Climate migration: already started in the United States

And in fact, it’s already started: coastal regions of Florida and Texas are already facing population declines, and Helene was only the most recent—albeit the most violent—in a series of storms which gain strength faster than before—leaving little time to evacuate—and which drop even more rain than before.

In research published in 2023, a team from several countries estimated that across the world, hundreds of millions of people would, in the near future, find themselves literally outside their “ecological niche” – that is – that is to say being forced to leave the place they have always lived, without any real possibility of starting again elsewhere, due to lack of having the necessary income. A report from New York Times Magazine published in 2020 estimated that in the United States alone, tens of millions of Americans would find themselves in this situation. This week, in the wake of the damage left in a corridor of more than 600 kilometers, we learned that, according to an estimate from the government agency FEMA, barely 4% of homeowners had flood insurance. In the regions worst hit by the damage over the past week, it could be as little as 2%.

This means that a large number of people will leave and never return, and that others will stay in regions that will be increasingly abandoned. The magazine Pro Publica is talking about it this week as a “climate migration”: it was already discreetly underway, but this latest hurricane will leave in its wake a very large number of people left behind, among the poorest, the most vulnerable and the older.

We cite a December 2023 report from the First Street Foundation, an organization whose mission is to “connect climate risk to financial risk”: approximately 3.2 million Americans have already migrated because of the risk of flooding . The impact is likely to be particularly felt in coastal regions, but also in regions of the South which are among the poorest in the country — impoverishing them even more, and increasing the bill on other parts of the country; And this, in a context where one of the two political parties denies the existence of climate change.

The First Street report identified cities that will fare better than others: Miami, for example, will be able to continue growing even if its lowest-lying neighborhoods are gradually abandoned. But several other cities are already experiencing a demographic decline which exposes them to the disappearance of local shops, even essential services – a major problem, if among those left behind unable to migrate, we find a greater number of people elderly.

Research published in 2022 highlighted that in the United States, this “climate migration” would amplify demographic trends already underway in the coming decades, in particular accelerated aging of the population in certain regions.

“This exodus of young people,” we read in the text of Pro Publicameans that these villages could enter a population death spiral. Older residents are more likely to be retired, meaning they will contribute less in local taxes, eroding funding for schools and infrastructure and leaving less money to repair damage from future weather events.