Skip to main content
Article
Limit(ation)s, sustainability, and the future of climate migration
Dialogues in Human Geography (2023)
  • Jemima Nomunume Baada
  • Bipasha Baruah, Western University
  • Isaac Luginaah, Western University
Abstract
Climate change and human migration are two of the world’s most pressing issues, as many populations rely on migration as an adaptation strategy to climatic stressors. Human experiences of, and responses to, climate stress are uneven and mediated by resource privilege. In many communities in the Global South, climate vulnerabilities are exacerbated by fragile ecological conditions due to geographical positioning, and many already marginalised groups shoulder a disproportionate burden of climate change effects, despite contributing the least to this problem. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, rapidly deteriorating climatic conditions imply that climate vulnerabilities may be reproduced in migration destination areas as well. Drawing on primary research conducted in Ghana, we illustrate how migration may present limitations and thus serve as an unsustainable adaptation strategy towards climate change for agrarian and structurally marginalised groups. We highlight the need for more discussions of sustainability in issues of climate migration in Ghana and similar contexts of the Global South, and the urgency of mitigating climate change globally. We conclude with calls for more nuanced understandings of the futures of climate migration as an adaptive strategy
Keywords
  • limits,
  • sustainability,
  • equity,
  • policy,
  • global south,
  • climate migration
Publication Date
2023
DOI
10.1177/20438206231177071 journals.sagepub.com/home/dhg
Citation Information
Jemima Nomunume Baada, Bipasha Baruah and Isaac Luginaah. "Limit(ation)s, sustainability, and the future of climate migration" Dialogues in Human Geography (2023)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/bipasha-baruah/46/