Framing Migration as Adaptation: IOM’s Aspirations to Manage Climate Migration

ABSTRACT

At the 2010 UNFCCC Conference in Cancún, migration as a consequence of climate change entered the Cancún Adaptation Framework. It did so in a specific way, being framed as an adaptation strategy to climate change. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) backed the framing of migration as an adaptation early on and pushed for its inclusion in Cancún. Through the analysis of 121 documents and six expert interviews, this article traces how IOM’s identity and interest shape how the organisation deploys the adaptation framing. Climate migration is traditionally situated beyond IOM’s mandate; however, the organisation was present in the institutional process through which the adaptation framing emerged and now carries out operational projects related to the topic. This article shows how IOM uses the adaptation framing to reassert its own aspiration to manage climate migration and assert itself as the dominant migration agency.

Introduction

Despite receiving important levels of academic, political and media attention, there is still no uniform definition nor a legal status for people migrating in the context of climate change. While the 2010 Cancún Agreement – the first state-signed document mentioning the existence (and expressing the need to act on) climate migration – was seen as an important milestone at the time (Warner 2012), it remains unclear what the agreement did in terms of altering the normative environment for climate migrants. In Cancún, migration in response to climate change was mentioned under the adaptation pillar of the climate negotiations and framing migration as adaptation to climate change became a recurrent discursive choice. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) was eager to engage with the topic early on, despite the fact that this means extending its activity beyond its foundation as an organisation created to facilitate orderly migration flows. IOM has established a specific division devoted to migration, environment and climate change and launched operations and projects on the ground. In this article, I ask: How do IOM’s identity and interest shape how the organisation deploys the adaptation framing? Based on an analysis of 121 documents and six interviews, I will argue in this article that IOM has moved the ‘migration as adaptation’ framing more in line with its own identity and interests, away from the notion of adaptation being a common response to environmental shocks and towards an understanding that migration can only be a positive response to climate change if it is well managed. IOM is ready to take up this role in a broader strategy to grow as an organisation and to extend the scope of its portfolio in order to become the dominant migration agency.

The article is structured as follows: I will first provide an overview of the literature on climate migration and the idea of seeing migration as an adaptation strategy to climate change. Then, I will review the literature on discursive frames before turning to the relationship between international organisations and climate migration and IOM’s involvement in this field more specifically. In a third step, I will turn to the analysed documents and present the chosen method of analysis. The results will be first presented according to the dominant frames and then discussed according to the four dimensions of Critical Frame Analysis. I finally conclude by presenting my findings.

Climate Migration

The impact of climate change on human migration has been receiving considerable attention from media outlets (Lustgarten 2020), governments (Foresight 2011), NGOs (Save the Children 2021) and international organisations (UNHCR 2023) in the last two decades. Researchers have contributed to the debate by unravelling the complex nexus between climate change and migration in various ways. Norman Myers famously predicted 200 million ‘environmental refugees’ by 2050, claiming that environmental migrants would by far outnumber political refugees (Myers 2002; Myers and Kent 1995). While his methodology was challenged and critics argued that he overestimated the phenomenon (Black 2001), more studies on the scope, process and variety of climate migration were published (Afifi and Jäger 2010; Renaud et al. 2011; Warner and Afifi 2014). While the literature played with different terms, including ‘environmental migrant’, ‘disaster displaced person’, ‘climate migrant’, ‘environmental refugee’ and ‘climate refugee’, scholars realised that it was in practice often difficult to attribute the decision to migrate to climate change alone (EACH-FOR 2009; Foresight 2011; IOM 2016). Often, climatic hazards coincide with political, economic, social or other incentives to migrate, and a continuum between voluntary and forced migration exists (Black et al. 2013; Cattaneo et al. 2019). Furthermore, slow and sudden-onset disasters differ in the way they create migration dynamics (Renaud et al. 2011). Empirical evidence also shows that increased vulnerability to climate change cannot simply be translated into a higher probability of migration as certain populations choose to or are forced to remain immobile (Thiede and Gray 2017) and that the biggest share of migratory movements related to climate change consists of internal displacement (Piguet 2015).

