What explains why people choose to stay or emigrate in the face of slow-onset climate change? We leverage an original survey of prospective migrants who are exceptionally vulnerable to threats from climate change, but who possess the freedom to legally migrate to another country with relative protection from environmental degradation. Using a conjoint experiment, we assess subjects’ latent preferences before they depart by asking them the circumstances under which they would be more likely to move, given a set of randomly varying conditions representing migration push and pull factors. Our findings show that direct climate risks play a minimal role in prospective migrant decisions, with family- and health-related considerations being much stronger drivers. Our results ground climate mobility more firmly in the context of other migration and mobility decisions, and question widespread concern about the potential for slow-onset environmental degradation to directly produce massive flows, a significant consideration for future climate refugee programs.

中文翻译：

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缓慢发生的气候变化对移民决策的影响

是什么解释了为什么人们在面对缓慢发生的气候变化时选择留下或移民？我们利用了一项针对潜在移民的原始调查，这些移民特别容易受到气候变化的威胁，但他们拥有合法移民到另一个相对保护免受环境退化的国家的自由。使用联合实验，我们在受试者离开之前评估他们的潜在偏好，方法是询问他们在给定一组代表迁移推拉因素的随机变化条件的情况下更有可能移动。我们的研究结果表明，直接气候风险在未来移民决策中的作用很小，与家庭和健康相关的考虑是更强的驱动因素。我们的结果将气候流动性更牢固地置于其他迁移和流动性决策的背景下，并质疑人们对缓慢发生的环境退化可能直接产生大规模流动的广泛担忧，这是未来气候难民计划的重要考虑因素。