The Syrian Refugee Crisis was climate migration writ small. Based on the literature, I attribute about 10% of the causation of the Syrian Civil War to climate change. It exacerbated the regional drought that made both grazing and small-hold agriculture economically challenging, leading to large numbers of young men migrating to the cities where they were underemployed and ripe for radicalization and revolt. There was a collection of causes, and climate change was one of them. For context, here’s one of the pieces of literature I frequently cite: Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought
“We conclude that human influences on the climate system are implicated in the current Syrian conflict.”
And Europe’s response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis provides insights. Lots of right-wing xenophobic rhetoric. Lots of scared white people worried about the teaming hordes of non-white people coming to Europe (despite the large numbers of non-white people living and contributing peacefully in Europe already). Lots of white nationalism. Lots of Islamaphobia.
Lots of border fences and lots of borders closed to refugees.
And […]
It all relies upon the water supplies and how much of it we can produce; probably from the oceans.