Migration as Adaptation

The framing of climate migration in the public and academic discourse evolved over time. Ransan-Cooper et al. identified four frames portraying environmental migrants as victims, security threat, adaptive agents, and political subjects (Ransan-Cooper et al. 2015), while Vanhala and Calliari mention three frames used by members of the Task Force on Displacement, corresponding approximately to the first three frames of Ransan-Cooper et al. and highlighting climate migration as protection issue, securitisation issue or adaptation issue (Vanhala and Calliari 2022). These frames are not mutually exclusive and have been used by researchers, political leaders and international organisations in overlapping ways, with academic literature at times being closely intertwined with or reacting to policy debates.

The victim frame focuses on climate migrants as vulnerable individuals who have to flee due to the adverse effects of climate change and are in need of protection. This frame has often been used to raise awareness to the ‘problem’ of climate migration and to advocate for policy action or protection schemes (Ransan-Cooper et al. 2015). The security frame highlights presumed security risks associated with mass migration movements to the Global North. The US Department of Defence, for example, made climate migration responsible for negative human security effects in destination countries, the UN Security Council warned of mass climate migration and the subsequent risk of aggravating conflicts (Boas et al. 2019), and UN Secretary-General António Guterres called climate change a ‘threat multiplier with direct consequences for peace and security’ (United Nations 2017). Both state actors and academics contributed in the 1990s and early 2000s to a securitisation of climate migration, forecasting violent conflict due to scarcer resources and consequential outmigration (Boas 2015). Previous work on different framings of climate migration has criticised both dystopian narratives of climate migrants either as victims and/or as security threats (Bettini 2013). On the one hand, academics have highlighted the problematic ways in which Pacific islands at risk of rising sea levels are represented as laboratories of climate migration (Farbotko 2010) and its inhabitants as ‘imminent climate refugees’ (Farbotko and H. Lazrus 2012, 382), used to provide evidence for the effects of climate change on migration. On the other hand, the literature has warned that securitised discourses display climate migration as problematic and dangerous, thereby fuelling xenophobia and restrictive policies (Bettini 2013).

In response, a counter-discourse evading the security dimension emerged: Climate migration is in this discourse often referred to as a technical problem to be managed. This framing becomes evident in documents stemming from the UN-led processes, e.g. the Taskforce on Displacement founded to ‘avert, minimize and address climate displacement’ (UNFCCC 2021b) and the Santiago Network ‘catalysing technical assistance’ (UNFCCC 2021a). Starting from the assumption that immobility presents the norm, the relation between climate change and human migration is represented as a potentially dangerous situation that demands technical and expert knowledge to be adequately addressed (Baldwin and Bettini 2017). As part of this new and technical focus on climate migration, the ‘migration as adaptation’ framing emerged. Its first mention appeared in a public commentary written for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and was then taken up by the authors for an article in Climatic Change (McLeman and Smit 2006). There, McLeman and Smit claim that ‘the potential for climate-related migration can be considered to be a function of exposure and adaptive capacity’ (2006, 35), with adaptive capacity itself being determined by societal processes and their effects on economic resources, human capital, social capital, and their distribution. Very quickly, some scholars began to argue in favour of the ‘migration as adaptation’ framing (Gemenne and Blocher 2017; Martin et al. 2021; Warner 2012), urging decision makers to adopt this perspective and to adjust their policy decisions to migratory realities on the ground (Tacoli 2009) while opening up opportunities for funding under an emerging climate finance system (Warner 2012). Proponents of the ‘adaptation framing’ highlight that migration can be a strategy to diversify incomes and build resilience (Black et al. 2011), encouraging states to enable migration rather than curbing it. Human mobility is thus interpreted as a strategy to reduce risks and vulnerability. The adaptation framing has been presented as a pragmatic, operationally oriented approach and seen as a policy ideal (Gemenne and Blocher 2017), the preferred solution in comparison to earlier framings that treated climate migration as a security scenario that needed to be avoided at all cost (Warner 2012). Migration as adaptation thus represents a counter-narrative to the securitised discourse and is closely tied to what Sarah Nash called an ‘environmental migration management discourse’ (Nash 2015, 209), encouraging especially labour migration as climate adaptation strategy.

