The United Nations International Organization for Migration estimates that there could be as many as 1.5 billion environmental migrants in the next thirty years alone. 

Given climate disasters already displace up to ten times more people than conflict and war worldwide, we spoke to Gaia Vince, science writer and broadcaster and the first female recipient of the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize about how we can plan for and manage unavoidable climate migration while we restore the planet to a fully habitable state.

In your most recent book Nomad Century, you make the case for planned migration as key to helping us survive inevitable climate upheaval. What brought you to this conclusion?

First of all, you have to understand that migration is inevitable and it's already underway. Many of the pushes are completely natural. Humans have always migrated for trade, industry, love and simply curiosity. But as the temperature of the planet increases, various parts of the world are already becoming unlivable due to conditions I refer to as the four horsemen of the Anthropocene - fire, heat, flood and drought.

Heat has already killed tens of thousands of people in Europe alone and as we speak, Los Angeles is still dealing with unprecedented wildfires. These hit the headlines because they resulted in some of the world’s wealthiest climate refugees but the reality of increasing numbers of people across the globe being forced to leave their homes is currently overlooked and unmanaged. 

For example, the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya is essentially a prison for hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are climate migrants fleeing prolonged drought in Somalia. They are stateless. They have nowhere to go. Their lives are now on hold which is such a tragic waste of human potential. It's also a humanitarian crisis. 

In the Global North we have a number of issues such as declining birth rates and stagnant economies. We need immigration to support growth and to enliven our societies. Managed migration can be of benefit to both host and origin countries. So one of the best and most sensible, pragmatic things we can do is to manage the human mobility which is naturally occurring and which will increase over the coming decades. This can be done in a way that enriches people’s lives and livelihoods, directing flows of expertise, of skills and resources - essentially everything which is naturally going to occur but done in a safe and managed way. This of course takes planning, management and investment and at the moment I don’t see that being coordinated in any meaningful way.

So how can we plan for this inevitable migration and ensure it can be of benefit to people in both origin and host countries?

It’s a question of honesty. It's about being honest about the scale of the climate crisis. Be realistic about what your city will look like in 2040 and 2060 and be honest about migration. It's happening and it will continue especially when increasing numbers of people will have no choice but to flee conflict, climate disasters and lives of abject poverty. Climate change is a threat multiplier. We need to be honest about that fact. It will exacerbate conflicts, forcing more people to flee their homes so how are we going to manage that?  How do we make sure this forced migration enhances our cities, nations and regions? And that means changing the narrative  which has become quite stuck and quite toxic in some places. 

Yet some places are already showing leadership on this. Take my own mayor, Sadiq Khan of London. He  has worked to counter the hateful narrative against immigration. He  talks about London as an inclusive, multicultural, progressive city and the reality of our reliance on immigration across all levels of society whether it’s in our institutions such as the  National Health Service or providing essential services such as bus drivers. 

Similarly, Anchorage, Alaska has created a new set of migration politics, based on recognizing that climate migrants offer unique skillsets that come from surviving shocks and stresses. It boosts inclusion through language programmes, equitable  access to transport and matchmaking newcomers' skills with available jobs. The mayor there has recognized that the initial financial investment in supporting this integration will be more than repaid over the lifetime of the migrants who are often young, working age people.

The other key investment that needs to be made is  social investment,  investment into the kind of inclusive mindset of understanding what it is to be a citizen, what it means to work together as an enlarged community of people from different backgrounds, different places and everybody to find their their own home, their own place in that society. We need to recognize our shared humanity and that we all have a stake in the future of the places where we live.

Whether we arrived yesterday and don't speak a word of the language or whether  our great great grandparents lived in the area since time immemorial, we're all in this project of citizenship together and that inclusive social investment is absolutely key in ensuring that existing people recognize migrants as citizens, and that the migrants themselves recognize they are  citizens in this shared project.

Cities, especially in the developing world are often on the frontline of climate change. Similarly population increases in the coming decades will significantly increase migration from rural to urban areas. How important will subnational leadership be in managing this shift and adapting towns and cities accordingly?

