How We Talk about Climate Migration Shapes Treatment of “Climate Refugees"

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CHAPTERS 

[00:03:18]: Large-scale migration and implications for public perception 

[00:06:42]: Narratives highlighting potential benefits and their limitations 

[00:08:08]: How host communities perceive different drivers of migration 

[00:10:16]: Responses in climate-affected communities and factors shaping attitudes 

[00:14:02]: Messaging approaches that focus on solutions and public engagement 

[00:16:54]: Responsibility and burden-sharing narratives across global and local contexts 

[00:19:37]: The role and limitations of the term “climate migrant” 

TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:03.11] 

From the Migration Policy Institute, this is Changing Climate Changing Migration. I'm Julian Hattem. This podcast talks about what climate change means for migration, but we don't often stop to consider how we're talking about climate induced migration. Is it a tragic case of innocent victims being displaced by powers beyond their control? The result of an emergency? Or maybe it's an opportunity for destination communities to show solidarity or benefit from a new pool of workers and for migrants to earn money abroad that can help increase development and climate adaptation at home. Today, we're talking about the ways that we frame the conversation around climate migration and the words we use to describe it. We're also exploring the different attitudes that receiving communities have for climate migrants and the role of narratives in shaping that. Welcome. My guest on this episode is Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan. Natalia is my colleague here at MPI, where she is the Deputy Director of the International Program, and she leads our work analyzing social cohesion and migration narratives. Natalia, thank you so much for coming on. I've been looking forward to this.

[00:01:17.05] 

Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:19.07] 

You and our colleague Lawrence Huang have a new policy brief out about public opinion towards climate migrants, and you've been focused on some of these questions for a while now. Generally speaking, how do political leaders and other influential voices tend to talk about climate migration? Is it in terms that paint individual migrants as victims or as something of an inevitability, or what?

[00:01:44.14] 

Yeah, sure. Well, so there are three main narratives we've identified. One indeed paints climate migrants as victims, as you've noted. So talking about people who were forced to move through no fault of their own. And the idea is that by invoking sympathy, this could foster greater public support for those moving. But we find that something interesting happens here, highlighting climate migrants blamelessness. So the fact that there were forces outside their control doesn't always equate to increased feelings of responsibility on the part of host communities. These things kind of exist on parallel planes. You can have sympathy without feeling that that means you should make a personal sacrifice. We also have to remember that highlighting the repercussions of climate change is a double edged sword because everyone at this point is affected in some way by climate change. And so this can also perversely remind communities of their own vulnerability. So you're trying to highlight the particular vulnerability of the people moving, and in the end you're in some ways reinforcing the fact that everyone needs to be a little bit scared of this. The other big narrative that's in use is the mass migration narrative.

[00:03:16.23] 

And leaders and advocates often emphasize the large potential scale of climate migration in order to mobilize support for urgent action around climate. So it's very well intentioned. It's basically a way to focus people's attention on a very serious problem that many politicians still deny is even happening. But the problem is that the language of urgency or crisis is often unhelpful when it comes to migration. So it kind of can play right into anti immigration narratives that are often alarmist, that often use words like flood or invasion to paint a picture of impending disaster. So the risk is that this can provoke a fear based response which actually leads to greater restrictions. So basically no thoughtful migration policy has ever come from a fear based response. And I think the other risk is that alarmist narratives can kind of cause people to shut down because the problem feels too large and unmanageable. And so in the literature you actually see that this has a name, it's known as apocalypse fatigue. So it's like you keep hearing about the impending apocalypse and it makes some people want to hide under, under a rock, you know, just disconnect instead of engaging.

[00:04:43.16] 

You go kind of numb to it or something.

[00:04:45.07] 

You get numb to it. Exactly. So it sort of, it can lead to apathy or inaction, which is the opposite of, of what people are intending to do by invoking this narrative.

[00:04:56.07] 

Is that mass migration and kind of the, the victim mentality or the victim narrative are those, those aren't unique to climate change and climate migration. Right. I mean, are there, are these kind of narratives, do they have echoes in narratives about other types of migration? I mean, we talk about like mass migration generally as an issue?

