Migration is the most important political issue in Sweden right now. But it is discussed almost exclusively in a national (Swedish) and short-term perspective, with the sole goal of minimizing immigration. Internationally, too, there is a lack of debates and analyses of migration in a global and long-term perspective. An exception was the British economist Paul Collier’s book, Exodus, which was published ten years ago, but it was not translated into Swedish and never had any significance for the Swedish debate.
Now there is a new groundbreaking book, Nomad Century, by British environmental journalist Gaia Vince (Allen Lane 2022). It is probably the first book to make a systematic integrated analysis of the climate crisis and migration. In general, climate migration has played a marginal role in the discussion on migration. But with a long-term perspective (up to the turn of the next century, but also within the next few decades), this must change. Climate change is becoming an important driver of migration, and migration is becoming the most important social impact of climate change.
The first conclusion of the Nomad Century is that climate must lead to migration. Large parts of the earth are becoming uninhabitable, and it is a matter of completely different volumes of migration than those that cause debate today. The 21st century is the century in which there will be unprecedented population movements. The big question is how the world will relate to this.
Migration is a natural act for man, it has been since the beginning of time. Humans are by nature nomads who must move geographically in order to survive. Of course, the conditions changed when we started cultivating the land and even more so when we started building industries and cities. However, the desire to move to improve one’s situation is always there, even if it is counteracted by restrictions such as the family, the social network and the existence of regulations created by nation states.
But now the situation has changed. The outlook for the future is terrible. Gaia Vince doesn’t mince words, she doesn’t accept scenarios of 1.5 or 2 degrees of warming. The most likely scenario is 4 degrees by the end of the century and it could get even worse. One projection says that within the next 30 years we will have 1.5 billion climate migrants. Most people will move from Africa and from South and East Asia, but there will also be large movements within Europe and America. Of course, it is difficult to say where this migration will go, but it is absolutely certain that it will go north.
The main message of the book is that there is only one salvation for the world and that is migration. That doesn’t mean it’s not important to reduce emissions and slow down warming. But that is not enough, both parts are necessary. But while a lot of processes are underway to limit warming, there is very little preparedness for a global population displacement. But in the future, we will not only have to completely change our lifestyles, but also become global citizens. We have to get over the idea that we belong to a country and that country belongs to us. Migration must not be seen as the problem, but as the solution.
On the other hand, it can be objected that the view of what will happen is excessively pessimistic. Regarding future climate migration, the Swedish Delegation for Migration Studies (Delmi) has recently presented a comprehensive report on research on climate migration. Climate Change, Displacement, Mobility and Migration, Delmi Research Overview 2022:9, by Mathias Czaika and Rainer Münz. The report paints a completely different picture, where the whole concept of climate migration is questioned and the figures presented by, among others, the UN are seen as significantly exaggerated. The authors do not deny that people are forced to move because of the climate, but say that it is usually temporary and almost always within a country. The bottom line is that people normally don’t want to move and are good at adapting to new conditions in the place they live. In principle, it is argued that there are no direct links between climate change and migration.
Another objection is that the view of migration as the ultimate solution is too optimistic. Sometimes it becomes overtly too idealistic. For many decades, there has been a migration of people from rural to urban areas, i.e. urbanisation, but it has not been primarily motivated by the climate, but by economic opportunities. Gaia Vince writes this development up to the year 2100, when she believes that basically the entire world’s population lives in cities. These are cities in new areas with better climates, such as Siberia, Greenland and probably also Sweden. All the different nationalities live together there, creating jobs, income and consumption. All of course climate-friendly. The energy can come from solar and wind power in uninhabitable parts of the world.
But the idea of constant migration is complicated by the fact that humans do not live solely to survive and reproduce. Unlike other animals, humans have developed a sense of “we”. We can and we must work together for our development. But the problem is that “we” automatically create “the others”. We identify ourselves in social groups that are larger than the nuclear family. History has taught us that this creates contradictions and sometimes wars, but it has also led to cooperation, communication and networks, which have been the basis of human development. But despite this, “tribalism” persists and is expressed in the context of migration as “xenophobia”. A prerequisite for future climate migration to be able to create a good (perhaps better) world is that the positive forces of increased interdependence can be harnessed while “tribal thinking” can be limited and managed. Gaia Vince sees the creation of “melting pot cities” as a way to achieve this. Already today, many big cities have become multicultural and show less racism and xenophobia than the countryside and smaller towns.
What about nationalism? Although different borders have existed for a long time, it was not until the end of the 19th century that nationality became an important group identity. Nation states were established and an international system of borders, rules and freedoms emerged. But while a comprehensive organization has been built up to enable the flow of goods, services, and money between countries, there is no organization that oversees the international flow of people. The only type of migrants who are subject to international rules are those who are defined as refugees from the political conditions of their home country and can be granted asylum in another country. For those fleeing the climate, there is no such possibility and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, believes that it is wrong to call them refugees. The implication is that this is voluntary migration. There is even less international cooperation with regard to all those who migrate for economic reasons, which is the main reason for the vast majority of migrants.
A fundamental question that does not seem to have been sufficiently explored is what the economic effects of increased migration are on emigrant countries, immigrant countries and on the migrants themselves. Paul Collier discussed this in Exodus and found that it is complicated and that there are winners and losers in all three cases. The biggest winners, he said, were the migrants themselves, even if it is also unevenly distributed. Gaia Vince leans more towards everyone being a winner. She writes that migration is by far the best way to help countries to all forms of development. Especially, it is much better than aid. This may be true economically, but she underestimates the political and cultural problems. The same applies to her views on the effects of migration in the receiving countries. Her examples, including those from Sweden, indicate great ignorance and naivety about the problems.
On the other hand, she is probably right that the current century will bring very big changes for everyone. The status quo is not an option. The strong opposition to immigration that now dominates in most of the countries of the “North” cannot continue, let alone be strengthened. The only reasonable policy is to prepare for a sharp increase in the influx of people. It means total restructuring of our societies and will cost a lot and take a long time, but it has to start now!
The vision is a global, cosmopolitan society, with diversification and multiculturalism within all nations. This requires global governance, based on strong nation states. But nation states must be reinvented. Instead of being based on history, geopolitics and “tribal thinking”, they must be based on what is common to society, especially nature and climate, i.e. what contributes to the survival of the planet.
It is easy to say that this is totally unrealistic. But the question is, what is the alternative? Nomad Century does not advocate degrowth, on the contrary, increased economic growth is seen as a positive consequence of migration. Capitalism and the market economy are not being questioned, but economic disparities must be reduced. The basic optimism is most evident in all the examples of how technological development could help solve the problems. It is not primarily about the usual ideas about green growth, but mainly about what is called “geoengineering”, i.e. large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s climate system. There are a number of proposals as to how this can be done, but they have never been implemented and have been criticised by most experts and thus tabooed. This also applies to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Gaia Vince, on the other hand, sees opportunities in this, even if one must assume that it cannot replace migration in our century.
Climate change is in focus now, but are we getting used to the UN reports and conferences and Greta’s “listen to the scientists”? Can we be satisfied with the scientists saying that “we don’t know that much, we can’t say anything for sure”? Perhaps a wake-up call is needed to predict the future a little further ahead. If so, Nomad Century is a very important book.
Globalisten 