IOM adopted the adaptation framing early on and advocated for its use in international fora (Felli 2013; Ionesco and Chazalnoël 2015b; Nash 2015). On the international level, the topic of climate migration was initially mainly treated within the UNFCCC climate negotiations (Nash 2018) with the phenomenon entering the negotiated agreement for the first time at the Conference of the Parties in 2010. Article 14(f) of the Cancún Adaptation Framework recognised that ‘climate change induced displacement, migration and planned relocation’ were elements to be addressed within the field of climate change adaptation (UNFCCC 2011). While migration was later shifted from the ‘Adaptation’ to the ‘Loss & Damage’ pillar of the climate negotiations, the Cancún agreement did play its role as the basis of emerging climate migration action, and the ‘migration as adaptation’ framing was increasingly used inter alia by UNHCR (UNHCR 2015), the World Bank (Clement et al. 2021; Rigaud et al. 2018) and by national governments (Government of Bangladesh 2020; Republic of Vanuatu 2007). In the UK’s Foresight report, it is noted: ‘Migration can represent a “transformational” adaptation to environmental change, and in many cases will be an extremely effective way to build long-term resilience’ (Foresight 2011, 10).

However, the adaptation framing has also been criticised by a number of academics for both its ontology and its implications. Some authors have noted that the adaptation discourse is based on an individualist conception of migrants being in charge of their resilience towards climate impacts (Bettini 2017; Felli 2013; Felli and Castree 2012). Instead of focusing on the role played by capitalists and states in driving climate change through carbon emissions, the adaptation discourse is used to shift the responsibility towards those who are affected by environmental hazards (Ahuja 2021). Critical voices warned against the adaptation framing’s neoliberal focus on creating adaptable humans (Bettini 2019; Felli and Castree 2012) and accused it of reproducing inequalities by concentrating on a transformation of vulnerable subjects into resilient contributors to international labour markets, side-lining those unable to adapt as unsuccessful (Bettini and Gioli 2016). In this context, the enthusiasm of UN agencies for the adaptation framing is also condemned as it accepts the potentially forced migration of millions of people and in turn silences climate justice approaches (Methmann and Oels 2015). The literature also critically discusses the limits to migration as adaptation, such as forced or voluntary immobility, disconnectedness between migrants and their networks, and simultaneous exposure to crisis situations (Sakdapolrak, Borderon, and Sterly 2024). Vinke et al. therefore suggest to distinguish between proactive and reactive climate migration and to only frame migration as adaptation if the ‘affected person can live equally well or better after their migration’ (Vinke et al. 2020, 631) while also taking non-economic losses into account.

With these possible implications of the adaptation framing in mind, it becomes clear that it might unfold with very real consequences when applied to climate migration practices. In the absence of binding legal principles, responses to situations of climate-induced displacement are mainly ad hoc and led by international organisations already present in the field. Whether a certain framing becomes prominent in international climate migration work therefore depends on the priorities of the involved actors. This article thus moves beyond the question of whether the adaptation framing is a helpful or just approach to climate migration and is instead concerned with understanding how one key international organisation in the realm of climate migration, the IOM, uses the adaptation framing in relation to its own activities targeting climate migration by asking: How do IOM’s identity and interests shape how the organisation deploys the adaptation framing?

Discursive Frames

The discursive choices of IOs can help us decipher the underlying normative understanding about climate migration and thus inform us about how climate migrants are recognised and treated. To understand the implications of IOM’s discourse on climate migration, it is helpful to conceptualise the tendency to see climate migration as adaptation as a frame. In the absence of a binding legal status, my theoretical interest is to see the implications of the choice of framing of climate migration by one key actor in the field of international migration.

Frames are ‘schemata of interpretation’ (Goffman 1974, 21), employed by actors in order to make sense of the world, define and situate issues. They rely on the discursive level and different frames can be deployed by different actors simultaneously, thereby revealing a deliberately or unconsciously chosen interpretation of the world. The choice of specific frames has major influence on societal norms and plays an important role when new phenomena and related norms emerge. This has been shown in the literature focusing on actors in social movements who employ frames strategically to gain support, challenge existing frames and mobilise others (Benford and Snow 2000). Keck and Sikkink argue that ‘[n]etwork members actively seek ways to bring issues to the public agenda by framing them in innovative ways’ (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 17). Framing is understood as a dynamic process where certain frames are chosen by social movements in a way that makes them resonate with individuals’ priorities through a mechanism called frame alignment (Snow et al. 1986), enabling social movements to mobilise large-scale support which then again triggers societal change. Frames are thus employed in discourse in order to reach specific audiences with a particular message or to fit with institutional priorities. The way in which a certain issue (here: climate migration) is framed by international organisations (here: IOM) therefore reveals information about the interests and identities of this organisation.

