Impacts of Extreme Heat: Global Warming and Migration

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CHAPTERS 

[00:01:58]: Defining extreme heat: thresholds, measurement, and impacts 

[00:03:18]: Heat-related processes: drought, desertification, and wildfire risk 

[00:04:31]: Temperature and the water cycle: links to flooding and water scarcity 

[00:08:47]: Heat and human health: limits on physical work and productivity 

[00:11:49]: Migrant workers in the Gulf  

[00:14:23]: Measuring heat-related health risks and data limitations 

[00:15:45]: Adaptation strategies: work scheduling, protections, and guidelines 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:02.18] 

Hello. Welcome back to Changing Climate, Changing Migration. This is a podcast from the Migration Policy Institute that examines the different ways in which climate change is affecting migration. My name is Julian Hattem. I'm the host of this podcast and I'm also the editor of the Migration Information Source, which is MPI's journal. This series is part of a broader focus on climate change and migration, which includes a collection of articles. You can access those online at migrationpolicy.org/climate.

[00:00:37.13] 

Climate change is a complicated process that can lead to a wide array of different impacts. But one of the big ones is extreme heat. As the planet gets hotter, there will be more instances of extreme heat and higher overall temperatures in a lot of different areas. Heat isn't something we tend to connect to migration necessarily. Hurricanes and flooding might have a more intuitive connection to an individual's decision to move from one place to another. But extreme heat can play a role in migration decisions too, both because the heat itself and because the way it affects other aspects of the environment. And of course, heat can also affect migrants after they move in their destination areas. So I'm really glad to be joined today by Tord Kjellstrom. Tord is a medical doctor who has the decades of experiencing, researching, teaching about the connection between environment and health, particularly with regards to heat. He is, among other things, part of the team behind Climate Chip, which works on research regarding how heat and other climate issues affect public health. And he's one of the authors of a very useful report from the International Organization for Migration on extreme heat and migration.

[00:01:45.24] 

Tord, thank you so much for coming on.

[00:01:48.17] 

Thank you.

[00:01:50.17] 

So, as I mentioned, we hear a lot of stories about hurricanes and floods and sea level rise and how all of these things will force people out of their current homes. Why should we talk about heat? And I guess also what do we mean when we talk about extreme heat? What is so extreme about it? What is the difference between extreme heat and just a regular hot day?

[00:02:11.24] 

The issue of heat is of course fundamental because in a sense, the modeling of future climate that is used by the scientists who are trying to quantify the change in our climate in the future. The modeling basically starts with the temperature of the planet. And in many parts of this planet, of course, already it's very hot during part of the year, and this will make it even hotter. And places that are not so hot will be also hotter. So that's a fundamental part of the climate change. The other thing is that of course, on this planet there are different climates and different parts, and people have managed to develop their communities and to live for thousands of years in certain places. And as the climate changes, and for instance, the deserts of the hot parts of the world increasing size, people have to move. So they have to migrate to another place because the climate just isn't friendly any longer for them. And the fundamental part of this is of course, how hot it is. And if the human body cannot cope with daily heat levels above certain limits, then people just have to move to a different place.

[00:03:52.12] 

And this is already happening.

[00:03:56.02] 

And so you mentioned they're both deserts and desertification and also impacts on the human body itself. So it sounds like extreme heat is in and of itself itself a factor in humans migration or it can be in some instances, but also it contributes to things, other environmental phenomena, such as desertification, I presume also droughts, wildfires that can compel movement, Is that right? I mean how, what are the processes and how extreme heat encourages or affects an individual's decision to relocate from where they are?

[00:04:31.00] 

Well, you know, the extreme heat creates new movement of water on the planet. So when the seas, the oceans get hotter, more water is evaporating and going in, going, goes into the air and creates larger and more powerful clouds. And that's of course what we've seen with the extreme rains and floods that have happened in many parts of the world this year. So the starting point is really the increasing heat. And then at the other end of that scale of the water access, you have the heat that dries up large parts of the agricultural land and it gets, the soil gets so dry that it cannot any longer support farming. And of course in some parts of the world we overcome that by irrigation and including places like the Central Valley of California. But eventually there is a limit to how much water is available for the farming and therefore this will affect people's livelihoods and it creates again the need for people to move. You mentioned also fires. And of course there is this similar problem. Now in California as we are speaking, fires are going on because long term periods of high heat that creates drier soil and drier trees, creates much higher fire risks than when you have regular rains that provide humidity or high humidity at the ground level and in the soil itself and among the material that's on the ground.

[00:06:29.12] 

So all of these things are actually connected and the starting point is really the heat. So we should not ignore this as a key factor when we monitor the ongoing climate change and when we estimate what impact it's going to have. And of course, if people end up or are living in places where it gets so difficult to continue living that they decide to move. You know, 3,000 years ago, you could have found maybe other parts of the world which were reasonably empty of people, but now there are people living everywhere. So it's very difficult to be a migrant and to find a new place to live.

