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Focus On: Migration in a warming world

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This report uses World Risk Poll data to explore some of the forces shaping modern migration, focusing on the influence of climate change and economic insecurity, and the ways these factors interact.

Migration has always been part of human life, but the forces driving it are changing. Economic pressures remain a constant - the search for stable work, secure incomes and a better future - yet climate change is now reshaping the calculus of where people feel they can safely live. As floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising seas intensify, the line between economic migration and climate driven displacement is increasingly blurred. 

This Focus On report draws on World Risk Poll data from 2021 and 2023, combined with the Gallup World Poll question on willingness to migrate, to explore the forces shaping modern migration: the enduring pull of economic opportunity, the growing push of climate instability, and the structural geography that constrains both. By overlaying the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) index, the report also asks how preferred destinations compare to origin countries on climate readiness.

Note that this analysis captures desire to migrate, not actual movement, and is limited to international rather than internal migration.

Key findings

  • People who view climate change as a very serious threat to people in their country are nearly twice as likely to want to migrate as those who do not.
  • Climate concern and financial resilience shape where people want to go in different but complementary ways. Climate concern steers destination preference away from regions seen as climate-exposed, particularly the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and towards destinations seen as more secure, most notably North America, Northern and Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. Financial resilience shapes the range of destinations that feel achievable, with the more financially secure looking towards Europe and the Antipodes and the less secure looking more to closer regional options.
  • When examining to what degree people aspire to move to more climate resilient countries, origin country income is by far the strongest predictor: people in low-income countries aspire to the largest leaps in climate readiness, while those in high-income countries show much smaller potential gains simply because there is less room to improve.
  • The most climate-ambitious aspirations are therefore held by those least able to act on them. People in low-income countries, as well as those unable to sustain their household for a month or more without income, consistently aim for the largest leaps in climate resilience, yet face the greatest structural barriers to reaching their preferred destinations.

Download the report

Focus On: Migration in a warming world

This short ‘Focus On’ report presents the findings of new analysis of World Risk Poll data collected in 2021 and 2023, exploring the impact of climate change and economic insecurity on willingness to migrate

Download Focus On: Migration in a warming world (PDF, 3.63MB)

Citation

If you wish to use and reference the Focus On: Migration in a warming world report in your own work, please include the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.60743/5ppn-nc25

Example Citation in IEEE Style:

Lloyd's Register Foundation, “World Risk Poll 2024 Focus On: Migration in a warming world”, Lloyd's Register Foundation, 2026. doi: 10.60743/5ppn-nc25

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