All across the North Atlantic region, rich countries are putting up barriers to keep foreigners out. Some are physical, like the wall separating San Diego from Tijuana, which U.S. troops are fortifying with barbed wire at the order of President Donald Trump, or the new fence meant to stop people crossing from Belarus into Poland. Others are only visible on paper, like the Joe Biden administration restricting asylum or the EU agreeing internally to speed up deportations and externally to pay Tunisia to keep migrants from crossing the Mediterranean Sea. The most important impacts of these policies fall on the migrants or would-be migrants themselves: Restricting the ability of vulnerable individuals to seek asylum is likely to cause suffering. And there are economic and social consequences for receiving societies that deport more people and keep out potential workers: Wisconsin dairy farmers are already warning that “if there’s no immigrant labor, we’ll all have to go vegan.”. But it is also worth paying attention to the economic impact such migration policies could have on migrants’ countries of origin. Migrants who come to rich North Atlantic countries often come from countries that are generally not only poorer but also more vulnerable to climate impacts; for example, poorer tropical nations have seen the most damage from extreme heat. When people from such climate-vulnerable places cannot work in richer countries and cannot send remittances home, there are repercussions for climate adaptation and climate finance.
How the Global Migration Crackdown Affects Climate Finance (Noah Gordon, Debbra Goh – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
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