Conclusions

Abstract

In this book, I analyzed the extent to which internal migrants and stayers in areas affected by climate change across Peru’s highlands, rainforest, and coastline could meet their needs and how they self-assessed well-being. The former, objective well-being, includes livelihoods, health, education, shelter, social relatedness, among others, while the latter, subjective well-being, encompasses present emotional balance and cognitive satisfaction as well as views of the future. Three characteristic well-being pathways were clustered. First, displaced persons in the coastal zone and trapped people in the highlands experienced a tailspin into severe ill-being. Second, most migrants from the highlands and the trapped people in the rainforest wound up deadlocked in a worsening state of life, while the voluntary stayers in the Andes risked following this path as well. Finally, a small number of migrants from the highlands and the relocatees in the rainforest were able to recover slowly after climate impacts, albeit with taxing and laborious processes. Regarding mechanisms, the analysis shows that well-being impacts of climate (im)mobilities are primarily contingent on the favorability of structural conditions as well as on the nature and impacts of hazards, whereas people’s frequently low levels of agency can moderate the effects only to a limited extent. Transferring these findings beyond Peru, this study cautions that for most poor, undiversified subsistence farmers harmed by severe climate impacts and subjected to serious structural constraints, climate migration and immobility are bound to threaten well-being. In rarer cases when some of these key parameters are relatively favorable, well-being may return to the baseline, stagnate, or rise marginally; however, such recovery or gains tend to be frail. For policy debates, the findings suggest that under prevailing policy and structures, migration does not work as a positive adaptation strategy for many people. The book highlights that moving and staying can be the consequence of, and lead to further, significant loss and damage. Therefore, several actions recommended in this chapter are urgently needed to improve well-being for both movers and stayers. This includes efforts to reduce climate risks; protect and inform stayers; facilitate movement in dignity where needed; as well as safeguard and improve the well-being of migrants. The chapter also discusses the methodological and conceptual implications of the findings and highlights key research needs. Looking ahead, this book cautions that the well-being threats related to climate (im)mobilities could be extensive. Actions taken in this decade will be critical in determining the magnitude of future climate impacts, other shocks, resultant migration and immobility, and their well-being impacts.

In this dissertation, I examined the multidimensional well-being of internal climate migrants and stayers in affected areas across Peru’s three large topographical zones, namely its highlands, rainforest, and coastline. I focused on the extent to which people could meet their needs and how they self-assessed well-being. The applied objective well-being (OWB) axes concerned people’s chances for development from a secure base (including livelihoods, health, and education), a space to live better (factors such as shelter), and social relatedness. The subjective well-being (SWB) axis included present emotional balance and cognitive satisfaction, and views of the future (see chapter 2). The findings indicate how moving or staying affected well-being, how different components of OWB and SWB varied and related to each other, and how they changed over time. In addition, the results show which mechanisms of action and social conditions influenced the observed well-being impacts.

Taking a comparative approach, I analyzed qualitative and quantitative data on well-being impacts from three case studies that shared similarities and differences. The cases focused on climate migration from, or immobility in, rural villages with similar subsistence livelihoods that were struck by water-related hazards typical for Peru’s three large topographical zones. Resulting (im)mobility dynamics were characteristic of the respective hazards but dissimilar across cases, which created varying conditions for well-being impacts. In the first case study, I examined long-distance, rural-to-urban individual or household migration from two villages in Peru’s highlands (Sierra) in the Lima Region to large cities. Gradual water scarcity due to glacier recession and rainfall changes influenced their migration. Movement ranged from more voluntary to clearly forced instances and mostly occurred under distress because of unfavorable structural conditions, as opposed to a few migrants moving under more favorable improvement conditions. Stayers were mostly voluntarily immobile in one and trapped in the other highland village. In the second analysis, I focused on attempted planned relocation of two villages in the rainforest (Selva) Region of San Martín after severe, abrupt floods. Both cases resulted in forced immobility for years under structural constraints that created distress conditions. Only one of the two villages eventually completed voluntary relocation to another location in its close vicinity, equally under structural distress conditions. In the third case, I examined short-distance, internal displacement driven by abrupt floods during the 2017 Coastal El Niño, with a focus in the coastal (Costa) Region of Piura in the qualitative strand and regression analyses for all of Peru. This forced migration occurred under structural barriers that led to survival conditions for moving.

Through qualitative text analysis and regression models, I demonstrated that well-being impacts were on average more net-negative than net-positive across cases. The wide range of the examined cases could be clustered in three characteristic well-being pathways with similar dynamics across the different phases of migration or immobility. First, displaced persons in the coastal zone and trapped people in the highlands experienced a tailspin into severe ill-being. Both groups suffered extensive losses because of severe climate impacts, which jeopardized their later well-being. Because staying or migrating proceeded under highly adverse structural conditions and with very limited agency, these affected people ended in downward spirals of objective and subjective destitution with little room for recovery. Second, most migrants from the highlands and the trapped people in the rainforest winded up deadlocked in a worsening state of life, while the voluntary stayers in the Andes risked following this path as well. Increasing climate-induced harm, combined with structural marginalization and constrained individual resources, blocked their opportunities for well-being in the urban areas characterized by increasingly unreceptive modes of incorporation. Finally, a small number of migrants from the highlands and the relocatees in the rainforest were able to recover slowly after climate impacts, albeit with taxing and laborious processes. Less adverse structural conditions or more moderate levels of agency enabled them to obtain incremental, fragile advances in well-being. Despite these absolute well-being differences between groups, within the examined groups, the OWB and SWB components mostly changed in similar directions. Especially development from a secure base and a space to live better had palpable bidirectional links, and jointly, they influenced SWB strongly. Conversely, social relatedness assumed a partially separate dynamic: due to strong community or diaspora ties and self-organization capacities, most migrants and stayers preserved or regained social capital, even in cases when other well-being components deteriorated.

Using the full body of the evidence generated from the individual case studies, I induced several propositions on the underlying mechanisms behind the observed well-being effects. The results suggest that well-being impacts of different climate (im)mobilities are primarily contingent on the favorability of structural conditions as well as on the nature and impacts of hazards. Critical structural constraints which amplify risks to well-being include gaps in development and climate adaptation; limited rural livelihood options; land scarcity; tenure insecurity; marginalization; weak governance; and the effects of population growth. Conversely, subsistence farmers’ frequently low levels of agency can moderate the effects only to a limited extent. In most cases, well-being losses early on after the onset of hazards create strong, persistent burdens for people’s subsequent prospects to be well, regardless of whether they stay or migrate. The risk of additional deprivation is particularly high when structural constraints outweigh structural opportunities in defining the course of (im)mobilities; when people’s migratory agency and further resources are minimal; and when intersectional social factors result in high vulnerabilities or systemic disenfranchisement. Consequently, for most poor, undiversified subsistence farmers harmed by severe climate impacts and subjected to serious structural constraints, climate migration and immobility are bound to threaten well-being in the short to medium term. Prior structural adversities are likely reproduced or exacerbated during such climate (im)mobilities, if concerned actors do not intervene thoroughly. In rarer cases when structural conditions, hazard impacts, and levels of agency are relatively favorable, well-being may return to the baseline, stagnate, or rise marginally, however, such recovery or gains tend to be frail.

1 Implications

There are substantial reasons for concern that the risks to well-being identified here exist not only for the studied groups but also for other structurally disadvantaged subsistence farmers engaged in climate (im)mobilities across Peru and worldwide.¹ In Peru, about one in four laborers work in agriculture, and around 80% as subsistence farmers (CEPLAN 2016; World Bank 2019). Their vulnerabilities are frequently as high as in the case studies conducted for this dissertation: 46% of Peru’s rural residents are poor and many more threatened by poverty (World Bank 2017a); four in five farmers have insecure land ownership or tenure (FAO 2022); most farmers work informally (CEPLAN 2016); and 70% of all towns in Peru, mainly in the rural areas, are in a state of high or very high food insecurity (WFP & CENEPRED 2015). These numbers provide an indication of the scale of people threatened by well-being losses related to climate (im)mobilities in Peru today.

