Will Climate Change Spark an Asian Migrant Crisis?

Eco-Business (Singapore),

02 October 2015

New research has traced the unrest in Syria and unfolding European migrant crisis to a drought induced by worsening climate change. Could a similar fate be in store for Asia, a region most vulnerable to its impacts?

… Jonatan Lassa, research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, notes that subsistence farmers who only grow enough to feed their family usually have the least amount of food or money saved up, and are at high-risk of having to leave their farms if harvests fail.

… RSIS’ Lassa notes that the terms “climate” and “disaster” appear multiple times in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) text, and this may influence Asian governments to develop a proper migration policy.

Resources would then be allocated to help migrants move safely and successfully resettle, he says.

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