[00:07:18.13] 

I want to get to that in a second. But, yeah, let's, let's, let's go where you were. Let's take a step back and put this all in perspective. What is the current state of extreme heat? We talk about how things are getting hotter, and it seems like heat is kind of the common denominator for climate change writ large. But how has the planet gotten hotter? And I guess what will it likely look like in the future? And what regions in particular are we talking about getting hot? Or is. Will every place on the planet get equally warm, or is it specific to certain areas that are going to feel some of the brunt of current and also future extreme heat?

[00:08:00.03] 

Well, you have already, of course, areas that are so hot during part of the year at least, and part of the day that it's almost impossible to live there unless you are protected in buildings with air conditioning. And this includes large parts of the Middle East. It includes other areas around the tropical parts of the world where during the hottest season, it gets so hot that, you know, you really can't spend time outdoors. And one of the problems that arises, which is directly related to the physiology of the human body, is that people can't work, because if you do physical work in agriculture or in construction, for instance, then inside the body, a lot of heat is created by the chemical processes that drive our muscles. So medically, one could calculate at what level heat is getting so bad that you cannot work any longer. And in fact, this is one of the parts that we have focused on in this climate chip website that you referred to. There is data there for every part of the world on the extreme heat during or any part of the year. And we have the data for every month.

[00:09:38.14] 

So it's not just the maximum, hottest part of the year that matters, of course, it's how this heat is extended during other parts of the year. And you might be surprised that in parts of Middle East, during the cooler parts of the year, it's actually relatively chilly. It's not as hot all the year as it is in the hottest month. Whereas other parts of the world, like Singapore and Bangkok and cities that are close to the equator, in the tropical area, they have hot days all of the year. And it makes certain jobs very difficult to carry out.

[00:10:23.12] 

And a lot of those jobs in many of those places I know are done by migrants, which is the relevance for this discussion. Let's talk about the Middle east for half a second. I mean, the Middle East, the Gulf region, places, temperatures can get up to more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit, right? Something like 50 degrees Celsius. And this is like a very huge targeted destination for lots of migrants from Asia, from Africa, including, for instance, many who've been recruited for the World cup in 2022. Several thousand migrants have reportedly died in Qatar in recent years, according to reports. And so how, I guess what are the processes there? A lot of these individuals may be in construction jobs, in manual labor, agriculture. You talked about this a little bit. But what are the physiological effects on somebody who's working in this kind of extreme heat? What does that do to their body and how, how does that impact them?

[00:11:21.05] 

Well, you have two parts here of the migration heat issue here sort of coming up together in a sense. First of all, in these hot areas of the Middle East in particular, the local people, those who have lived for generations in the same area, are not very keen to be out working in the hot sun and during the hot days. And that's why millions of migrant workers traffic temporary migrant workers come from other countries not too far away, like Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, etc. So those people who come there to work, of course, are only there because the local people are not basically willing to do those hard jobs, particularly in construction. That means you have to be outdoors. So that kind of migration, which is temporary for work, is a little bit different from the migration where people are forced away from where they are living and where their normal sort of daily life is taking place. But this problem of migrant workers and the extreme heat that they are affected by also, of course, is a common issue or a big issue in California. On the farms there, the migrant workers come from south of the border.

[00:12:57.05] 

And in other parts of the United States, North Carolina, South Carolina, etc. There are many, many migrant workers. And here in New Zealand, where I live, we also have many migrant workers from other islands in the Pacific coming to work in the agricultural work in particular. But New Zealand is not so hot, so to have serious heat problems here is extremely unlikely. But in California and in also many of the other states in the United States, it gets very hot, as you pointed out, and then it creates real dangers for these workers because unless strict occupational safety and health guidelines are adhered to and enforced among these workers, so that they do not get exposed to the heat, that actually creates serious health problems. Unless such guidelines are accepted and used, then people will get, or the workers will get serious health effects. And in one study that I was involved with looking at migrant workers from Nepal that worked in Qatar, it turns out that hundreds of them are dying, most likely from heat effects, even though the official diagnosis is heart disease. But the rates of such heart disease are much, much higher than it would be for these young workers in Nepal.

[00:14:43.02] 

So there are extreme risks, and they are. They can be explained by the physiological reactions of the body to the heat that the person is exposed to while they are working. So if they're not working, it's not as dangerous. But if they are forced to work and told, you got to keep working now, even though it's hot, then this creates major health risks for them.

[00:15:10.04] 

So I guess what is to be done about that? Sometimes we talk about migration as a form of adaptation or sometimes as the result of a failure, an inability to adapt to environmental change. But how does one adapt, quote unquote, to extreme heat, especially when you're working outdoors? I mean, we can build more air conditioners, I guess, but you have to do construction work outside, you have to do agricultural work outside. Right? What kind of adaptation measures are there for these people for these kinds of situations?