At the global level, around two in three people in low and lower-middle-income countries live in rural areas and work in climate-sensitive agricultural activities (UNDESA 2021; World Bank 2021c). They are often subjected to structural conditions similar to those that increased the risks to well-being most strongly in this study. Compounding the well-being threats, these structural drivers of risk are particularly salient in countries where climate hazards are also most severe. First, development gaps are large in many of the world’s rural areas, and the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed much of the progress of past decades (UN 2021). Globally, close to one fifth of the rural residents live in extreme poverty (UNDESA 2021); 65% of all poor, working adults are farmers (World Bank 2021c); about half of all food-insecure people depend on small-scale agriculture (Sanchez & Swaminathan 2005); and 91% of those working in agriculture lack social protection (UN 2021). Second, while smallholders are greatly exposed and vulnerable to climate hazards (Donatti et al. 2019; Niles & Salerno 2018), adaptation remains fragmented and insufficient worldwide (Berrang-Ford et al. 2015; Berrang-Ford et al. 2021), and adaptive capacities are weakest in low and lower middle-income countries (ND-GAIN 2022). The adaptive capacities of smallholders are especially low, and they have already reached soft limits of adaptation in various world regions today (IPCC 2022a). Third, most subsistence farmers have limited options to improve or adjust their livelihoods, leaving them vulnerable to shocks. Key barriers for developing or diversifying on- or off-farm activities include small farm sizes, limited access to modern markets, and gaps in rural education (Fan & Rue 2020; Lakin & Gasperini 2003). Fourth, land scarcity and tenure insecurity remain pervasive structural constraints that increase well-being risks related to climate (im)mobilities in many countries. Around four in five farms worldwide are smallholdings with less than two hectares in size, which require substantial human labor and inputs, have a low productivity, and are vulnerable to shocks because they operate with minimal margins (Gómez y Paloma et al. 2020; Hannah Ritchie & Max Roser 2021; Herrero et al. 2017; Lowder et al. 2014). Simultaneously, in most poorer countries, more than half of the farmers lack land ownership or secure tenure, especially smallholders and female farmers (FAO 2022; UN 2021). Globally, close to one billion people fear to be likely or very likely evicted in the next five years (Prindex 2022). Fifth, many social groups worldwide continue to be systematically marginalized. As two examples, 3 billion girls and women live in countries with poor or very poor gender equality (EM 2022; World Bank 2021c), and the world’s one billion people with disabilities also continue to suffer from socioeconomic exclusion and poverty rates above average (WHO & World Bank 2011; World Bank 2020b). Sixth, weak governance poses a persistent constraint in many world regions (World Bank 2017d), which can exacerbate well-being risks linked to climate (im)mobilities. For example, corruption remains a serious problem in two thirds of all countries, with almost no progress achieved (Transparency International 2022). Further challenges concerning state legitimacy, fragility, rule of law, and human rights are extensive around the globe (FFP 2021). Close to half of the world’s population distrusts state institutions, around one third perceives civil servants as untrustworthy, and politicians are seen as the least trustworthy among various professions (Edelman 2022; Ipsos 2021). Seventh, population growth can add to the structural factors that raise well-being risks related to climate (im)mobilities. Critically, most growth might be concentrated in poorer countries which also face most climate risks (Guzmán et al. 2009; Nugent 2019; UNDESA 2019), although access to modern energy and education could still significantly attenuate such growth trajectories (Belmin et al. 2022; KC & Lutz 2017; Lutz & KC 2011). Altogether, the number of people in Peru and globally subjected to structural constraints similar to those identified in this study is large, which stresses the scale of possible well-being threats related to climate (im)mobilities. A great share of future climate (im)mobilities may occur in the regions with the highest structural constraints: while projections for immobility, relocation, and displacement are unavailable, close to 3% of the total population in six developing regions, or 216 million people, may become internal climate migrants by 2050, if high emissions combine with unequal development (Clement et al. 2021).²

The findings identified here also yield insights with relevance beyond Peru for another reason: Peru is home to examples of most of the Earth’s climate zones, highly varying landscapes, and megadiverse ecosystems and can therefore be considered a microcosm of the global challenges caused by climate change (MINAM 2015). In this dissertation, I purposefully gathered data in three significantly different zones of this megadiverse country to raise the external validity of findings and provide insights for adjacent areas which share similar livelihood systems, ecosystems, and climate zones. Examples of such areas include Chile’s northern desert, other mountainous zones in the Andean countries, and rainforest regions in neighboring states. To date, few studies collect comparative data on climate (im)mobilities in neighboring countries, although especially border regions often share fundamental similarities. This thinking within national boundaries limits the research community’s ability to understand the nexus within similar socioecological systems more comprehensively. Such comparisons would be useful to examine the effects of different policy setups.

In a following step, the findings on how and why different climate (im)mobilities affect well-being can also inform future research and planning to protect affected people. Such insights are needed as the numbers of climate migrants and trapped people are set to rise but studies on the related well-being impacts remain scarce (Clement et al. 2021; Foresight 2011; Hoffmann et al. under review). Chiefly, this dissertation has implications for two arenas. First, it sheds light on adequate methodological and conceptual approaches for studying this issue. Second, it provides evidence for the ongoing debates on the adaptive potential of migration or staying as well as for those on Loss and Damage due to climate change, which, jointly, underpin policymaking and planning in this field.

To begin with, the study adds to the methodological development in the field by using mixed methods. Such designs have been called for to improve the understanding of mechanisms of action, the validity of findings, and researchers’ reflectivity, but remain rare³ (Bergman 2018; Boas et al. 2020; Durand-Delacre et al. 2021; Schwerdtle et al. 2020). The central qualitative component in this study was key to both identify the well-being effects of climate (im)mobilities and understand their underlying mechanisms of action. This work thus corroborates that qualitative research has unique “powers” and is “inimitable” to assess climate impacts and related experiences people make in the social world (Nature Climate Change 2021: 717). Applying the same qualitative methods to varying forms of climate (im)mobilities across Peru also rendered a robust evidence base that, through comparative analysis, allowed inducing propositions with greater validity. Three lessons were learned for future mixed methods studies in this field. First, they could expand their qualitative components with more focus groups for groups deserving specific attention (Ruppenthal et al. 2005; Skop 2006; Wilkinson 1999). Second, an intergenerational and life course perspective for time-dependent effects could be valuable (Kley 2011; Singh et al. 2019; Wingens et al. 2011). Lastly, fine structure and system analyses of the primary data, two resource-intensive methods, may provide additional depth (Froschauer & Lueger 2003). Simultaneously, the applied quantitative methods were valuable to corroborate the well-being losses and measure the strength of effects in the case study of the 2017 Coastal El Niño. The dataset with close to 190,000 respondents covered all of Peru and rendered results with statistical and substantive significance that validated the results derived from the small-scale, qualitative sample from select sites in northern Peru (Mahoney 2008). Peru’s statistical agency supported this research by matching respondents in two previously separate datasets, which rendered longitudinal data that allowed analyzing well-being changes over time. This type of collaboration could provide a model for how to obtain data to improve knowledge on various other aspects of climate (im)mobilities (Vinke & Hoffmann 2020). In addition, the regression analyses of the extensive survey data identified new patterns only visible in samples much larger than the qualitative one, such as the increased displacement risk related to being a single parent. However, a statistical analysis alone would have been unable to provide the same depth of analysis of the processes, context, and social conditions that led to the well-being impacts, and thus, the qualitative strand proved key “to understand the meaning of what we see” in the survey data (Boas et al. 2020: 195). Because the regression analyses were also limited to the available items in the secondary survey, which did not reflect all pertinent well-being elements, the primary qualitative data remained critical to identify the wide range of relevant changes. Therefore, to summarize, the mixed methods approach centered on a strong qualitative strand and enhanced by statistical analyses proved fitting to identify the well-being impacts of climate (im)mobilities and understand underlying mechanisms of action.

