This episode isabout climate change and its impacts on migration and population displacement.

The World Bank’s updated Groundswell report in 2021 finds that climate change could force 216 million people across six world regions to move within their countries by 2050. Climate change is a powerful driver of internal migration because of its impacts on people’s livelihoods and loss of livability in highly exposed locations. By 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa could see as many as 86 million internal climate migrants; East Asia and the Pacific, 49 million; South Asia, 40 million; North Africa, 19 million; Latin America, 17 million; and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 5 million.

The report also finds that immediate and concerted action to reduce global emissions, and support green, inclusive, and resilient development, could reduce the scale of climate migration by as much as 80 percent.

To talk to us more about climate change, migration, and population displacement is Roland Smith, a PhD researcher at the University of East Anglia.

Music by Ben Sound