Mieke Verloo (2005) introduced Critical Frame Analysis as a methodology to analyse how gender inequality became represented to be a policy problem in Europe. She holds that frames are imprecise discursive representations of the complex social reality, because the ‘unitary concepts or frames, as presented in political decisions and policies at (sub) national and supranational levels contrast with a dynamic reality of multiple frames at national levels’ (Verloo 2005, 18). A certain way of framing thus always excludes alternatives of representing a certain issue as well as side-lining certain actors – intentionally or not (Roggeband and Verloo 2007a). According to Verloo’s definition, a policy frame therefore ‘transforms fragmentary or incidental information into a structured and meaningful policy problem, in which a solution is implicitly or explicitly enclosed’ (Verloo 2005, 20). It is consequently inherently political, which issues gain attention and are presented as problems, which frames become dominant, how and by whom they are presented and which issue linkages exist (Roggeband and Verloo 2007b). By building on social movements’ theory (Snow et al. 1986), authors have differentiated between four dimensions of frame analysis: voice, diagnosis, prognosis and call for action (Roggeband and Verloo 2007b; Verloo 2005). Voice thereby refers to which actor speaks to which audience and which actors form groups in frame-coalitions. Diagnosis refers to the question of what is represented as the problem and its causes, and who is held responsible for the problem. The prognosis carries proposed solutions, and the call for action decides on which actors are seen as suitable to solve the problem.

International Organisations and Climate Migration

A multitude of international actors from the climate change field as well as the migration field have become interested in the topic of climate migration. In the context of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) climate negotiations, the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage was created in 2013, featuring a Task Force on Displacement from 2015 whose main task it is to develop recommendations, identify challenges, good practices and formulate lessons learned (UNFCCC 2017). Outside of the official UN-process but triggered by it, Switzerland and Norway funded the Nansen Initiative, a state-led forum which later changed its name to become the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD). Among the migration actors, UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) has initially been reluctant to embrace the topic of climate migration (Hall 2015) but has played a role in the field of actors inter alia via its involvement in the Warsaw Mechanism and its Task Force and appointed a Special Advisor on Climate Action in 2020 (UNHCR 2023). IOM, however, stood out as an actor who has been eager to engage with the topic of climate migration early on, being present at the initial discussions on climate migration within the UNFCCC. Despite not being created with a mandate for climate-change – related migration, the organisation devoted a specific organisational division and funding to the question of environment, climate change and migration and it is part of the Task Force on Displacement of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage under the UNFCCC. Contrary to other organisations who mainly focus on advocacy and raising awareness, IOM has also begun to launch operations and projects on climate migration that include but also go beyond knowledge creation and data collection. Why was IOM so eager to engage with climate migration and how has its active involvement shaped the international-institutional framings of climate migration? Given that the organisation has been active in establishing itself as a leading agency in the question of climate migration, I decided to concentrate on IOM in this analysis.