Beyond these methodological lessons, the study also provides insights into conceptual frameworks suited to study climate (im)mobilities. Conceptualization is vital because only what is defined can be measured, assessed, and consequently inform policy and planning. Well-being proved an appropriate lens for this study, which is in line with the approach favored recently by the IPCC (Cissé et al. 2022). The findings confirmed the importance of all components in the applied well-being framework, namely needs derived from universal and local views (Copestake 2008b; McGregor et al. 2015) combined with people’s subjective life evaluations (Costanza et al. 2007; OECD 2013). This multidimensional well-being framework covered most key metrics on vulnerability in displacement suggested by international organizations (EGRIS 2020; JIPS 2018) as well as the reconstruction needs for displacement and resettlement described in Cernea’s (2004) influential model (see Section 2.3). In the analysis, the framework proved valuable for two reasons. First, the applied objective measures were sufficiently comprehensive for the complexity of the research questions at hand. The analysis highlighted that all objective measures deserved separate attention because they often changed in the same direction, but not always. For example, past studies often only used income or the three human development metrics income, education, and health as proxies for overall well-being; yet such a narrow lens would have overlooked diverging changes in other well-being realms in the case studies, such as the diverging effects on social relatedness. The international metrics on displacement vulnerabilities mentioned above also insufficiently account for social relatedness. Conversely, those metrics recommend measuring political and legal items as well, such as access to documentation, which I did not examine in this study, but which could usefully inform future data collection on climate migration. Second, applying a lens on people’s subjective state of life resulted in new—and occasionally contradictory—insights into people’s well-being.⁴ It demonstrated that people’s SWB was challenged for the most part and in some cases, even seemingly reasonable conditions failed to translate into positive lives in people’s own evaluations. Such SWB declines require dedicated policy attention not only as they demonstrate how people’s self-appraised life quality can come under pressure, but also because SWB can impinge on other well-being variables (Diener et al. 2018b; Forgeard et al. 2011). For example, the widespread hopelessness among climate migrants and trapped people could intensify perceptions of vulnerability, uncontrollability, and unpredictability; it may also block action to protect oneself against harm, to protest injustices, and ultimately to subsist in adverse settings (Carver & Scheier 2014; Forgeard & Seligman 2012). An analysis merely centered on OWB, or standard economic measures of success, would have failed to expose these nuanced effects. The findings of this study thus support calls for more complete measures of well-being in migration research and policies (Hendriks & Bartram 2019). Particularly, they emphasize that a multidimensional well-being lens built on objective and subjective measures of well-being is indispensable for examining the complex effects of climate (im)mobilities. However, to my knowledge, such human-centered lenses have not been applied previously in this field, despite their increasing significance in studies on migration (Haindorfer 2019a) and sustainable development (Adams et al. 2020; Lutz et al. 2021). While I focused on hedonic approaches to SWB in this study given time and resource constraints, future work could apply lenses that also integrate eudaimonic ideas. Eudaimonia (from ancient Greek “flourishing”) was the highest goal of human action for Aristotle. It centers on positive functioning, personal development, self-realization, meaning and purpose (Robinson 1999), using and developing the best in people (Huta & Ryan 2010), or living virtuous lives that realize the human potential (Delle Fave et al. 2011b; Huta & Waterman 2014). Psychological well-being (PWB) research builds on this notion (Ryff 1989; Ryff & Keyes 1995; Ryff & Singer 2008). While hedonic and eudaimonic measures are associated, they refer to distinct subjective states and underlying phenomena (Henderson & Knight 2012; OECD 2013). A primary reason why eudaimonic ideas deserve integration in studies on migration impacts is that gains and losses in both hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions affect overall well-being (Huta & Ryan 2010). For this reason, several scholars argue that these paths jointly form SWB (Delle Fave et al. 2011a; McGillivray 2007; Stiglitz et al. 2009). Available integrated approaches⁵ would offer potential to understand well-being impacts of climate (im)mobilities even more comprehensively. Such future work could also mitigate agreed limitations of exclusively hedonic SWB frameworks.⁶

Beyond informing methodological and conceptual debates, this study also has key implications for discussing the adaptive potential of climate migration and related policymaking or planning. At least since scholarly work in the 2000s (McLeman & Smit 2006) and the inception of the Cancún Adaptation Framework (UNFCCC 2010), migration, displacement, and relocation have been considered from a climate adaptation viewpoint (Warner 2012). Whereas prior studies on Peru have echoed related framing debates without critically engaging with them (see Bergmann et al. 2021a), the results of this study cast doubt on the notion of migration as adaptation. They suggest that under prevailing policy and structures, migration does not work as a positive adaptation strategy for many people. However, it could be more successful with the reforms recommended in Section 9.2.

First, the findings emphasize that gradual climate impacts (such as glacier retreat and rainfall changes) can render migration conditions increasingly distressful, especially for people with tangible prior vulnerabilities and those subjected to state neglect. Most affected people suffered from substantial OWB hardship and evaluated their needs as unfulfilled while these SWB losses, in turn, threatened to further reduce OWB. In destinations, adverse structural conditions continued to diminish migrants’ prospects for adaptive gains. For example, land scarcity and unequal tenure systems left rural distress migrants with few choices but to live in irregular settlements where they lacked decent housing, basic services, and tenure security. The results also support concerns that even those who manage to adapt to primary climate impacts in their homelands by migrating often encounter secondary hazards in the cities (Adger et al. 2018). Taken together, these findings suggest that in societies with strong structural inequalities, few poor people may have sufficient agency to confront escalating hazards effectively, either by moving or staying. Accordingly, the results reinforce existing challenges to presentations of migration as adaptation (Blocher et al. 2021a; Sakdapolrak et al. 2016; Vinke 2019; Vinke et al. 2020; Wrathall et al. 2014). Moreover, the study reveals that for poor migrants from isolated areas moving under distress structural conditions, moving is prone to fail as a translocal group risk management strategy, as suggested by advocates for migration as adaptation and NELM theory (Ober & Sakdapolrak 2017; Stark & Bloom 1985). For example, remittances had palliative effects for stayers in the highlands but could not effectively support climate adaptation or nullify the negative effects of emigration, such as losses of labor force and social capital. The more advanced the stage and volume of emigration, the more negative became the impacts for areas of origin, especially once thresholds toward settlement abandonment were crossed. Consequently, the adaptive potential of migration seems limited in the many areas worldwide where gradual climate impacts threaten to be most severe but where, at once, structural inequalities and constrained household resources make it unlikely that migrants benefit in the short to medium term. If such migration can yield better adaptive results over the longer term, particularly over generations, remains an important open question that requires more longitudinal studies.

Second, this study cautions that displacement forced rapidly by abrupt hazards such as floods, and occurring as displacement under structurally challenging survival conditions, unequivocally threatens to degrade adaptive capacities. For example, migration saved lives after the 2017 Coastal El Niño floods in Peru, but overall, outcomes for OWB and adaptive capacities were devastating as people lost their livelihoods, assets, and homes. These unfulfilled needs caution about the absence of progress toward durable solutions for people displaced by climate impacts (EGRIS 2020; JIPS 2018) and the Sustainable Development Goals (UNGA 2015). Most migrants also ended in subjective states of deprivation, which can further deteriorate OWB. These observed well-being losses provide a call to increase investments in disaster risk reduction and management (DRR/DRM), which is all the more needed as the hazards which have caused most disaster displacement in Peru to date are projected to increase (see chapter VII). Without concerted efforts, displacement risk will also rise since more people will be living in exposed areas in Peru (SINAGERD et al. 2014) and globally (de Sherbinin et al. 2012). While some people are forced to settle in such exposed zones, others choose to live in them because of interim benefits, such as having access to affordable land (Hallegatte 2017; Mishra 2001). Nevertheless, this study suggests that such cost–benefit calculations could change rapidly as recurrent abrupt hazards become more frequent and severe, and their impacts accumulate with gradual processes such as warming. As a result, permanent displacement risk can arise for those who chose to ‘live with the floods’ before (Gaillard et al. 2008; Sultana 2010) and those who are forced to do so. Because such acute, forced survival movements are bound to threaten well-being, displacement should not be discussed under the umbrella of adaptation.

Third, it should not be forgotten that many people stay in place even when severely threatened by climate impacts, which can also strongly affect adaptive capacities and well-being. Nonetheless, stayers remain “a neglected challenge” in policy, data, and research in Peru (Bergmann et al. 2021a) and worldwide (Foresight 2011; Geddes et al. 2012: 953). Policymakers and planners must recognize that immobilities have multiple drivers and varied impacts (Black et al. 2013; Upadhyay et al. under review). Many people in Peru voluntarily opt to stay in the beginning of gradual climate changes and attempt to adapt locally because they are bound to their homes through place satisfaction, social obligations, or fear of leaving (Adams 2016; Koubi et al. 2016). Conversely, climate impacts that wear down migration capabilities can trap at-risk groups in dangerous zones (Black & Collyer 2014).⁷ The analyses in Peru’s rainforest and highlands caution that especially such forced immobility can worsen adaptive capacities and well-being, including through continued hazard exposure and resultant downward spirals of loss and damage, SWB declines, and further reductions of migration capabilities. People trapped in areas with frequent, severe hazards may risk ending up threatened by periodic, life-threatening displacements. Entrapment must thus be a humanitarian and development concern in the many poor areas globally where climate impacts are worsening but governance is weak and local adaptation options limited. Adequate resources and policies are needed to address operational issues (Geddes et al. 2012), yet required efforts are difficult because they involve domestic politics of states that are often ill-equipped or unwilling to deal with the issue (Black et al. 2013). Finally, the case in Peru’s Sierra shows that voluntary immobility in risk zones can initially yield better results than entrapment (Ahsan et al. 2022); but as climate impacts and migration intensify, conditions can gradually worsen and threaten stayers’ adaptive capacities and well-being, another reason why more longitudinal research is needed.

