Migrating when the islands die

Rapita, Rehana and Kale or Kepidau and Nahlapenlohd, these names probably mean nothing to you, and with good reason. Engulfed by the sea as a result of rising sea levels, these vanished islands belong respectively to the Solomon archipelago and the Federated States of Micronesia, located in the Pacific Ocean. They have been wiped off the map since 2014. Fortunately, no people lived there. With sea levels rising by two to three millimetres a year, other islands, this time inhabited, are threatened by the consequences of climate change because of their topography and territorial development.

Far from the picture postcard

The Pacific and Caribbean islands are next on the list. Erosion spares no coastline. Smaller islands are more vulnerable, and have to cope with all kinds of debacles: drought, storms, rainfall and cyclones. All the more so as their human activities are generally concentrated on the coasts and they are dependent on their natural resources. And yet, unlike other countries, they emit very few greenhouse gases. This injustice has been particularly condemned by President Anote Tong of the peaceful state of Kiribati, who is saddened by "the death of [his] homeland". This extreme case is not isolated. France will have to face up to this challenge, since part of its population lives in overseas island territories. According to Virginie Duvat-Magnan, professor of geography at the University of La Rochelle, part of the French West Indies will be uninhabitable by 2040, forcing governments to relocate their populations.

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Dialogues économiques is a digital magazine published by the Aix-Marseille School of Economics (AMU, CNRS, EHESS, Centrale Méditerranée) A bridge between academic research and society, Dialogues économiques provides all citizens with the keys to economic reasoning. Articles are published every two weeks.

What can governments do to combat the effects of climate change? They can seek to reduce the risks, i.e. drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions to tackle the root causes of global warming and slow its progress. Another possibility is to adapt, through public policies and infrastructures, to protect themselves from the already advanced effects of global warming. However, in the case of the Pacific and Caribbean islands, risk reduction is virtually impossible because they are not responsible for emissions and so have no way of stopping their increase. The only solution left therefore is to adapt. Among the options, migration could well play a decisive role.

This is the option considered by economists Lesly Cassin, Paolo Melindi-Ghidi and Fabien Prieur in a study entitled "Confronting climate change: Adaptation vs. migration in Small Island Developing States", published in 2022 in the journal Resource and Energy Economics. Focusing on ten Caribbean islands, they show how migration, combined with adaptation policies, is becoming an inevitable solution as climate damage takes its toll.