Millions of residents of the southeastern United States faced orders to evacuate in recent weeks, as devastating Hurricanes Helene and Milton left trails of destruction from Florida to Virginia. Some of the most shocking damage from Helene—the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005—occurred in western North Carolina, hundreds of miles from the coast. And Hurricane Milton dumped a once-in-1,000-year amount of rain on Florida’s Gulf Coast last week. The storms were perhaps the United States’ most dramatic extreme weather this year, on the heels of the northern hemisphere’s warmest summer on record. They were made much more likely by human-caused climate change. Globally, extreme events such as these are growing more commonplace. “Unprecedented” rains fell on a swath of West and Central Africa in recent weeks and months, displacing more than 1.2 million people across at least seven countries. The waters destroyed homes, devastated croplands, wiped out infrastructure, and increased the risks of waterborne diseases such as cholera in an area that is already facing grave humanitarian challenges. In Southeast Asia, tens of thousands of people were displaced by floods and landslides linked to Typhoon Yagi, including many people in Myanmar (also known as Burma) who had previously been displaced by violent conflict. Elsewhere, torrential rainfall displaced an estimated 50,000 people in Nepal and tens of thousands in Central and Eastern Europe. And in July, Hurricane Beryl devastated parts of the Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage to several islands of Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines before hurtling into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and the U.S. Gulf Coast, and from there spawning tornadoes and flooding that stretched to upstate New York. These episodes—and many more—occurred in just a few weeks, providing the latest examples of how extreme weather can cause massive displacement. In just ten countries last year, floods and drought forced people to leave their homes nearly 8 million times, a rate more than double that of 2013. Whether the displacement is only for a brief period or extends for the long term is in part a function of how local leaders and organizations respond, my colleagues Lawrence Huang and Camille Le Coz explain in a recent issue brief. Their analysis is one in a recent series on climate mobility from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), alongside research about the factors that trigger different responses in host communities, the need to diversify responses beyond international protection tools, and how immigrants can play a role in the transition to greener economies. MPI is devoting significant attention to climate migration. Lawrence’s recent Climate Migration 101 article in the Migration Information Source offers a primer on key questions about how, when, and why climate change can force (or prevent) mobility. Other articles in the Source’s special collection on climate change feature analysis from Central America to Iran. And our Changing Climate, Changing Migration podcast has featured conversations with dozens of experts in the field. With climate change and its effects on human mobility an increasingly urgent and important issue, we invite you to check out our resources to get smart. Best regards, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
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