Global Migration Lecture Series
Mobility, Migration and Climate Change
3 QUESTIONS TO Etienne Piguet

On March 2nd we were delighted to welcome Etienne Piguet, Professor at the Institute of Geography of the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland) to give a talk on Climate Change and Migration within our Global Migration Lecture series. We took the opportunity of his conference to exchange with him about his work and future endeavors:

What brought you to the subject of Climate Change and Mobility?

I was contacted in 2006 by a colleague climatologist who asked me to give a talk on that topic. At that time there were few publications and no synthesis,  so I started collecting everything I found and built a repository of the scientific literature (CLIMIG). I presented my results in a conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) in Cairo and had the opportunity to publish in UNHCR’s series NEW ISSUES IN REFUGEE RESEARCH. That was the beginning !

What is the central or key idea of your lecture?

My talk revolves around two concepts: multicausality (the climate is an important driver of migration but there is no such thing as a “pure” climate migrant: political, social and cultural factors always interact) and mobilities (long term, long distance migration is only a part of the story. The links between climate change should be understood in a wide framework of multiple forms of mobilities.)

What are your future projects?

I have edited two books which give a good overview of the issues at stake. One with UNESCO, the other with IOM, but I’m currently writing an update to my methodological synthesis paper of 2010. I’m also starting a new field work with Senegalese and Belgian colleagues on the links between mobilities and the perception of climate change.

The recording of the online event, entitled; Mobility, Migration and Climate Change, is now available below.