Dealing with displacement: Can “social protection” facilitate long-term adaptation to climate change?

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Abstract

This article explores the possibilities of using social protection to manage and reduce the risks of forced displacement resulting from climate change. It reviews the relevant literature on migration, disasters and climate change, and constructs a model through which international policies may be used to encourage resettlement options that support the capabilities and entitlements of poor and vulnerable populations. By distinguishing between rapid-onset disasters and long-term environmental change, it explores the ways in which cash transfers, asset transfers and conditional cash transfers may be used to break the cycle of vulnerability, destitution and distress migration that can occur during times of severe environmental stress. An important distinction is made between “economic migration,” which implies that households have at their disposal an opportunity to engage in forward-looking analysis about the ways in which they will invest household resources and “distress migration,” which implies that household decisions about investment and migration are largely ad hoc responses to external environmental processes and events. The article reviews recent discussions about the prospects of revising the international refugee regime, and identifies the opportunities and challenges of using social protection to support household decisions that can facilitate economic migration over the long-term.

Introduction

Recent debates in the development policy literature have popularized the idea of using cash transfers, asset transfers and other forms of “social protection” to assist vulnerable groups and households affected by the loss or reduction of incomes and assets during periods of market volatility, social instability and environmental stress.1 Although there is disagreement about the perceived merits of using cash versus asset transfers (Farrington and Slater, 2006), the basic idea is that the inability to meet basic needs (of nutrition, healthcare, etc.) during droughts, famines and other volatile periods is the result of a loss or devaluation in skills, assets and incomes in relation to the cost of food, shelter and other basic entitlements. The perceived solution is therefore to provide affected populations with cash or asset transfers, which can theoretically improve their ability to “command” scarce resources in volatile market settings. Beyond the idea of meeting basic needs, social protection programmes can also support vulnerable households in ways that prevent destructive poverty spirals while at the same time providing assets that can build resilience to future environmental and economic shocks (Deshingkar et al., 2005, Dreze and Sen, 1989, Matin et al., 2008, Sen, 1981, Sen, 1999, Slater et al., 2008).

This article explores the possibilities of using social protection to manage and reduce the risks of forced displacement resulting from rapid-onset disasters and long-term environmental change. By considering the specific threats posed by climate change, it develops a model on which cash transfers, asset transfers and other forms of social protection may be used to break the cycle of vulnerability, destitution and distress migration that can occur during times of severe environmental stress.2 In so doing it aims to inform ongoing policy discussions about the ways in which national governments and international institutions may be expected to manage and reduce the risks of forced displacement in a context of climate change.

The article proceeds as follows. Section 2 first outlines the threats posed by climate change, highlighting the regions and mechanisms most strongly associated with the risks of forced displacement. Section 3 develops a model for understanding household decisions about consumption, investment and migration, distinguishing between economic and distress migration and emphasizing the ways in which external interventions may break the spiral of poverty and destitution that can occur during periods of severe environmental stress. Section 4 then explores the state of the international policy regime, investigating specifically recent discussions about how and how far national governments and international institutions may be expected to accommodate the needs of populations displaced by climate change. Section 5 explores the ways in which cash transfers, asset transfers and conditional cash transfers may be used to expand the ability of poor and vulnerable households to engage in economic – as opposed to “distress” – migration. Section 6 concludes the article, highlighting the institutional, economic and ethical challenges and limitations of taking forward a policy of this kind.

Section snippets

Human vulnerability to climate change

There is now a growing consensus that human emissions of greenhouse gases are leading to unprecedented transformations in the earth's climate, creating new forms of vulnerability to rapid-onset disasters and long-term environmental change (Anthes et al., 2006, IPCC WG-I, 2007, IPCC WG-II, 2007, WBGU, 2008).3

Environmental migration: a framework for analysis and intervention

Methodologically, the challenge of conceptualizing the relationship between climate change and migration stems in part from the fact that recent examples of climatic changes involving the scale and magnitude being projected by the IPCC do not exist (Perch-Nielson et al., 2008). Short of using historical analogs to understand and approximate the factors affecting climate-induced migration (e.g. McLeman and Smit, 2006), scholars are left with the task of combining existing vulnerability

Dealing with displacement: the international policy regime

Assuming that low income countries will bear the greatest burden of adapting to climate change, international policies will need to start thinking strategically about the challenge of absorbing, accommodating and quite possibly facilitating large and largely permanent forms of human migration. Thus far, efforts to theorize the ethical and political terms on which national governments and international institutions may be expected to protect or accommodate populations displaced by climate change

Promoting economic migration: the role of social protection

Social protection programmes entail cash and asset transfers which are typically directed towards households that meet a particular poverty or vulnerability criterion (Doocy et al., 2006, Farrington and Slater, 2006, Prowse, 2008, Davies et al., 2008, Slater et al., 2008, Tanner et al., 2009, Teichman, 2008, Todd et al., 2010, Maluccio, 2010). A key difference between cash and asset transfers concerns the extent to which the transfer in question may be used for productive purposes, as opposed

Discussion, limitations and conclusion

The preceding analysis identifies a number of ways in which social protection may be used to manage and reduce the risks of forced displacement resulting from climate change. It identifies the ways in which cash transfers, asset transfers and conditional cash transfers may be used to provide an important means of supporting economic migration. This section now concludes the article by discussing the logistical and political challenges of taking forward a policy of this kind.

One challenge of

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    The research for this paper was supported with a grant from the ESRC-SSRC Visiting Fellowship Programme, which was carried out at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. The authors would like to thank Polly Ericksen, Kamal Kapadia, James Morrissey, Petra Tschakert, Andy Newsham, Deb Ley, Alex Guerra Noriega, Nadia Manasfi and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. They would also like to thank Alex Parisien for helpful research assistance. The authors bear full responsibility for the text that follows.

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