Some coastal communities in Ireland are becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate change, a new report warns.
The report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in collaboration with the Ryan Institute at the University of Galway says these communities are at risk due to the increasing frequency and severity of extreme storms, flooding and sea level rise.
The IOM report, Assessing the Evidence: Migration, Environment and Climate Change in Ireland, also identified advantages and opportunities for Ireland to strengthen climate resilience.
Prof Charles Spillane, director of the interdisciplinary Ryan Institute, said the report includes future projections of escalating vulnerability and risk.
It also includes “recommendations for strengthening national responses regarding human mobility changes in response to climatic and environmental changes in Ireland.”
The report is the first “Migration, Environment and Climate Change Country Profile” in Europe, and is one of the IOM’s growing number of country reports which assess the evidence of the effects of climate change on migration.
Climate change is reshaping migration patterns around the world, with disasters now being the leading cause of internal displacements, it notes.
Last year alone, 32.6 million new internal human displacements were caused by disasters, according to the 2023 Global Report on Internal Displacement, published by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
Darya Silchenko, one of the report authors and a graduate of University of Galway’s masters in Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, said: “The report found that there is a scarcity of research and policy efforts that integrate climate change and environmental hazards in Ireland with their impacts on human migration”.
The report was compiled by a team from IOM and the University of Galway, including Darya Silchenko, Andrew Chisholm, Dr Una Murray, Dr Peter McKeown, Professor Charles Spillane and Lalini Veerassamy.
The full IOM Country Profile ‘Assessing the Evidence: Migration, Environment and Climate Change in Ireland’ can be accessed through the IOM Environmental Migration Portal here