[00:05:17.24] 

Yeah, they're, they're not unique to climate migration. So other, you know, we identify threat narratives, victimhood narratives, and also benefit narratives, which I didn't mention, but is also one that's in use with climate migration. We find these in use with, with all types of migration. But the interesting thing is that there's a little bit of a reversal here. So it's actually often climate or migration advocates who are emphasizing the mass migration narrative, sometimes presenting the worst case scenario, you know, like what the numbers could be if there, if there is no action, if there's no adaptation or mitigation. And again, it's because, it's precisely because they're trying to galvanize this action, make people think, oh God, you know, we need to do something. Whereas for other forms of migration, it's usually the anti immigration. Right, who is fear mongering about large numbers. So it's kind of an interesting.

[00:06:19.13] 

It's a flip.

[00:06:20.06] 

Flip.

[00:06:20.14] 

Who is doing the exaggeration. That's interesting.

[00:06:23.15] 

And so they're coming. They're motivated by very different reasons. But what we argue is that the result can kind of be the same in terms of making people shut down or actually lean toward greater restrictions.

[00:06:37.14] 

You briefly mentioned the benefit narrative. What is that?

[00:06:41.20] 

Sure. It's the effort to highlight the positive contributions that migrants can make in communities. And so in the climate space, this could be things like talking about how migrants send remittances after disasters or migrant workers contributing to the green economy. But I think the issue with positive stories is they're not universal. Right. So migration happens in shades of gray. It's not black and white. It incurs both costs and benefits that are sometimes not neatly captured in these messages. And so there's a risk of creating unrealistic expectations that can't be met if this is the only or predominant narrative that's in use.

[00:07:27.11] 

Yeah, I'm curious. I mean, we talked about it a little bit, but about the impacts that those varying narratives will have. Sometimes it sounds like can be counterproductive from the perspective of people who are trying to create a more welcoming society or a softer landing, I guess, for those migrants, I guess. I wonder if you have anything more to say about that. But also, more generally, I mean, do receiving communities, host communities, care why migrants are coming? Like, if, you know, X number of individuals show up, does it make a difference whether they're fleeing a hurricane or a civil war or just kind of a mediocre economy?

[00:08:03.21] 

Yeah, that's a good question. And I guess I'll just start by saying that regardless of why people move, you are going to find a whole range of attitudes in host communities. So I have to sort of insert that caveat. And so. And sometimes there are conflicting sentiments of support and anxiety that coexist. And this is universal to migration, not specific to climate. So with climate, there are some contexts where there's certainly more empathy for those who are seen as forcibly displaced. So more empathy for forced migrants than for economic migrants, though this does tend to be more true in the global north and in the Global South. But, you know, climate migration, there's a sort of blurred line there. Right. And so not all climate migrants are seen as blameless victims who are forced to move, which I, you know, that's how I started this conversation. And so, you know, the line between forced and voluntary movement is not as clear as analysts would like it to be in the best of circumstances. But with climate, it's, I think, even hazier when you're talking about things like farmers losing their livelihoods over time because of reduced rainfall.

[00:09:27.22] 

You know, you could say, some people might say, well, they could have adapted to that. Were they really forced to move? You know, it just becomes a bit of a, of a gray area. So it's not always clear that climate migrants are seen as blameless, even though there are some contexts where forced migrants are preferred or welcomed more over economic migrants. And then even where there is sympathy for the plight of these people moving or where there is solidarity, I think it's important to note that it's not bulletproof. It's not immune to the frictions that all people living side by side eventually face. And so one interesting thing is that even people who have themselves suffered from disasters like floods don't necessarily have more empathy for people fleeing similar circumstances. And so I think, you know, one explanation is because climate change affects everyone and because people are often moving to places that are themselves climate vulnerable, it also heightens people's own sense of vulnerability, which sort of saps the solidarity. Right. And it can heighten fears that newcomers will divert resources in an environment where those resources are, you know, feel precarious or, or scarce.

