Climate change and migration 2012, para. 31

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Paragraph text: Environmentally induced migration is commonly presented as a new, or emerging, issue. Yet, changes in environmental conditions have always influenced migration patterns. It is a core feature of our human condition: since mankind has existed, people have been moving in response to changes in their environment, often seasonally. In the context of climate change, however, the rate and scale of this migration could be multiplied. Precise numbers regarding environmental migrants vary considerably, with estimates of the number of people likely to be displaced by climate change ranging from 50 to 250 million by the year 2050. The Special Rapporteur remains aware, however, that accurate data on this issue is not readily available. Furthermore, he recognizes that statistical exercises will be controversial, not only in view of the difficulty in predicting the rate of sea level rise and its impact on persons, but also with regard to a key conceptual hurdle: the difficulty of identifying those migrants who can be said to have moved solely for reasons related to climate change. For example, it is difficult to isolate the effects of climate change that may contribute to population movements from other environmental factors, such as land degradation, which may be linked to other stresses on the environment, including the impact of an increasing global population consuming ever more natural resources.

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Person(s) affected