[00:15:45.06] 

Well, the most obvious one is to avoid work outside on construction sites during the hottest period. So it depends on the location. In some parts of the world, including the Middle East, it's much, much hotter during the hottest season, during the cooler season, and it's also much, much hotter in the middle of the day than during the night. So if you are in the desert, I suppose you know that it can be very cool at night where it's extremely hot in the day. So the variation of the heat problem during the day and during the year can be used to make sure that workers are not sent to work or forced to work during the hottest parts of the day. And this has been one of the problems in Middle East in Qatar with the sports stadium constructions and other big projects that in the beginning, for several years, they actually didn't take this into account to protect the workers. But eventually, some years after this problem had been highlighted, the government decided to give regulations for which hours of the day could be could the workers work and which hours should they not be working at all?

[00:17:20.17] 

And that regulation has now been strengthened. But of course, before these rules were applied, they were, as I mentioned, hundreds of workers dying from the heat. Now, the same situation, of course, can happen in agriculture, but there it's a little bit different because it's more difficult to schedule the work just into the cooler hours. You may in fact have to carry out some agriculture work during the middle of the day or certainly during the whole day because you're harvesting and you've got to finish the harvesting at a certain time, et cetera. Construction work might be easier to schedule. So that's why in the California in particular, there's been a lot of activities and research on how to protect these workers on the farms in the Central Valley.

[00:18:22.02] 

You mentioned Qatar had a policy of mandating when workers can and cannot work in terms of safety. Is that a common. Have other countries or other localities picked that up? Is that something that's gaining traction as far as you know?

[00:18:36.14] 

Well, I'm not sure exactly how this works in other countries, but of course the United States and a number of other countries have guidelines at least, even if they're not rules and regulations in legislation, but they have guidelines for what is the maximum heat level workers can should be allowed to be exposed to depending on the kind of work they do. So NIOSH in the United States produced a detailed report on this problem in 2016. And then the recommended protection guidelines for workers. And if you apply them, the logical result will be that in certain parts of the United States, no work is carried out of this. Certainly not very heavy physical work during the hottest part of the day. And by the way, I mean, one employer that has for a long time applied safety guidelines like this is the defense forces, the United States army and other defense forces, because they realize that even carrying out practice runs and sort of training schedules during very, very hot periods can be extremely dangerous for these young soldiers?

[00:20:06.22] 

Yeah, that's interesting. Are there any other policies or strategies that either governments or individual corporations or anyone else could or should be doing? Especially if we're looking at a future that's going to be increasingly hot, that people maybe are or are not doing that they could be exploring that we should talk about.

[00:20:28.22] 

Well, I think the most important thing is of course that we try to as fast as possible limit the ongoing climate change and the ongoing increase of the heat levels in places that are already hot. And the more we pay attention to that and start acting on that, the better it will be for our next generations coming up. And I got a great grandchild who is just seven months old and you can imagine he's going to be alive for sure in the year 2100. So all of these far away effects of heat that we talk about are actually part of the experiences of my own family now, and grandchildren and children will be living much longer than me. So the problem of the future heat protection starts with carrying out what we call mitigation or reducing the climate change trends. And of course the biggest issue is to convert electricity production from burning oil and coal to using solar and wind energy. The sooner we start doing that in a larger scale, the better. But you're also right that there are ways that people can protect themselves, and I won't list them all here. We have already mentioned scheduling work, for instance, as one option.

[00:22:05.06] 

We have also mentioned air conditioning, of course, inside buildings, but that's not something that can happen rapidly in the lower income countries because they just can't afford it. And in addition, air conditioning adds to the climate change greenhouse gas emissions. So it's a tricky problem. It's very difficult. But I am sure that people worrying about the climate change impact on migration should study carefully what's going to happen with the heat problems because they will be a fundamental part of of what's causing migration and millions of people may be seriously affected.

[00:22:58.04] 

We should probably wrap things up there, but this was super fascinating. Yeah, Tord Kjellstrom, he's a consultant on climate change climate change impact issues. Thank you so much for coming on, Tord. This has been a pleasure.

[00:23:11.21] 

Thank you, Julian.

[00:23:15.22] 

Thanks for listening to this episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration. You should subscribe to the show on your podcast service of choice and you can find all of our back catalog of episodes in our online archives at migrationpolicy.org/podcasts. This podcast is part of a broader focus by the Migration Information Source on climate change and migration. You can find more information online at migrationpolicy.org/climate. You can also follow MPI on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. And you should feel free to drop me a line at [email protected]. I'd love to hear your questions, concerns and suggestions for future episodes. Yoseph Hamid produced this episode with support from Lisa Dixon. The song you're hearing in the background is called Touch by Patrick Patrikios. I'm Julian Hattem and I hope to see you next time.