Climate change, migration and displacement of populations: a special issue

Assessing the nature and scale of migration that is directly attributable to climate change in the decades ahead is far from straightforward. The interconnectedness of the various drivers of migration, and the complex interactions of climate change with those drivers, make it difficult to attribute specific environmental impacts (Chang Seng and Birkmann, 2011). In the past few decades, potential linkages and implications of climate change on human mobility have taken hold in the literature (Black et al., 2011; Felli and Castree, 2012; Upadhyay et al., 2015). It is becoming clearer that one single factor is rarely a sufficient reason for migrating. Migration causes are usually multi-faceted, with climate change adding to already increasing levels and complexities of population mobility (de Sherbinin et al., 2011; Felli and Castree, 2012; Chang Seng and Birkmann, 2011; Hugo, 2011).