IOM was created in 1951 as the Provisional Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe (PICMME) mandated to help resettle people displaced by World War II. The organisation changed its name several times before becoming the International Organisation for Migration in 1989. In the last decades, IOM has been expanding its influence, multiplying its budget to a total of 1.8 billion USD in 2018 with 11,500 staff and 172 member states (Vitorino 2018). IOM is not officially a UN agency but was recognised in September 2016 as a ‘related organisation’ to the UN, a status allowing the organisation to accept roles such as the secretariat for the UNNetwork on Migration and to be more closely involved in key processes like the Global Compact on Migration (Bradley 2021), which it decisively shaped regarding the formulated aim to facilitate ‘safe, orderly and regular’ migration (Panizzon and Jurt 2023). IOM’s work is organised following the logic of ‘projectisation’, which refers to the budget being earmarked for specific projects and thus leading to a very decentralised organisation (Pécoud 2018). This funding structure makes the organisation function similar to a private enterprise (Pécoud 2018), with decisions being taken depending on calculations rooted in market-logic, and structurally encouraging IOM to extend its operations into new sectors wherever funding is available. Despite its ‘roots as an operational logistics agency’ (IOM 2023b) designed to facilitate orderly migration flows, IOM has therefore moved beyond this task in various ways. The organisation has increasingly been providing humanitarian assistance in forced migration scenarios (Bradley 2017) but has also shown to be extending its activities into realms where as a non-state actor it can operate while the nation-state reaches its sovereign limits (Ashutosh and Mountz 2011), positioning itself as a ‘developmental borderwork’ actor (Frowd 2018) at the juncture between humanitarian missions and border control work, ‘brokering bilateral arrangements for return’ (Ashutosh and Mountz 2011, 28), but also directly ‘do[ing] the material labor of exclusion’ (Ashutosh and Mountz 2011, 28), for example, by running the detention of asylum seekers. Scholars have noted that the organisation frames its highly political migration management practices, such as providing training and expertise on border control, in depoliticised terms, formulating them as mere technical interventions or capacity building exercises, thereby obscuring existing power relations and the political questions behind its involvement in migration policies (Andrijasevic and Walters 2010). IOM has equally used the emerging norm of ‘well-managed migration’ to ‘justify sidestepping sovereignty and build capacity to manage migration in the Global South’ (Micinski and Bourbeau 2023, 8). When navigating different levels of engagement, IOM also shifts the meaning of, omits or replaces adjectives of its narrative of ‘safe, orderly and regular’ migration to fit the partner’s mandate (Panizzon and Jurt 2023).

IOM has used the emergence of climate change as a policy issue to expand its activities beyond its historic mandate and to push for new norms (Lakeman and Oakes 2019). The organisation started to engage with the topic of climate migration in the 1990s, organising a first conference together with the Refugee Policy Group (RPG) on migration and the environment in 1992 in Switzerland (IOM 2014b). However, it was not until 2007 that the organisation started to work more continuously on the topic, very quickly portraying itself as the lead agency in questions of climate migration (Hall 2015). From the beginning, IOM described climate migration as a potentially positive phenomenon and promoted the message that migration can be an adaptation strategy to climate change (Ionesco and Chazalnoël 2015b). Within the UNFCCC climate negotiations preceding the 2010 Cancún Agreement, IOM pushed for migration to be included under adaptation (Ober and Sakdapolrak 2017) and positioned itself as key player in managing climate migration (Nash 2015). Following a decision at the 2015 Conference Of the Parties (COP) in Paris, the organisation became a member of the Warsaw International Mechanism’s Task Force on Displacement established in 2015. Internally, IOM also extended its work on climate migration through the creation of a Migration, Environment and Climate Change (MECC) Division in 2015, confirming its commitment to the topic. Lakeman and Oakes found in their study on individual perspectives of IOM and UNHCR staff on their agencies’ involvement in disaster displacement that IOM staff tends to be more prone to sharing an ‘expansionist’ view on the topic, characterised by an increased willingness and flexibility to work in new fields and stretch the agency’s mandate (Lakeman and Oakes 2019).

Frame Analysis

Through the analysis of 121 documents reaching from 2007 to 2022, this article studies the way in which IOM took up the migration as adaptation framing, including questions of how the organisation is starting to operationalise the issue, given that it is stretching its mandate. The documents – analysed using an inductive coding strategy – consist of different types (e.g. study reports, institutional strategies, policy briefs). As IOM led some important research projects on climate migration, some documents are written by academic researchers for IOM. The line between academic work and institutional documents is sometimes blurred when researchers assisted with writing policy reports and it is not always possible to differentiate between the author’s view and IOM’s institutional position. Climate migration may be their only focus or only part of a wider array of themes, and some documents concern specific aspects of it (i.e. a focus on children moving due to climatic impacts). Several documents concentrate on a specific country or region and case study or investigate a specific form of mobility more closely (planned relocation, migration as adaptation). Other documents were more largely about IOM’s objectives in regard to migration (i.e. institutional strategy), where climate migration appeared as a subsection. The documents were retrieved from the IOM online publication platform by identifying documents containing the keyword ‘climate’ in a first search and documents that appeared when selecting the topic ‘climate and the environment’ in a filter menu in a second search. Documents that appeared in both searches were included only once, and then those documents actually treating the subject climate migration were selected manually, attempting to get the widest possible array of publication (co-)authored by IOM in relation to climate and migration. These documents provide the units of discourse for the Critical Frame Analysis. To complement this document analysis and to understand how the adaptation framing is used by IOM, how it relates to the organisation’s identity and interests, and how these in turn shape how the organisation deploys the adaptation framing, I also conducted six interviews with persons working for IOM in the context of climate migration at the headquarters, in regional offices or in specific climate migration projects. The interviews were conducted between June and November 2022 and analysed through an inductive thematic content analysis, identifying recurrent themes. They were used in addition to the documents in order to build an overarching understanding and to situate the results of the document analysis and complement it. In the following section, I will first present the collected data on IOM’s framing of climate migration, organised according to the recurrent discursive patterns. Then, in a next section, I will analyse these identified frames using Critical Frame Analysis.