[00:10:57.17] 

And so I think just connecting this back to your original question, you know, with the impacts of the narratives, I think because you have these competing strands of public opinion and this very sort of complex gray landscape, this very nuanced landscape, the way you talk about migration can really matter. So certain narratives can aggravate people's sense that things are out of control. They can sort of trigger one part of this insecurity that's kind of enmeshed in other perceptions or attitudes. They can trigger perceptions of unfairness, sometimes inadvertently. So I think we just have to be careful in terms of how the messaging and the stories that are told about climate migrants affect people's willingness to invest in solutions.

[00:11:58.22] 

I'm very interested in that notion that even a community, or perhaps especially a community that has suffered the impacts of climate change itself, can be resistant. Because I feel like that encapsulates this point very well, that there is, I can imagine two possible futures. One, I had to go through this terrible thing, or I'm at risk of this terrible thing. I understand firsthand why that is dangerous and scary, and. And I want to help people who are also affected or I'm affected, I figured it out, or I've got to look after myself. And so I can't extend protections or sympathy or solidarity with Other people who are, you know, even in a similar boat. Yeah. And, yeah, I think that's like an interesting dynamic and a kind of split screen, if that makes sense.

[00:12:41.02] 

Yeah, it is a split screen. And I think the point is that we, we don't necessarily know which way it's going to go. I think the point is that we just can't assume that there's going to be that greater solidarity because of a certain set of conditions.

[00:12:57.03] 

This kind of gets at a tension that's come up a couple times on this podcast with some other guests, which is, on the one hand, to the instinct to try and highlight concerns about displacement and disasters in order to generate support for policies to fight climate change, as you were describing, but also, on the other hand, a concern that those kind of narratives unintentionally can aggravate public hostility towards migrants. Candidly, it is a tension I have personally felt and thought a lot about throughout the production of this podcast and some of our other climate work. What's, what's the ticket? How do we get out of that paradox? Is there a way to explain the real concern that some displacement is a likely result of increased global climate change without stoking public anxiety or manufacture or creating a threat or exacerbating concerns?

[00:13:51.24] 

You know, the funny thing about writing a lot about public anxiety is that people always assume you have the answer. So I don't have the full answer. But, but here's what I think. I think people's anxiety is always going to increase when you tell them about a looming problem and you don't offer them solutions. Right. So the first thing to do, I think, is just not panic people. I think we need to shift to talking about solutions rather than talking so much about the problem. And we kind of know what these solutions need to be. People need to hear that there are investments being made in communities ability to physically accommodate population change. Right. We can't, we can't pretend that this doesn't, you know, bring challenges, but these are things that you can prepare for, you can invest in, you can talk about, you can sort of, you know, address very practical things, right, like affordable housing. The second thing is people need to hear that their investments being made in addressing the climate vulnerability of receiving communities, which, which they often feel is, is aggravated by, you know, an influx of people coming in to places that, you know, themselves are facing, you know, you know, sea level rise and coastal cities where people are going to find work, etcetera.

[00:15:23.11] 

And then, you know, I think just a basic point is that people want to hear that their needs and concerns are being listened to and putting the whole focus on the needs and vulnerabilities of those moving without reflecting on, you know, the needs and vulnerabilities of host communities or, you know, when people perceive that those two things aren't given equal weight. So, you know, you just, you have to, you have to, you have to pay attention to that publicly. Right. In a way that's visible to people.

[00:15:57.15] 

I'm interested in this notion of like, deservingness or who is at like fault for forcible movement, especially climate change. And this kind of relates to that point that you just made, which is to the extent that anyone or any single individual or institution is to blame, quote, unquote, for climate displacement, it seems like it would be the countries and industries that are major producers of greenhouse gas emissions and the forces behind climate change, environmental change, which is often places like North America, Europe, India, China, a couple others. To the extent that there is some movement from climate affected regions to these kind of big greenhouse gas producing countries, even though most movement is local, to the extent that there is some kind of broader movement, does that dynamic rear its head? Is there an added, added sense of burden or like a responsibility there that can be at work?