Fourth, the analysis demonstrates that planned relocation in states with weak governance carries significant risks for people’s adaptive capacities and well-being. When on-site reaction strategies reach their limits, moving can become the only viable—although challenging—option. Facilitated climate migration can be one way to meet the protection responsibilities of home governments, emitting states, and the international community (Aleinikoff 2020), and corrective and prospective relocations are one concrete tool that concerned actors use to facilitate escape from risk zones. Yet, past relocations in Peru have been burdened with a lack of oversight, financial limitations, and institutional frictions.⁸ Implementing authorities often disregarded land and social issues, livelihood necessities, and people’s place attachment. Therefore, several related initiatives have threatened well-being. Many affected people have either declined to move, returned, or maintained dual residencies (see review in Bergmann et al. 2021a). The new Selva case study herein verifies that attempted relocation can have ambivalent effects for adaptation and well-being. It cautions that relocations are often fragmented journeys and threaten to entail long phases of harmful entrapment. Even the more positive trajectory of the one completed relocation created mixed OWB and SWB impacts at best. This result suggests that relocations can help groups lacking proper migration capabilities adapt to climate risks only under specific conditions (Ferris & Weerasinghe 2020): the adaptive potential is limited without suitable institutional capacities, committed state support and funding for the often-prolonged transitions, genuine consultation and participation, and safeguards for people’s rights. Relocation can only be a last resort for a small share of the growing number of people who live in high-risk zones, and the evidence presented in this study cautions that severe well-being problems can ensue. When relocation is required, Peru’s relocation legislation constitutes progress,⁹ but this analysis demonstrates that its implementation remains fragmented. Other studies confirm this gap between policy and practice in Peru’s DRR/DRM (French et al. 2020; French & Mechler 2017; GFDRR 2010), which echoes its general governance problems (McNulty & Guerra Garcia 2019; Morón & Sanborn 2006; Thiery 2016). Similar concerns exist worldwide: relocation legislation often does not exist and if it does, execution is weak and can imperil people’s well-being (Wilmsen & Webber 2015). An additional threat is that relocations can serve political and economic motives, including control over populations (Farbotko et al. 2020). Thus, relocations remain a risky option for people’s adaptive capacities and well-being. Worryingly, global “momentum is shifting toward planned relocation” despite this conflicted past use (Farbotko et al. 2020: 703), and Peru has also embraced it as a strategic solution in various frameworks (French et al. 2020; Lavell et al. 2016).

Altogether, these findings question how much adaptive potential diverse forms of climate (im)mobilities offer, especially when they occur under structurally adverse survival or distress conditions, after severe hazards, involuntarily, and with limited agency. The latest IPCC report agrees that while people attempt to respond to climate-induced uncertainty and well-being threats through migration, the “migrant success [sic]” is highly variable and delimited by structure and agency (Cissé et al. 2022: 48–49). As a result, especially displacement and forced migration have “generated and perpetuated vulnerability” (IPCC 2022a: 12). In many countries with high structural constraints, adaptive gains may be limited to few cases where climate impacts are less severe and where people possess resources above average or systematic advantages. It is worrying that even migration under structurally more favorable improvement conditions seems to create short- to medium-term advances that are fragile at best, while initially voluntary stayers in risk zones may also increasingly lose adaptive capacities as climate impacts intensify. Although the long-term balance between the costs and benefits of staying or moving still requires more research, the findings above do have implications for the approaches championed in policy processes such as the Cancún Adaptation Framework (UNFCCC 2010), the Global Compact for Migration (UNGA 2018), and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (Guadagno 2016; UNISDR 2015). Because climate migration and immobility threaten to exacerbate many people’s vulnerabilities for years, human rights protection and human security approaches should supplement and, in many cases, supplant migration as adaptation lenses. Such a shift in tone would also stress that states must assume their protection responsibilities instead of transferring responsibility for adaptation to individuals by calling on them to migrate (Bettini & Gioli 2016). The findings of this study reveal the blind spots of migration as adaptation perspectives: if applied in simplistic ways, they risk ignoring that climate (im)mobilities of subsistence farmers in highly unequal societies tend to (re)produce vulnerabilities; that numerous people are threatened with entrapment which reduces their well-being; and that sending areas may not profit strongly from emigration. Finally, migration can entail a substantial impoverishment risk as well as loss and damage for those who move (Cernea 2004; Thomas & Benjamin 2020), as discussed below. Unfortunately, staying in place under the status quo is not an alternative for many households that face the increasingly damaging effects of climate change. As discussed in the recommendations, actions to improve well-being for both movers and stayers are needed.

Against this background, migration rightfully features in policy discussion on Loss and Damage (L&D), which have been riddled by controversies, however (James et al. 2014; Tschakert et al. 2019). The debate has been catalyzed by improved scientific knowledge on severe or irrevocable climate impacts that have not been avoided—or cannot be avoided anymore.¹⁰ In 2013, L&D became institutionalized in the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) in the UNFCCC. Because displacement is a climate change effect that can imply significant L&D, WIM commissioned a task force to provide options “to avert, minimize and address displacement” (Task Force on Displacement 2018: 1). Multidimensional well-being studies like the present one can inform this debate by providing a fuller picture of both OWB and SWB gains and losses due to climate (im)mobilities. Foremost, the Costa case study highlights the severe economic and non-economic L&D experienced by persons displaced by abrupt hazards in Peru, both prior to and throughout movement and settling. Moreover, recurrent state failures have contributed to continued L&D in the rainforest, at first when the two studied villages were forced into immobility in risk zones, and later when one of them eventually relocated but lacked promised protection and support for reconstruction. Finally, findings in the Sierra indicate that gradual climate impacts in remote, ecologically vulnerable areas with limited state presence can lead to mixed movements; however, both initially more voluntary, improvement migrants as well as increasingly forced distress migrants are threatened by provisional and non-provisional losses throughout their journeys (although to different extents). Additionally, the analysis underlines that climate change and related (im)mobilities can bring about losses for both migrants and sending communities, such as the erosion of traditional knowledge and community cohesion. From a climate justice perspective, all these losses require remedies and compensation by the international community (Page & Heyward 2017). This study reinforces calls that “financial, technical, and legal support would be appropriate for instances where hard [adaptation] limits are transgressed” (Mechler et al. 2020: 1245), especially for losses regarding development from a secure base and a space to live better. Other losses are more difficult to recover or compensate for, however. Examples include emigration-induced losses of cultural practices, traditions, identity, and social organization in hometowns or migrants’ losses of aesthetic and cultural ecosystem services. As these losses can also strongly reduce well-being, they urgently require responses by the international community. However, while UNFCCC members agreed to improve action and support for people affected by L&D—including through finance, technology, and capacity building—words are not followed by necessary action, and WIM has had an overall limited effect to date (Mechler et al. 2020). A particular concern is that gradual events and non-economic L&D —two factors that were salient in this study—remain insufficiently addressed. Because richer and poorer countries hold diverging views on questions of liability and event attribution, the compensation offered by the former is far from the L&D incurred by the latter (Calliari et al. 2020; Gewirtzman et al. 2018). Given estimated L&D of several hundred billion USD per year, assistance would need to equal at least 300 billion in 2030 (Hirsch 2021), but richer states removed the Glasgow L&D Facility envisaged by poorer states in the Conference of the Parties 26 in 2021 (Basu 2021; Broom 2021). This study demonstrates how urgent it is to solve this difficult question and address rising volumes of climate migration and immobility that result from, and can entail, substantial loss and damage.

2 Recommendations

While the three case studies corroborate the pervasive well-being risks associated with several forms of climate (im)mobilities, the comparative analysis also establishes that concerned actors have scope to uphold or enhance well-being. The major entry points following from the analysis are thoroughly improving challenging structural conditions, profoundly lowering climate risks, as well as supporting the agency of climate migrants and stayers. Figure 9.1 shows that action is recommended across four clusters: (a) reducing climate risks; (b) protecting and informing stayers; (c) facilitating movement in dignity where needed; as well as (d) safeguarding and improving the well-being of migrants.

Figure 9.1

Recommendations to enhance the well-being of affected populations. (Note: Created by the author)

First, climate risk reduction is imperative since people’s well-being trajectories strongly depend on the nature and impacts of hazards.¹¹ Global emissions reductions are pivotal to curb climate impacts yet reaching the Paris Goal of limiting warming to a less critical level of 1.5 °C global mean surface temperatures higher above pre-industrial times by 2100 seems impossible with current commitments. Current real-world action suggests a path that would more likely result in 2.7 °C (Climate Action Tracker 2021; WMO 2021). Ensuing climate hazards in such a scenario would pose high well-being threats to migrants and stayers alike in affected areas (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2021). Next, because pressures on people’s well-being will grow even in lower emissions scenarios, reducing exposure and vulnerability is as important as mitigating greenhouse gases (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2018). Foremost, the findings in all three case studies stress that the international community and states must invest more to address livelihood erosion, uninhabitability, and settlement abandonment in affected areas. Chiefly, they must reduce displacement risk where staying in dignity is viable and desired, by addressing structural, intersectional inequalities. To this end, regional and international cooperation, increased funding, and dedicated development efforts are needed fast, because climate change threatens to exacerbate the existing inequalities that already raise displacement risk for people in rural areas (Hallegatte et al. 2016; Hallegatte et al. 2018) and cities (IDMC 2021c). Modelling indicates that stringent development action can sharply reduce forced internal migration related to gradual climate impacts (Clement et al. 2021; Rigaud et al. 2018). Accompanied by investments in DRR/DRM (Hallegatte et al. 2017) and in local climate adaptation (GCA 2019; IPCC 2022a), such efforts can also shield people from well-being losses. Critically, Peru should accelerate the shift toward building long-term resilience and prospective DRR/DRM instead of after-the-fact responses. Mobilizing DRR/DRM resources, for example, by targeting global climate funds, is key especially for zones with high displacement risk. At the same time, all DRR/DRM efforts must work hand in hand with climate adaptation to expand subsistence farmers’ room to maneuver. More transformational, effective adaptation is needed (Berrang-Ford et al. 2021) and tested options for such adaptation include investments in livelihood diversification; fertilizer and compost practices; water supply and irrigation systems; agroecology and agroforestry; extension services; community-based programs; sharing traditional and local knowledge; and reliance on social networks (Owen 2020).