IOM’s Framing of Climate Migration

IOM’s discourse on climate migration has evolved over the years, and multiple ways of framing the issue exist in parallel. The organisation uses the two terms ‘environmental migrants’ and the term ‘climate migrants’, both defined as ‘persons or groups of persons who, predominantly for reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad’ (IOM 2014d, 2, for a nearly identical definition of climate migration see; IOM 2019a, 1). The analysed documents generally refer to climate change and the environment as drivers of migration (Heita 2018; IOM 2014b, 2019a; Walsham 2010). One interviewee said that in practice he did not differentiate between climate and environmental migrants as ‘it’s impossible to find people who define themselves as climate migrants. Because […] no one says that they are moving because of climate change’ (Interview 1 2022).

The framing of migration as an adaptation strategy to climate change plays a central role in the analysed documents, but the exact wording has changed over time and in most recent publications, the focus shifted towards facilitating migration. However, IOM consistently highlights that migration can also be a negative consequence of environmental disruptions and follows a bifurcated approach of both arguing to develop solutions to avoid and minimise displacement and developing programmes to support voluntary migration. The organisation positions itself as key actor on climate migration, suggesting that its relative early involvement and its competence in migration management are needed in the field of climate migration, stating on its website:

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), as the leading intergovernmental migration agency, has been at the forefront of operational, research, policy and advocacy efforts, seeking to bring environmental migration to the heart of international, regional and national concerns, in collaboration with its Member States, observers and partners. (IOM 2023a)

In the following subsections, I delineate the key discursive frames that IOM speaks to, namely the question of an existing ‘legal gap’, ‘complex migration’, ‘forced migration’, ‘migration as adaptation’ and ‘security risk’. Table 1 gives a definition and example quotes for each of the frames.

Table 1. Climate migration frames.

