Stop calling climate change a 'threat multiplier' for migration; in the Middle East, it is the direct cause.
April 15, 2026
Original Paper
Calling It What It Is: Climate Change as a Key, Primary, and Direct Push Factor of Migration in the Middle East and North Africa
SSRN · 6287278
The Takeaway
International organizations usually say climate change 'indirectly' causes migration by making economies fail or sparking wars. This paper argues that's a polite fiction: in the MENA region, the climate shift is the primary, direct driver of people leaving. The political and economic instability we see are just the symptoms of the climate change, not the cause themselves. By mislabeling the problem, we’re trying to fix the 'smoke' of politics while the 'fire' of the environment is what’s actually burning people out of their homes. This shifts migration from a social policy issue to a planetary physics problem.
From the abstract
<p>This paper argues that climate change is a key, direct, and primary push factor of migration in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA); a claim that runs counter to the current consensus among scholars, world institutions, and governments, who classify climate change as an indirect or secondary push factor while citing economic and socio-political instability as the primary drivers. This paper challenges that classification by establishing economic and socio-political instability not as inde