Second, protection for stayers must be a priority for areas with worsening climate impacts. As seen in the Sierra study, increasing emigration can lead to losses of labor force, social networks, traditions, and critical infrastructure in rural areas, which, in turn, create a risk of severe, progressive OWB and SWB declines. In the Selva, entire communities wishing to relocate were forced into immobility that threatened their well-being for years. Concerned actors need to expand operational efforts to address such immobilities. First of all, forced immobility implies challenges for domestic and international protection and efforts are needed to support in-place DRR/DRM, local adaptation in dignity, and vulnerability reductions (Geddes et al. 2012; Nawrotzki & DeWaard 2018). For example, support should diversify livelihoods, train skills, strengthen financial resources (Afifi et al. 2016), improve monitoring systems for diseases, food, and water security (Brubaker et al. 2011), and compensate for loss and damage (Page & Heyward 2017). However, care is needed so that support efforts do not contribute to forced immobility by “implicitly oblig[ing] … citizens to hold fast and dig in, shore up defences and hope for the best” (Baldacchino 2018: 223). Next, the state must recognize that some people—especially older adults and those with special ties to land—do not want to leave despite high risks, and that they may have a right to stay (Black et al. 2013). Voluntary immobility implies challenges at the domestic level, with international assistance, to build resilience and sustain livelihoods (Geddes et al. 2012). Humanitarian and development actors must address common problems such as economic hardship, education and health service problems, food insecurity, and psychosocial issues. Action is also needed to conserve local knowledge, traditions, and customs to avoid losses of identity, culture, and history. Furthermore, for both forced and voluntary immobility, translocal approaches integrating communities in source and destination areas are required, as the Sierra case study emphasizes. Projects should expand the adaptation potential of financial and social remittances sent by individuals and through hometown associations. Supporting translocal communication possibilities could also contribute to the well-being of migrants and stayers. However, care must be taken to ensure that responsibilities for protection and adaptation are not outsourced to affected individuals (Bettini & Gioli 2016); where climate impacts threaten people, the international community must guarantee adequate climate financing for adaptation and compensate for loss and damage. Finally, while staying can be a choice, the international community and states must enable all people in affected areas to access evidence about the local interplay of gradual and abrupt hazards and their cumulative effects, so they can make informed decisions about whether to invest in place or prepare moving to suitable destinations. Information campaigns, financial literacy programs, access to financial resources, and pre-departure orientation workshops could help (Clement et al. 2021). Such information may be provided through trusted local gatekeepers such as farmers’ organizations, migrant actors, or NGOs. The Sierra case illustrates that this type of data must account for adaptation limits and possible social tipping points, such as closure of critical infrastructure.

Third, all case studies highlight that when severe climate impacts cannot be avoided anymore, moving may remain the only path to safety among various perilous options and should be supported carefully (Guadagno & Yonetani 2022). Many people who desire to stay for socio-cultural reasons simultaneously perceive that climate impacts can overwhelm their capacities and express the need to move (Zickgraf 2019). Concerned actors should not attempt to force such people into ill-fated local adaptation efforts (Baldacchino 2018); rather, they should support the ‘right’ to move to reduce well-being risks related to forced immobility (Black et al. 2013; Bronen & Chapin 2013; Geddes et al. 2012; Nawrotzki & DeWaard 2018). Such efforts can be considered a duty from a moral and climate justice perspective (Bettini et al. 2017; Bettini & Gioli 2016; Gemenne 2015); many of those most affected by climate impacts are poor farmers who have often managed to live with, not at the expense of, nature for centuries and caused limited emissions, but may still lose their home and well-being. They have a right to protection, compensation, and remedies. Facilitated migration can be one way to meet the protection responsibilities of home governments, emitting states, and the international community (Aleinikoff 2020). Yet, care must be taken that state obligations for protection and climate adaptation are not outsourced to at-risk groups themselves, such as when narratives of retreat from risk areas intend to obscure “state withdrawal and the individualisation of responsibility” (Baldwin 2016; Felli & Castree 2012; Tubridy & Lennon 2021: 517). Rather, planners should identify and map areas that may degrade severely and will not be habitable in the future, register inhabitants, and ensure their rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled (Brookings et al. 2015). In Peru, numerous remote rural areas may be at risk of settlement abandonment; such abandonment can be a standard process due to demographic changes, but in some cases, it is the combined result of climate impacts and an absent state, which means that entry points for action exist. Options must be provided to those who make informed decisions to leave these areas but do not have sufficient migration capabilities, such as the studied villages in the Selva and certain households in the Sierra. Foremost, Peru and other states should ensure legal status and freedom of movement, if needed beyond national borders. A multilateral initiative for a climate passport could contribute support for safe and early enough migration in dignity (WBGU 2018). In addition, South America is already a pioneer when it comes to regional freedom of movement, as I have discussed elsewhere (Bergmann et al. 2021a).¹² Nonetheless, alternative legal pathways may also be needed in some cases here, such as options to apply for protection prior to reaching desired destinations (Humble 2014), or bilateral and regional agreements for labor migration (Geddes et al. 2012; McLeman 2019). Beyond these policy needs, investments in people prior to moving are key, especially for those with preexisting vulnerabilities, who are at elevated risk of a well-being decline. Aspiring migrants must be able to acquire skills that are transferable to destinations, so that they can move early enough and are able to secure jobs elsewhere. Additional support options for livelihoods include microcredits, loans, and safety nets (Afifi et al. 2016) or job creation in destinations (Foresight 2011). Equally important, social networks are key resources for people aspiring to migrate and can help smooth newcomers’ transitions to new areas; states could consider ways to extend their benefits, such as by facilitating communication options between migrants and hometowns or backing activities by diaspora organization (Nawrotzki & DeWaard 2018). Moreover, efforts are needed to devise incentives for migrants to settle across various municipalities suitable for their needs, beyond the habitual major destinations. To avoid overwhelming single hubs and preserve people’s well-being prospects, ways of making secondary cities and other destinations more attractive should be investigated, planned, and developed. Such polycentric incentives could include income opportunities, microcredits, provision of public services, and housing programs in alternative destinations. Lessons can be learnt from Bangladesh, whose Perspective Plan 2021–2041 embraces a growth pole strategy to incentivize migrants toward secondary urban cities while developing rural growth centers (GED 2020; Khan et al. 2021).¹³

Among the options to facilitate movement for aspiring migrants, planned relocation may be a last resort measure if applied carefully, giving special attention to people's rights and well-being, in line with best standards and existing laws (Ferris & Weerasinghe 2020).¹⁴ Nevertheless, the Selva case study suggests that several improvements are needed in Peru. To start with, the state should enforce zoning properly to avoid new settlements in high-risk zones. It ought to clarify legal ambiguities of what makes risks “unmitigable” for existing settlements (Venkateswaran et al. 2017) and ensure the exhaustion of softer options for DRR/DRM and climate adaptation for them, as instructed by law (French et al. 2020). To this end, authorities should strengthen the participative process that leads to the decision to move. If relocation is agreed on, its implementation requires better governance, more institutional resources, and national frameworks translated into local practice. The central government should invest in technical and absorption capacities of subnational authorities in strongly affected areas, alongside technical support by experts. In addition, access to information, consultation, and effective participation must be strengthened throughout relocation and in legislation, which enshrines these rights only ambiguously.¹⁵ To bridge funding gaps, the state could better exploit the legally permitted option of using charges from natural resource exploitation and mining. Likewise, the Selva cases demonstrate that efforts are needed to alleviate public investment gaps between declarations of uninhabitability and settlements’ eventual relocation. Next, to address land scarcity issues and to avoid land price hikes, the state should explore the legally permissible tool of compensated expropriation. Furthermore, legislation entitles relocatees to benefits and rights, but the Ministry of “Vulnerable Populations and Women” [sic]¹⁶ lacks adequate funding to fulfil its legal task to protect and assist them, with special attention to at-risk groups. The state should also invest more in long-term livelihood restoration and decent living conditions in line with people’s customs and culture, as legally granted. To this end, ensuring proximity to accessible livelihood options, transportation, and markets is key. Swifter granting of individual titles is also needed so people can receive the access to social programs that legislation encourages, including social housing and reconstruction support. Another imperative is to improve oversight and accountability in relocations. Despite grievances, complaints, and conflicts, the Peruvian state did not fulfil its obligation to inform relocatees about legally required resolution mechanisms (including mediation and arbitration by designated government entities), and thus rendered these mechanisms inaccessible. It is also key to catalyze third-party engagement in relocations. First, engagement by actors such as the Peruvian Ombudsman, non-governmental organizations, and the media could improve state accountability. For example, advocacy organizations with campaigning experience in development-induced resettlement could integrate disaster relocation in their portfolios, and international protective accompaniment could help defend people’s rights. Lastly, the study highlighted that private sector engagement is key for success. The state could encourage landowners to consider cooperation with communities wishing to relocate, such as swapping territories or trading land for labor. Moreover, it could support companies to bring forward planned investments in destinations and offer preferential access to relocatees to create income for recovery. Likewise, the state could promote private sector contributions to relocation costs, for example, through solidarity funds, materials, or microcredits.