The climate crisis is a planetary scale issue. Earth systems don't respect the invisible lines that we draw on maps. A  river that's in full flow  doesn't just stop at a border and say, oh no, I don't have the visa to enter. Just as fire and smoke from the wildfires in LA will travel thousands of kilometers across the Atlantic, or depending on which way the wind is blowing to other nations. So this is a planetary scale disaster, and that's why we  need to act in a holistic way. But when I look at the practical progress that's been made, it is in cities where the most progressive action is taking place. And that is hugely encouraging because it doesn't matter how reluctant or slow a nation's leader can be when you see that remarkable action on the ground is being taken by city mayors and groups like  C40 Cities.

For example, the Mayors Migration Council - which is designed to accelerate global action on migration and displacement has shown just how much mayors can do to support the integration of migrants such as providing language classes and  helping schools  receive new pupils who may have differing education and language backgrounds. 

Similarly, in a remarkably short period of time, Paris has adapted its combustion based transport system into a much more equitable, sustainable, greener cycle structure which has transformed the city and made it much more liveable. And ultimately that’s what we’re talking about - ensuring our cities remain liveable as the effects of climate change are felt more widely and frequently. 

When we talk about this enormous energy transition that’s urgently required yet at the same time emissions continue to rise, it’s easy to think there’s been no progress. Yet often it’s city mayors and local communities that are pushing for  real, tangible, change. For example, planning district heating which  can run on heat pumps, ensuring sufficient allocation of electric car charging points and  employing appropriate sticks and carrots to incentivise cycling over driving  - these actions often come from local rather than national governments.

How do you think incorporating the more human-centric issue of inevitable migration into the climate conversation could help us deliver the shift in mindset we need to tackle the climate emergency more urgently and effectively?

It’s a really important question when we are talking about these huge planetary scale issues.

We all naturally fall back on different acronyms and different phrasing which is widely understood among our  peer group. But this is far too important to leave to that kind of niche language and that niche understanding, because this actually speaks to the fundamentals of what makes us human, of who we are as a species. We need to make sure these concepts and languages are understood at the level of the heart. Climate is absolutely fundamental to everything that we do as people. It's the woven threads on which we weave our lives. It determines the types of food we eat, the clothes we wear, the activities we enjoy, how we build our houses, where we build our houses, where we do our activities, the games we play, the songs we sing, the stories we tell.

Everything is predicated on climate. And we can forget that especially when many of us  live in cities, which are these  artificial constructs meant to separate us from the horrors of the natural world and insulate us against storms and floods.  But now we've moved into the post-climate change world. We cannot rely on our cities to do that anymore. Everything needs adapting, and that includes our language. 

We have to normalize the fact that we are no longer living in those nice, reliable climate conditions but  that we are living in this post-climate change world, these extreme conditions. We have to normalize that through talking about it in language that we all understand. We see cars bobbing about like bath toys on the streets of Valencia. And then we see  Hollywood stars made climate refugees from the wealthiest palaces in Los Angeles. And all of this is part of normal life. Now we have to normalize that. 

But we also have to realize that this doesn't have to be a crisis for which we reel from one disaster to another, but which we understand at a much baser level as our life now. And so through that becomes the kind of cognitive adaptive adaptation which demands that we come up with solutions day to day. 

And we recognize that solutions must be found, and that that is key to how we deal day to day with life, but also into the future. We have to make decisions all the time. Where should I invest my hard earned savings in a flat for my family? Well choose, remembering the climate. What should I study at university? Choose, remembering the climate.

Everything in our world has to come back to what is possible, what is real, and what can we imagine in the future. If you can imagine a better world, if you can imagine a world where we can thrive, which is inclusive, which is more equitable, which is more sustainable, which is more resilient wherever it is located, wherever those people came from then when you've imagined it, you can take the steps to realising it.

Nothing needs to happen by accident and nothing good ever happens by accident. It happens because we saw the possibilities and we came together as a global community to create that reality.