Migrant Crisis: 'If We Don't Stop Climate Change...What We See Right Now Is Just the Beginning'

A Q&A with Frank Biermann, a Dutch researcher who led a controversial 2010 study on climate refugees, who fears crises like Europe's will only get worse.

The surge of people fleeing  to Europe from the Middle East highlights how quickly mass migrations can occur. It  may also offer a glimpse of what's to come as climate change makes some regions around the world unlivable, according to a leading researcher on the human effects of climate change.

Frank Biermann, a professor of political science and environmental policy sciences at VU University Amsterdam, led researchers in the Netherlands five years ago in a study that warned there may be as many as 200 million climate refugees by 2050.  That staggering number first arose out of research in 1995, and it has always been controversial.  The study Biermann led in 2010 recommended the creation of an international resettlement fund for climate refugees.

Today's migrant crisis may be due in part to climate change, Biermann said in an interview with InsideClimate News.  Syria, where 7.6 million people are displaced inside the country and another 4 million are seeking asylum elsewhere, a severe drought plagued the country from 2006-09.  A recent study pinned the blame for that drought on climate change, and the drought has been cited as a contributing factor to the unrest there.  Millions of additional refugees may need to leave their homes in coming decades as a result of a changing climate, Biermann said.

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