Despite the growing awareness of the nexus between climate change and migration, the subject has not yet been explored empirically in a way that generates conclusive results. Climate change might increase migration as people need to search for a living elsewhere, but migration might as well decrease as fewer people can afford to move. Recent empirical studies have found that climate variability and migration are characterized by a non-linear relationship, identifying many other factors influencing the linkage between climate change and migration. Climate change represents only one of the factors influencing migration decisions, while changing migratory behaviour might be just one strategy among
a variety of options available to respond to climatically induced stress and shocks.

This study explores the climate change impacts on migratory processes: (a) by outlining the key elements of natural and human-induced climate change of potential relevance to migration; (b) by discussing the current state of debate about the relationship between climate change and migration; and finally (c) by describing possible approaches and methodologies with which to further our understanding of climate change-related migration, such as the New Economics of Labour Migration (NELM), Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), and the Agentbased Modelling (ABM).