Prioritizing involuntary immobility in climate policy and disaster planning

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Abstract

Globally, populations are increasingly located in areas at high risk of climate change impacts. Some populations lack the agency to move out of harm’s way, leading to involuntary immobility. The climate risks these populations face are insufficiently addressed in climate policy and disaster planning. While policy and planning should be data-informed, the lack of appropriate data should not limit governments and institutions from taking action to reduce the risk of involuntary immobility. Incorporating involuntary immobility within the broader sustainable development goals of climate action and safe, orderly, and regular migration may substantially reduce the risk of involuntary immobility.

Abstract

Climate change and extreme weather events will influence migration patterns. However, it is important that our policies do not forget about those who are immobile to migration. This perspective explores different forms of involuntary immobility and how climate policy can address this.

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The effect of environmental change on human migration

Richard Black, W Adger, Nigel Arnell … (2011)

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Global urban population exposure to extreme heat

Cascade Tuholske, Kelly Caylor, Chris Funk … (2021)

Increased extreme heat exposure from both climate change and the urban heat island effect threatens rapidly growing urban settlements worldwide. Yet, because we do not know where urban population growth and extreme heat intersect, we have limited capacity to reduce the impacts of urban extreme heat exposure. Here, we leverage fine-resolution temperature and population data to measure urban extreme heat exposure for 13,115 cities from 1983 to 2016. Globally, urban exposure increased nearly 200%, affecting 1.7 billion people. Total urban warming elevated exposure rates 52% above population growth alone. However, spatially heterogeneous exposure patterns highlight an urgent need for locally tailored adaptations and early warning systems to reduce harm from urban extreme heat exposure across the planet’s diverse urban settlements. Increased exposure to extreme heat from both climate change and the urban heat island effect—total urban warming—threatens the sustainability of rapidly growing urban settlements worldwide. Extreme heat exposure is highly unequal and severely impacts the urban poor. While previous studies have quantified global exposure to extreme heat, the lack of a globally accurate, fine-resolution temporal analysis of urban exposure crucially limits our ability to deploy adaptations. Here, we estimate daily urban population exposure to extreme heat for 13,115 urban settlements from 1983 to 2016. We harmonize global, fine-resolution (0.05°), daily temperature maxima and relative humidity estimates with geolocated and longitudinal global urban population data. We measure the average annual rate of increase in exposure (person-days/year −1 ) at the global, regional, national, and municipality levels, separating the contribution to exposure trajectories from urban population growth versus total urban warming. Using a daily maximum wet bulb globe temperature threshold of 30 °C, global exposure increased nearly 200% from 1983 to 2016. Total urban warming elevated the annual increase in exposure by 52% compared to urban population growth alone. Exposure trajectories increased for 46% of urban settlements, which together in 2016 comprised 23% of the planet’s population (1.7 billion people). However, how total urban warming and population growth drove exposure trajectories is spatially heterogeneous. This study reinforces the importance of employing multiple extreme heat exposure metrics to identify local patterns and compare exposure trends across geographies. Our results suggest that previous research underestimates extreme heat exposure, highlighting the urgency for targeted adaptations and early warning systems to reduce harm from urban extreme heat exposure.

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Migration, immobility and displacement outcomes following extreme events

Richard Black, Andrew Geddes, Nigel Arnell … (2013)

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Author and article information

Contributors

Lisa Thalheimer:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3737-3586

thalheimer@iiasa.ac.at

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Nat Commun

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Nat Commun

Title: Nature Communications

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 2041-1723

Publication date (Electronic): 16 March 2025

Publication date PMC-release: 16 March 2025

Publication date Collection: 2025

Volume: 16

Electronic Location Identifier: 2581

Affiliations

[1 ]International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, ( https://ror.org/02wfhk785) Laxenburg, Austria

[2 ] Institute for Environment and Human Security, United Nations University, ( https://ror.org/040aqvh16) Bonn, Germany

[3 ]Center for Integrated Earth System Information, Columbia Climate School, Columbia University, ( https://ror.org/00hj8s172) New York City, NY USA

[4 ]National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia Climate School, Columbia University, ( https://ror.org/00hj8s172) New York, NY USA

[5 ]Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente, ( https://ror.org/006hf6230) Enschede, The Netherlands

[6 ]School of Earth and Environment, University of Canterbury, ( https://ror.org/03y7q9t39) Canterbury, New Zealand

[7 ]Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University, ( https://ror.org/02w0trx84) Bozeman, MT USA

[8 ]Geospatial Core Facility, Montana State University, ( https://ror.org/02w0trx84) Bozeman, MT USA

[9 ]Department of Environmental Social Sciences, Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University, ( https://ror.org/00f54p054) Stanford, CA USA

[10 ]Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zürich, ( https://ror.org/05a28rw58) Zürich, Switzerland

[11 ]Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia Climate School, Columbia University, ( https://ror.org/00hj8s172) New York City, NY USA

[12 ]Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, ( https://ror.org/05a28rw58) Zürich, Switzerland

[13 ]Department of Geosciences, Mississippi State University, ( https://ror.org/0432jq872) Mississippi, MS USA

[14 ]College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, ( https://ror.org/00ysfqy60) Corvallis, OR USA

[15 ]Columbia Climate School, Columbia University, ( https://ror.org/00hj8s172) New York City, NY USA

Author information

Lisa Thalheimer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3737-3586

Fabien Cottier http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0742-8993

Andrew Kruczkiewicz http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2425-7308

Carolynne Hultquist http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7770-946X

Cascade Tuholske http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4806-0462

Jan Freihardt http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2096-0335

Mona Hemmati http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1283-0231

Pui Man Kam http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6374-4969

Narcisa G. Pricope http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6591-7237

Jamon Van Den Hoek http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8074-0022

Andrew Zimmer http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7683-8713

Article

Publisher ID: 57679

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57679-9

PMC ID: 11910540

PubMed ID: 40089500

SO-VID: 347909ac-3790-4ceb-8d62-3e752885e47d

License:

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

Date received : 28 June 2024

Date accepted : 25 February 2025

Funding

Funded by: FundRef https://doi.org/10.13039/501100004955, Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (Austrian Research Promotion Agency);

Award ID: FO999920854

Award Recipient : Lisa Thalheimer

Funded by: FundRef https://doi.org/10.13039/100000005, U.S. Department of Defense (United States Department of Defense);

Award ID: FA9550-22-1-0282

Award Recipient : Fabien Cottier Alex de Sherbinin

Funded by: FundRef https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001711, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Swiss National Science Foundation);

Award ID: 185210

Award Recipient : Jan Freihardt

Funded by: FundRef https://doi.org/10.13039/100000104, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA);

Award ID: 80NSSC22K1656

Award ID: 80NSSC23K0528

Award Recipient : Narcisa G. Pricope Jamon Van Den Hoek

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Uncategorized

Keywords: natural hazards,climate-change impacts,climate change

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Uncategorized

Keywords: natural hazards, climate-change impacts, climate change

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Prioritizing involuntary immobility in climate policy and disaster planning

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UN Sustainable Development Goals

Most cited references 73

The effect of environmental change on human migration

Global urban population exposure to extreme heat

Migration, immobility and displacement outcomes following extreme events

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