Fourth, this study located entry points to counter the risk that migrants, displaced persons, and relocatees suffer severe well-being losses after moving. To begin with, Peru should protect rural-to-urban migrants and their families as well prepare key urban destination areas for addressing the local effects of immigration. To this end, states and municipal actors must work toward receptive modes of incorporation and policies that enable migrants to flourish together with host communities, whose receptivity is another key determinant of migrants’ well-being (Helliwell et al. 2018a). They must actively manage urban growth and attend related challenges for infrastructure, services, and markets. Interventions for development from a secure base could include labor rights protection in informal job segments; access to education so that migrants can transform their skills to match urban markets, according to their wishes and possibilities; voucher systems for flexible training programs; and micro credits to support entrepreneurship. Migrants’ health must also be protected, including through universal health care, portable social protection, and adjustable social welfare systems, which could be supported by mobile money and digital identification systems (Clement et al. 2021; Rigaud et al. 2018; Schwan & Yu 2018). To improve migrants’ space to live, it is key to address tenure insecurity in irregular settlements and facilitate access to public services. To this end, the state should guarantee titling and investments in viable zones without incentivizing new settlement in high-risk areas; improve land use management and land administration systems; and recognize customary land practices. In addition, cities must protect migrants against physical insecurity and pollution, as well as urban climate hazards and related displacement risk. As one example, the magnitude of challenges for Peru’s cities related to glacier loss will depend on how they invest in buffering capacity while managing rising water demand (Veettil & Kamp 2019). Next, to support social relatedness, it is recommendable to strengthen diaspora organizations and community structures, social cohesion between host and migrant groups, and mechanisms against discrimination. Finally, SWB challenges are probable, and states should address them by backing personal coping mechanisms and community support. Mental health and psychosocial support for mental disorders is needed (Mukdarut et al. 2017; Tol et al. 2011) alongside positive psychology programs for mentally healthy, but SWB-deprived migrants (Hernandez & Overholser 2021; Koydemir et al. 2021). Social relationships and community resources are equally key for building psychological resilience that supports transformational responses to climate change (Adams et al. 2021). It is encouraging that Peru’s National Action Plan to Avert and Address Forced Migration and Displacement due to the Effects of Climate Change,¹⁷ which is currently being developed, calls on the state to avoid the deterioration of migrants’ well-being in the cities, to address rising demand on urban infrastructure and services, and to reduce the possibility of social conflicts. In addition, the Municipality of Lima, the city with the highest concentration of migrants in Peru and likely a primary destination for future climate migrants, has started work on the topic. Lima has actively collaborated in the Task Force of the Global Working Group of Mayors on Climate and Migration and helped to develop their Action Agenda (C40-MMC 2021). The Agenda is based on three priorities, namely (a) urban resilience, (b) urban inclusion, and (c) urban transformation, ten principles, six recommendations, and 27 proposed actions. When the Municipality of Lima consulted the author of this dissertation, it announced that it would work on the implementation of the Action Agenda and focus on generating evidence and information (Garreta 2022). Moreover, Lima’s Local Plan for Climate Change 2021–2030¹⁸ points to migrants as populations in potentially vulnerable situations and aims at reducing exposure and vulnerability in the city (MML 2021). If words are followed by action, these frameworks could help advance the protection of climate migrants. To end with, from a climate justice view, the international community must support cities in affected countries in these numerous tasks. Funding for adequate resources and personnel in public service provision is needed in cities with increasing immigration and natural growth, alongside remedies for loss and damage. Municipalities and city networks such as C40 can be stewards that create inclusionary cities (Lacroix 2021; Oomen 2020), especially in states with weak central governance or state disinterest, as discussed further below. Next, many of these recommendations for rural-to-urban migration due to gradual hazards also apply to large-scale forced, acute climate migration due to abrupt hazards. For such cases, it is additionally key to build bridges between DRR/DRM (such as better early warning) and sustained, people-centered displacement care (such as providing durable shelter and infrastructure as well as addressing physical insecurity). Concerned actors may also learn from the buffer effects of social relatedness observed in this study and devise strategies to strengthen social capital (Stojanov et al. 2021). Humanitarian assistance should be closely connected with development efforts, such as by involving the private sector in job recovery or through adaptive social protection (Béné et al. 2018; Bowen et al. 2020). The Costa case study also emphasizes that strategies against aid withdrawal and donor fatigue are needed, especially when future disasters will multiply and overstretch attention and resources that are already scarce today. Finally, states must work with, consult, and have displaced persons participate in finding durable solutions that fit their intersectional needs; as return is occasionally inconceivable or the best option, local integration and resettlement need to be duly considered (Bradley 2018; Harild & Christensen 2010). Figure 9.2 summarizes these recommended actions on migrants’ well-being.

Figure 9.2

Intervention options to safeguard and improve migrants’ well-being. (Note: Created by the author)

All things considered, to safeguard and improve people’s well-being, concerned actors must address climate risks; improve structural constraints; and strengthen climate migrants’ and stayers’ agency. In particular, stakeholders must address the fact that structural constraints often create insurmountable obstacles for affected people. Especially weak governance emerges as a major barrier for raising well-being in climate (im)mobilities effectively, since it increases disaster risk (Ahrens & Rudolph 2006; Sen 2010; Tierney 2012) and impedes durable recovery (Shaw 2014). As the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for DRR stated, “the biggest risk driver of all is bad risk governance” (UNDRR 2020: para. 22). For example, the weak DRR/DRM and climate adaptation governance witnessed in the case studies echo Peru’s general governance problems, including corruption that has debilitated its democracy and economy for decades (Bigio & Ramírez 2017; Quiroz 2019). Therefore, on the one hand, it is necessary to provide comprehensive support for affected people that is, where necessary, decoupled from unwilling or incapable authorities. Alternative pathways include working through subnational actors, such as city networks (Lacroix 2021; Oomen 2020), or building resilience through NGOs. However, such action should not provide an easy way out for the state and avoid duplications or parallel systems (Fraser & Kirbyshire 2017; Medina 2021). On the other hand, the international community must invest in efforts to improve governance in countries with worsening climate risks (Patterson 2020). I have analyzed policies in Peru in detail before and demonstrated that existing legislation in various arenas provides a valid starting point to address climate migration (Bergmann et al. 2021a). Still, policy gaps persist; norms remain insufficiently interconnected; and financing and implementation gaps continue, especially at subnational levels (French et al. 2020; GFDRR 2010; Venkateswaran et al. 2017). The main recommendations detailed in that prior study are briefly restated here. Policy improvements are needed for immobility and especially entrapment, which are still absent in most frameworks in Peru. For climate migration, the landmark project for strengthening government efforts should remain Peru’s Action Plan to Avert and Address Forced Migration and Displacement due to the Effects of Climate Change (which is currently being drafted as envisaged in Peru’s Climate Change Framework Law and the linked Regulation).¹⁹ In addition, updates of Peru’s National Adaptation Plan (NAP), Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), as well as other climate and agricultural strategies should integrate measures to enable people to stay if they can do so in safety and dignity²⁰ and support migrants under the five existing adaptation priority areas agriculture, fishery, forestry, health, and water.²¹ Besides policy improvements, Peru should strengthen intersectoral and multilevel coordination for integrated DRR/DRM, climate adaptation, and human rights protection, as well as streamline related institutional responsibilities. Increased international funding will be key to support effective governance Peru, but the country also requires better subnational capacities to absorb this funding in a manner consistent with the subsidiarity principle. Lastly, dedicated action to strengthen institutions and organizational capacities is required now in Peru and elsewhere (Cissé et al. 2022), as increasing climate impacts will challenge state institutions and might further impair the needed responses in the future (Mahadevia Ghimire 2021).