Discursive frame	Subdimensions	Example
Migration as adaptation Migration is seen as a possible solution strategy in response to environmental and climate change impacts.		‘Funding must be made available to address the challenges of displacement and relocation, and also to better understand and build on the positive adaptation potential of migration’. (IOM 2014c, 65)
	Positive outcomes of climate migration	‘There is evidence that migrant households observe improved environmental conditions after migration, as those who migrated to the place of destination face less hazardous climatic and environmental events compared with the rate they were facing in their previous location’. (Sultan 2017, xi)
	Remittances	‘In the immediate short term, overseas work opportunities allow migrants to send remittances to family members remaining on the islands so that they may remain in their homes as long as possible. In the longer term, if climate change and other contributing factors continue to render more land uninhabitable, those migrants who initially move abroad may also form a support network to receive individuals who need to move from their homes in future’. (Warner et al. 2014, 8)
	Migration to be better off economically	‘In Thailand, numerous shrimp farmers were said by one participant to have lost their livelihoods as a result of the Tsunami; lacking the means to buy new equipment and start anew, many have migrated in search of better economic prospects’. (IOM 2008, 33)
Forced Migration Migration is interpreted as a negative consequence of climate or environmental change.
	Last resort	‘In addition, the scarcity of natural resources leads to clashes between local ethnic groups, which often trigger migration as a survival or escape strategy rather than a coping strategy’. (Odipo et al. 2017, 5)
	Maladaptation	‘Moreover, in the face of an expected further increase of environmental stress in the near future, the stability of new settlements cannot always be fully guaranteed either. Hence, one can question to what extent such short-distance relocation is indeed an effective “adaptation” to environmental stress’. (Entzinger and Scholten 2015, 6)
Legal Gap The absence of a legal category to account for and/or protect people displaced by climate change is mentioned.		‘It is predicted that most climate-change-induced migration will be caused by slow-onset disasters and through cascading environmental effects; there is a critical need, therefore, to formulate a framework for protecting the rights of not only those who are displaced due to sudden-onset disasters but also those who migrate away from slow- onset environmental degradation’. (Fatima, Wadud, and Coelho 2014, 5)
Security Risk Climate migration is presented in a security context as a risk or as provoking security risks.	Conflict	‘Competition over shrinking natural resources may lead to tensions and potentially to conflict and, in turn, to forced migration’.(IOM 2014d, 2)
	Mass migration	‘This is particularly important at a time when climate change and environmental degradation are increasingly posing migration-related challenges and are a source of community tension and mass displacement’. (IOM 2020a, 15)
Complex migration The document acknowledges that climate migration can take diverse forms.
	Diverse drivers of migration	‘Migration dynamics are complex, affected by a range of interacting drivers that can be difficult to quantify. While economic factors are often a direct driver of migration decisions, environmental degradation and natural disasters often have an indirect influence on the migration decision through their impacts on rural livelihoods, which may exacerbate economic stressors that contribute to migration. Decisions about whether, when, and where to migrate are also influenced by a range of other factors including social networks, access to services such as health and education, and household demographics’.(IOM 2017b, 5)
	Continuum voluntary-forced	‘Slow-onset events and processes may result in diverse migration outcomes: a continuum of voluntary to involuntary migration; short-term, circular, longer-term and permanent movements; internally or across borders; over short or long distances; migration of individuals, whole households and entire communities (planned relocation); and immobility of trapped populations’. (McAuliffe and Triandafyllidou 2021, 251)

Complex Migration

The ‘complex migration’ frame refers to acknowledging that climate migration can take diverse forms, for example, highlighting that climate change is only one of several drivers of migration (Entzinger and Scholten 2016, ix) that a continuum between voluntary and forced migration exists (Walsham 2010, 3) and that migration can take various forms such as temporary, seasonal, and circular migration (IOM 2014d, 2). An important and recurrent pattern in IOM’s discourse is to warn the audience against a simplified vision of climate migration (IOM 2009, 16, 2014a, 2, 2017a, 26).

Migration decisions are explained to be not straightforward and easily identifiable due to economic, social and cultural determinants of migration existing in parallel, which intersect with climate change exposure and reinforce each other (IOM 2021, 6; Paone and Richmond 2017, 2; Walsham 2010, 3). The organisation also repeatedly mentions inequality and poverty (IOM 2008, 21) as factors influencing an individual’s decision to move – or it is incapacity to do so. The varied effect of slow- and sudden onset climate events (Entzinger and Scholten 2015, 2) and the wide spectrum of internal and cross-border displacement, of temporal, seasonal, circular and permanent migration (Fatima, Wadud, and Coelho 2014) is used to illustrate the complexity of the issue. As a consequence, IOM often reiterates the need to gain more knowledge and to fill data gaps related to climate migration (IOM 2014a; Naser 2015). The third out of four priority areas of engagement mentioned in its Institutional Strategy concerns IOM’s role as ‘knowledge provider’ (IOM 2021, 21), the implicit solution enshrined in the complex migration frame is thus to first conduct and fund more research in order for IOM to ‘reach its full potential as a policy actor and as a source of authoritative information on migration’ (IOM 2021, 21).

Climate Migration and the Legal Gap

If the absence of a legal category to account for and protect climate migrants was mentioned, the section was coded as making reference to the ‘legal gap’ frame. IOM clarifies in its documents that climate migrants are usually not entitled to refugee status and positions itself against an extension of the 1951 Geneva Convention (UNICEF; IOM 2021). While in earlier documents, IOM mentions the ‘critical need […] to formulate a framework for protecting the rights of not only those who are displaced due to sudden-onset disasters but also those who migrate away from slow-onset environmental degradation’ (Fatima, Wadud, and Coelho 2014, 5), the focus shifts later towards a recommendation to ‘enhance existing national policy frameworks, for instance on internal displacement, labour migration, evacuation, pastoralism and planned relocation, through the mainstreaming of migration, environment and climate change concerns across all relevant national policy areas’ (IOM 2021, 19). IOM thus proposes to expand existing laws, but mostly focuses on national or regional initiatives rather than asking for an entirely new legal category or suggests temporary ad hoc solutions such as the ‘the model of humanitarian visas offered by Brazil to Haitian migrants after the 2010 earthquake’ (McAuliffe and Triandafyllidou 2021, 246).

