want to call it a positive side effect, but of course when we talk about the so-called humanitarian reset, there is a lot of focus on looking at how can we become more cost efficient with the limited funding that is available. And in those discussions, we can see that anticipatory action is really moving from more of, like it's been more of a niche to really sort of something that actors promote as something that needs to become more mainstream in our responses. In our own organization, in the Danish Refugee Council, we've just released our new strategy where also anticipatory action is becoming sort of one of 3 strategic push areas that we really wanna try to promote and increasingly use in our response to displacement around the world.

[00:21:58.250] - Julian Hattem

We're about out of time, so we'll have to end the conversation there. But that's a kind of a hopeful, perhaps positive, you know, optimistic perspective of the future. It's a nice note to end on. Alexander, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate you taking the time.

[00:22:12.980] - Alexander Kjærum

No, thank you so much for having me. It was a great conversation.

[00:22:15.960] - Julian Hattem

Alexander Kjærum is a global advisor and senior analyst at the Danish Refugee Council. He focuses on predictive modeling and forecasting of forced displacement. This has been another episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration. from the Migration Policy Institute. Thank you so much for listening. If you wanna hear more about anticipatory action and efforts by humanitarian groups to help people before disaster strikes, you should check out a previous episode we did called Before the Storm: Getting Out in Front of Climate Displacement. You can find that and every other episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration on our recently revamped website at migrationpolicy.org.

[00:22:56.710] - Julian Hattem

You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else it is that you get your podcasts. Please subscribe and leave us a review to help get the word out and support our work. To keep up with new research, analysis, and events from MPI, you can sign up for the Migration Information Source newsletter through our website. Also, follow us on social media. We're on all the major platforms. You can reach out to me directly by sending me an email at [email protected]. This episode of the podcast was produced by Daniella Espacio. Assistance was provided by Lisa Dixon, and editorial oversight came from Michelle Mittelstadt. Our theme music is Touched by Patrick Patrikios. Once again, my name is Julian Hattem. Thanks for listening. See you soon.