[00:16:51.08] 

I'm glad you brought this up because I, I do think the issue of fairness and who bears responsibility for the plight of vulnerable people is basically one of the most salient questions in immigration right now. And I think that, I think the problem is that the narratives around burden sharing that may work at the global level don't work on the personal level. So it may be effective to persuade global leaders from countries that have, you know, disproportionately contributed to pollution to accept responsibility. Obviously, you know, we had a big win two years ago in terms of establishing the Fund on Loss and Damage, you know, in terms of the sort of global narrative, right?

[00:17:39.13] 

Which is about paying better paying communities who have suffered losses and damages from climate change to help them kind of build back or kind of. Yeah, reparations.

[00:17:49.19] 

Yeah. A way of compensating those severely affected. Exactly. Thanks. But that same language of responsibility I think can really backfire at the local level. So, you know, I've said this a couple of times, but most communities receiving climate migrants are themselves highly vulnerable to climate events and face dwindling resources and a sense of uncertainty about the future. You know, and so most individuals don't feel that they personally bear responsibility for government decisions taking over years and decades and generations. So it's just a very difficult environment. To come into and try to translate that sense of global responsibility to the action that you were expecting an individual person to take, sort of coming in and saying, well, you need to make a sacrifice now to help these other people because they were really disadvantaged. And I do think that we see that with all forms of immigration right now in terms of what is causing a lot of the friction in societies and a lot of the tensions it's existing exactly this issue of who is most vulnerable and who should be considered the most disadvantaged, and whose responsibility is it to, you know, to fix that and who, like, you know, you.

[00:19:18.09] 

Who are we asking to make a sacrifice and who decides?

[00:19:23.10] 

There's a question about terminology, but it's also much bigger than about terminology, which is that. Which kind of gets at some of the utility or some of the applicability of these questions, which is that, as I say always on this podcast, technically speaking, this term climate migrant is. Has no real meaning. It can be very ambiguous. It's an analytical and sometimes term used by general people, but has no formal or legal definition, which means ultimately that labeling someone a climate migrant, quote unquote, is a choice. I guess my final question to you kind of as we wrap up, do you believe that that choice to label someone a climate migrant or not, is that, generally speaking, in the migrants best interest, assuming they fit some definition of that term? Or I guess in another sense, do some of the downsides outweigh the possible benefits?

[00:20:14.08] 

I don't know that I would think about it as a term that sort of carries either benefits or costs. It just might not always be the most useful term. And first of all, as you've noted, it's not a legal category. It doesn't qualify people for any kind of legal or humanitarian pathway or benefits. So that limits its utility. And second of all, climate is, you know, is unique in that unlike other drivers of migration, let's say, you know, war or persecution, climate change is global, right? Every person on the planet is affected by climate change in some way, though to vastly differing degrees. But it does make it much harder to single out this particular group, whether to argue for more resources or more pathways, you know, without again, triggering this sense of unfairness or resentment or reminding people of their own climate vulnerability, which. Which again, is something that can result in people turning inwards rather than sort of embracing a more open attitude.

[00:21:34.20] 

We're basically out of time, so I think we'll have to leave it there. But I'm really glad we could do this. Natalia, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for coming on. This was super interesting.

[00:21:43.13] 

Thank you so much for having me.

[00:21:45.03] 

Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan is the Deputy Director of the Migration Policy Institute's International Program. She's the co author of a brand new policy brief titled Public Opinion of Climate Migrants: Understanding what Factors Trigger Anxiety or Support. You can find that online at migrationpolicy.org. Thank you for listening to this episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts to make sure that you get all of our new episodes and dig through our archives online at migrationpolicy.org/podcasts. If you liked my discussion with Natalia today, you might be interested in my conversation with Sabrina Arias and Christopher Blair about their research on public responses to climate migration, or my conversation with migration scholar Hein de Haas about the repercussions of exaggerating the link between climate change and migration. While you're on our site, subscribe to the Migration Information Source newsletter to get fresh updates about international migration trends and data. Daniella Espacio produced this episode of the podcast with editorial oversight from Michelle Mittelstadt and assistance from Lisa Dixon. Our theme music is Touch by Patrick Patrikios. My name is Julian Hattem. I'll see you soon.