Nevertheless, this study also cautions that persistent structural constraints may be difficult to address and therefore highlights the simultaneous need for strengthening affected people’s agency thoroughly. Bolstering agency is key because concerned states frequently lack political will and have limited capacities to meet their obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill the rights of people harmed by climate change (Aleinikoff & Martin under review). To this end, climate adaptation funding could sponsor community organization building and negotiation training for local leaders.²² Supporting citizens’ campaigning skills could be another avenue, for instance, through access to watchdog networks or social media and media training. Moreover, projects could sponsor exchange between affected communities to promote peer-to-peer sharing of experiences and alliance-building. Enabling meaningful conversations within frontline communities and learning from them will be equally key (Climigration Network 2021). In addition, action to foster more horizontal relationships between communities and the state is advisable, for example, by integrating traditional knowledge in collaborative risk monitoring and assessment, by nurturing community-based self-reliance strategies, or by raising self-governance capacities through community-based DRM and climate adaptation (Bronen et al. 2020; Chapin et al. 2016; Forsyth 2013; Grube & Storr 2014; Norris et al. 2008; Shaw 2012). Finally, another promising avenue could consist in increasing support for migrants’ own networks, such as hometown associations, which could help buffer hardship for newcomers, assist them during settling, and facilitate translocal ties to hometowns.

3 Research Avenues

Beyond providing new empirical insights for an emergent field of investigation, this study also indicates various directions where more knowledge is desirable.²³ The two key research needs I stress in the following are (a) holistic well-being assessments for heterogenous climate (im)mobility dynamics and (b) further evidence on effective solutions to enhance affected people’s well-being.

First, scientists could improve the understanding of how climate change influences (im)mobilities and how affected people fare.²⁴ To begin with, climate immobility remains a major knowledge gap (Hoffmann et al. 2020); new studies could clarify concepts and apply comparative approaches to explore how people react to and anticipate hazards, what makes them unwilling or unable to move, how much agency they retain, and how their well-being develops over time (Mallick & Schanze 2020; Schewel 2020). Likewise, scholars should explore the interactions of multiple migration drivers more in detail, including the economic, political, and demographic drivers that currently remain understudied in Peru (such as consumer prices or conflict). Critically, few existing studies conduct climate impact analyses with adequate depth to date, even though these impacts can affect all migration drivers (Adger et al. 2015; Black et al. 2013). Interdisciplinary research teams could provide one way forward to close this gap. One example of a topic that requires views from both natural and social science are climate threats to habitability and linked dynamics of settlement abandonment (McLeman 2011), including the possible social tipping points and feedback mechanisms witnessed in the Sierra case study. Simultaneously, studies could examine not only what makes people susceptible to primary or secondary displacement, but also where and why entrapment is a risk. Furthermore, for a fuller picture of how risk landscapes in Peru are shifting due to climate change, future studies are needed that expand their focus beyond smallholders as possibly affected groups. For example, research is also needed on how climate change harms marine livelihoods, the agroindustry, agricultural processing and distribution activities, off-farm livelihoods, as well as the secondary and tertiary sectors in general, and how such impacts affect climate (im)mobilities. In addition, while most existing work focuses on rural-to-urban climate migration, this study demonstrated that movements over small distances or limited periods of time within rural areas can also strongly affect well-being. Such micro-mobilities remain under the radar of research, policy, and donor attention in Peru and worldwide (Cundill et al. 2021; Safra de Campos et al. 2020).

Improving knowledge on why and how people move or stay in the context of climate hazards is a steppingstone to enhance the understanding of linked well-being impacts. To identify entry points for planning and policies that can support well-being, methodological innovation is needed. For example, mixed methods studies that combine qualitative data with longitudinal data and employ intersectional, intergenerational, and life course views might offer potential. Big data could also help study well-being but must be used carefully to protect respondents (Martin & Singh 2022). Moreover, it is indispensable that more studies use conceptual frameworks that facilitate holistic assessments of multidimensional well-being effects. The framework devised in this dissertation could be adjusted and applied to contexts outside of Peru; for example, emic research could help amend the applied objective measures of well-being according to local conceptualizations in regions of interest. Future research could also deepen the understanding of the indicators suggested in this analysis. On the one hand, studies on the social effects of (im)mobilities remain rare, although social relatedness affected all other well-being dimensions in this study and changed itself in mixed and unexpected way during (im)mobilities. Future migration studies must not overlook this key dimension of well-being. On the other hand, more analyses are needed on the long-term SWB effects of climate change (Fischer & van de Vliert 2011; Maddison & Rehdanz 2020), linked immobility (Farbotko & McMichael 2019; Mallick & Schanze 2020), and migration (Luhmann et al. 2012). Scholars could also clarify the exact interplays of all SWB elements (Pleeging et al. 2021a), for example, how views of the future affect SWB and motivation for action in the present. Further, as argued above, studies could use integrated, hedonic and eudaimonic approaches to analyze SWB holistically. More theoretical advancements on the impacts of migration and immobility would also be welcome. Finally, in order to improve the knowledge base and build better theories on the consequences of climate (im)mobilities, the propositions developed in chapter 8 could be operationalized into hypotheses that quantitative research could test in additional contexts (Morgan 2015). Long-term longitudinal studies could yield benefits for understanding both the causes and effects of climate (im)mobilities (KNOMAD 2016).

Second, besides integrated well-being assessments of climate (im)mobilities, this study also calls for research on effective solutions that help preserve or enhance well-being. To begin with, researchers should examine options for people wishing to stay, including in-place climate adaptation and DRR/DRM. For example, mapping, studying, and integrating traditional and Indigenous knowledge in livelihood adaptation to extreme climatic conditions should become a key research area (Makondo & Thomas 2018; Petzold et al. 2020). Further, although internal remittances have a significant volume in Peru (Sánchez Aguilar 2012a), their potential contribution to climate adaptation and the well-being of stayers remains understudied (as do threats to equality that may be linked to remittances) (Bergmann et al. 2021a). Concurrently, a better evidence base is needed on possible effective interventions to support people who wish to leave unsafe areas, since uninhabitability and the numbers of climate migrants are set to increase in many regions worldwide (Clement et al. 2021). Donors should fund high-quality program evaluations, such as through randomized controlled trials (RCTs) (Gazeaud et al. 2021; Meghir et al. 2022), on pre-migration assistance efforts, support for migrants to settle across polycentric destinations, and improved relocations. States must enhance the monitoring and evaluation of implemented relocations, not only in Peru (Bergmann 2021). Next, more research is needed on effective options to support migrants’ well-being. Studies could examine the effectiveness of interventions to enhance migrants’ resources to settle in decent conditions, according to their intersectional needs (Cundill et al. 2021; Erwin et al. 2021). Resources that might offer transformational potential could include skills training programs (Panth 2013; Ratha et al. 2015), Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) (Augustinavicius et al. 2018; Bangpan et al. 2019; Tol et al. 2012), and Positive Psychology interventions (Bolier et al. 2013; Carr et al. 2021). Programming could also benefit from more insights into how hopelessness can be addressed in ethical ways without creating false hope (Cheavens & Guter 2017; Hernandez & Overholser 2021; Polivy & Herman 2002). Critically, beyond better evidence on options to support individuals, more studies are also needed on how to mitigate the varied structural factors that obstruct climate migrants’ and stayers’ chances to be well. Two key areas for research here are ways to improve land issues and weak governance, two of the major obstacles to achieving well-being. For example, studies should evaluate how more receptive modes of incorporation for migrants can be supported in destinations in durable ways so that receptivity persists even during crises. Generally speaking, an urban study perspective on climate migration is needed to advance research since cities will be key destinations for migrants. For example, scholars could examine which factors make certain cities likely destinations or source areas for climate migrants and which differentiated preparations for urban governance are needed depending on the characteristics of climate impacts, migration, and cities themselves (Adger et al. 2020; de Sherbinin et al. 2007; de Sherbinin et al. 2012; DePaul 2012; Stojanov et al. 2021). Action to support destinations remains another major research gap. For example, by what means can institutional and absorption capacities be bolstered while municipal resource constraints are addressed (UNDESA 2018)? In which ways can arrangements for multilevel coordination and accountability be augmented (Mukhopadhyay & Revi 2012; Srivastava 2020)? Simultaneously, how can regulatory environments be improved and planners’ or policymakers’ negative attitudes toward migration be changed (McLeman 2020; Tacoli 2009)? Moreover, this study emphasizes that more research is needed on how non-state actors influence affected people’s well-being, and how they can be integrated in solutions. To date, collective actors such as hometown associations, faith-based organizations, social institutions, or local NGOs have received limited attention in climate migration studies (Pairama & Le Dé 2018). Similarly, options to integrate the private sector and local businesses (besides migrants themselves) into climate adaptation and DRR/DRM remain understudied (Adamo 2010; Gemenne et al. 2020; Tacoli 2007).

Finally, more knowledge is needed on how to support people’s agency in the many zones worldwide where state protection is unlikely (Bergmann 2021; McMichael et al. 2019). For example, scholars could examine ways to connect affected individuals in peer learning networks and support groups (Block et al. 2018) or via peer-provided counseling in areas that lack specialist services (Graaff et al. 2020; WHO 2016). Studies may also explore how to increase affected people’s financial resources for action through peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding, and private sponsorship (Emanuel-Correia et al. 2021; Lenard 2016). Moreover, collaborative risk monitoring and assessment as well as citizen science could contribute to climate adaptation (Bremer et al. 2019; Bronen et al. 2020; Groulx et al. 2017; Walker et al. 2021; Wehn et al. 2021). Lastly, researchers could assess how to enhance collective agency, for example by efforts to increase communities’ capacity for “do-it-yourself” adaptation and resilience (Cloutier et al. 2018: 284; Koliou et al. 2018). As climate injustices and state failures are multiplying, more knowledge is also needed on programs that support collective resistance by bolstering community organization, support systems, grass root movements, civil disobedience, and protest (Chenoweth & Stephan 2008; Lemons & Brown 2011; Reeves et al. 2014).

4 Outlook

Extensive human activity affecting the Earth’s geology and environment has ended the stable conditions of the Holocene and moved the planet into a new, human-dominated epoch, the Anthropocene (Steffen et al. 2018; Zalasiewicz et al. 2017; Zalasiewicz et al. 2020). As one feature of this transition, climate change is magnifying threats to live on Earth in an unparalleled fashion (IPCC 2022a), and ever more affected people are forced to decide whether to stay or leave their homes (Clement et al. 2021). It is difficult to foresee how the nexus between such climate (im)mobilities and well-being will evolve in the near and far future in Peru and worldwide. However, the well-being outcomes observed here provide an indication that worsening climate impacts could sharply reduce subsistence farmers’ chances to fulfill their needs and perceive their lives as satisfactory, regardless of whether they stay or migrate after being affected by climate impacts.

In the near future, many climate impacts are strongly predetermined by committed warming due to past emissions (Huntingford et al. 2020; Zhou et al. 2021).²⁵ When current gradual hazards intensify as a result, one can expect that they will also amplify existing internal migration patterns in Peru, namely from rural to urban areas in all of the country, especially from the highlands to coastal cities and to some extent to the rainforest. Likewise, as abrupt hazards will become more severe and frequent in the next years, present displacement and relocation dynamics in Peru’s coastal flood zones and its rainforest could expand. Simultaneously, entrapment could threaten gradually more poor farmers in marginalized rural zones. As structural conditions are unlikely to improve fast, current climate (im)mobilities provide valid temporal analog for understanding possible well-being effects in such near-future processes, and the findings of this study caution that the outcomes could be more negative than positive. People subjected to high structural constraints, affected by severe hazards, and possessing limited agency will be most at risk of misery.

By contrast, over the long run, many interactions between climate impacts, migration, and immobility are possible, and the well-being outcomes are less certain.²⁶ These interactions depend on global emissions and climate sensitivity, action taken to reduce exposure and vulnerability, demographic, societal, and political change, and other factors. My findings as well as the synopsis of both the climate and migration literature in Peru suggest that while the exact magnitude of challenges may differ depending on the pathway chosen, severe well-being threats are to be expected in most cases. Even in an optimistic scenario—in which emissions would be drastically reduced to limit global warming to 2 °C by 2100 compared to pre-industrial levels—strong climate impacts would threaten well-being in Peru in the long term. As one example, extensive gradual glacier retreat would cause severe water stress and raise questions of habitability in the Sierra (Pörtner et al. 2019; Vuille et al. 2018). As a result, internal improvement migration for livelihood diversification could continue to rise steadily and turn into distress movements over time, in parallel with entrapment risk in poor, disenfranchised zones. Simultaneously, the abrupt hazards causing disaster displacement in Peru would rise even in this more optimistic scenario. For example, even in lower emissions paths, extreme El Niño events will become more frequent in this century (Cai et al. 2018; IPCC 2019a; Peng et al. 2019) while settlements in exposed areas still grow (SINAGERD et al. 2014). Thus, the number of acute, forced survival migrants could rise and put gradually more people at risk of severe ill-being. Nonetheless, this lower-emissions future would grant Peruvian policymakers and society more leeway to prepare for and address impacts. First, certain development gains could still materialize and be invested in development and local climate adaptation to reduce vulnerabilities (Hallegatte et al. 2016) while the moderate and gradual nature of migration overall would grant more options to prepare. The state could incentivize polycentric settlement, while cities would have more time to devise protection mechanisms for migrants as well as to prepare public services, housing, infrastructure, and labor markets. In addition, concerned actors would retain better chances to reduce the risk of rapid displacement through DRR/DRM (Hallegatte et al. 2017), including by using softer, more well-being-preserving options than planned relocation.

However, if states continued their current path of climate action, the Earth could warm around 2.7 °C by 2100 (Climate Action Tracker 2021; WMO 2021) and the resultant climate hazards would become increasingly difficult to manage (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2021). In such a scenario, climate impacts could undo much of Peru’s development progress and sharply increase vulnerabilities (Hallegatte et al. 2018; World Bank 2017c). In parallel, populations would continue to grow in highly exposed areas, resulting in salient climate risks across rural and urban zones. The adaptation option space would shrink extremely while loss and damage would multiply strongly (Mechler et al. 2020). Questions of habitability would become increasingly pressing due to three unparalleled “no-analog” climate threats in Peru, namely near-complete deglaciation and related water stress in the Sierra; extreme heat stress and a risk of rainforest dieback in the Selva; and more frequent extreme El Niño events on top of rising sea levels on the Costa (Bergmann et al. 2021a: 1). This study suggests that if such parallel and cumulative threats to habitability materialized, they could lead to both entrapment for large populations and unparalleled migration flows that would threaten people’s well-being. Migration could become predominantly forced when climate impacts reduce resources to move in a safe manner, and as a result, migrants’ vulnerabilities would increase. Key destinations such as Lima and regional capitals would be at risk of getting overwhelmed, both due to immigration and their own climate impacts, such as water scarcity (Buytaert et al. 2017; Schütze et al. 2019). One can imagine that at a future point in this scenario, a partial migration flow reversal could occur: if coastal cities would become overwhelmed and poor people living in their margins suffered from extreme water and food insecurity, they might start settling in the few remaining rural areas that still allow for subsistence agriculture. These zones would, in turn, experience rapidly growing populations that exert pressure on available resources and well-being. Shocks can induce such reversals of migration corridors, as seen most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic (Dupraz-Dobias 2020; Martin & Bergmann 2021). Also in pre-Hispanic Peru, monsoon-driven changes in water availability recurrently overwhelmed local adaptive capacities and induced migration from the coast to the highlands, and vice versa (Fehren‐Schmitz et al. 2010; Fehren‐Schmitz et al. 2014; Reindel 2009). Because the climate impacts in the future scenario discussed here could be more severe than in pre-Hispanic times and affect a more densely populated country, cities’ capacities to ensure food security and provide basic services could be overstretched even when considering technological and institutional advancements. Taken together, in this future climate scenario, adaptation in ways that preserve well-being ways would become impossible for large numbers of Peruvians.

To conclude, while this study cannot offer a definite answer to the question of future climate (im)mobilities in Peru, it cautions that the well-being threats related to migrating or staying could be extensive. As discussed earlier in this chapter, similar arguments apply for the large number of smallholders who live in similar conditions in many of the world’s rural regions. Therefore, stringent efforts are required to reduce climate risks, protect stayers and migrants, and facilitate movement in dignity where needed. The recommendations presented here are all the more critical because well-being risks due to climate change can compound the effects of other shocks, such as conflicts and economic or health crises. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic strongly exacerbated vulnerabilities and inequalities and created new ones in Peru and worldwide. Similar as for the climate (im)mobilities studied here, those people subjected to most structural constraints and with least agency were hit hardest, and their well-being has continued to suffer from the ensuing health and economic crises (Abizaid et al. 2020; Carreras et al. 2021; Gamero & Pérez 2020; World Bank 2021b, 2021a). Globally, migrants have been among the most affected by the pandemic (Guadagno 2020; Martin & Bergmann 2021; Orcutt et al. 2020). Thus, as humankind is breaking more planetary boundaries in the Anthropocene (Lade et al. 2020; O’Neill et al. 2018), complex emergencies that threaten the well-being of large populations may become the new normal in numerous regions of the Earth.

Actions taken in this decade will be critical in determining the magnitude of future climate impacts, other shocks, resultant migration and immobility, and their well-being impacts. The prospect for mitigating climate impacts to a more manageable extent depends on the level of global ambition and the pace of change in emissions reduction. Simultaneously, policies and action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals could contribute to reduce vulnerabilities and build resilience to shocks (IPCC 2022a). Improved climate adaptation targeted at vulnerable populations would bring multiple co-benefits, not least to increased resilience against other emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, committed warming and locked-in climate impacts could make migration the only option in various zones of Peru and at-risk regions worldwide, while entrapment risk could rise simultaneously. Merely striving to deter migration is neither likely to succeed, nor will it lead to positive well-being outcomes (Webber & Barnett 2010). Rather, building systems, capacities, and institutions for dealing with a changing landscape of (im)mobilities in a future world with increasing climate risks must be a priority. Not only local policymakers and civil society will need to join forces to enable adaptation in dignity and to safeguard people’s well-being, but also the international community must finally meet its protection obligations in Peru and other at-risk regions globally.