Adaptation Framing

The ‘migration as adaptation’ frame relates to sections that describe migration as possible solution strategy in response to climate change. At times, the precise wording of adaptation was used, but text extracts were also coded for this frame when they highlighted, for example, positive outcomes of climate migration (IOM 2015, 1), mentioned remittances as positive economic effect of migration (IOM 2019a, 15) and presented migration as a strategy for improving an individual’s or a household’s economic situation (IOM 2022, 27). For instance, one report mentioned positive aspects of migration in response to climatic events in Peru: ‘It can help them to diversify incomes, learn new skills and send remittances to at-risk people in rural areas. For example, surveyed households in Junín use migration mostly successfully to diversify livelihoods and manage risks related to worsening rainfall patterns’ (Bergmann et al. 2021, 12). The adaptation framing can be found throughout the documents (IOM 2014c; Ionesco and Chazalnoël 2015a; Melde 2015, 2; Olimova and Olimov 2012), while the exact formulations changed over time and were adapted to the organisations’ own objectives. IOM has embraced the idea of interpreting migration as an adaptation strategy, since the very beginning, presenting it as one of several options of communities to respond to the degradation of their ecosystems and underlining the economic benefits that remittances can have in the region of origin (IOM 2007, 2008). In the years leading up to the Cancún Adaptation Framework and following from it, the organisation voiced its support in a number of publications, stating its objective ‘to ensure that important aspects of the vulnerability and adaptation of communities – namely, migration, displacement and planned relocation – are fully taken into account, both as potential challenges to be addressed as well as potential opportunities that provide viable adaptive responses’ (Warner et al. 2014, 8, emphasis added). From January 2014 to March 2017, IOM implemented the project ‘Migration, environment and climate change: Evidence for policy’ (MECLEP) in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Kenya, the Republic of Mauritius, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam. This project focused specifically on researching in how far migration can be an adaptation strategy to climate change and defined successful adaptation as reduced vulnerability after migration (Kelpsaite and Mach 2015). The associated reports find many examples of successful adaptation through migration, but also caution against situations where communities become more vulnerable at their destination (Naser 2015; Odipo et al. 2017). The authors point out how, for example, restrictions to livestock mobility can limit the adaptive capacity of a population (Odipo et al. 2017). Overall, the reports recommend to mainstream migration as adaptation, for example, into ‘climate adaptation plans, the land and housing planning system, disaster risk reduction and management, and plans for new cities’ (Sultan 2017, xii). Also in other regional contexts, such as in its continental strategy for Africa, IOM establishes as one of its key priorities to ‘[s]upport African governments in enhancing their understanding of environmental and climate migration and on developing policies and programmes that stabilize vulnerable communities and allow them to choose safe and regular migration as an adaptation strategy’. (IOM 2020a, 24)

In its publications leading up to the Paris Agreement, IOM proposes to include a plan to facilitate voluntary migration as an adaptation strategy (Ionesco and Chazalnoël 2015a). When finally, at the Paris conference, the decision was taken to create a Task Force on Displacement under the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, and migration was increasingly treated in this section of the climate negotiations, IOM continued to speak both to the adaptation and the loss and damage side of the issue while loosening its insistence on the specific wording of ‘migration as adaptation’. The underlying principle, however, remained in place. In its most recent institutional strategy, for instance, IOM argues that it is their objective to ‘make humane and orderly migration part of the solution to address the climate emergency’ (IOM 2021, 2). It is explicitly stated that migration will be promoted if it is ‘well-managed’ (IOM 2021, 30) and that migration can work positively towards sustainable development. This is also represented through the first of IOM’s three strategic objectives, ‘We develop solutions for people to move’, which reflects the basic message of the ‘migration as adaptation framing’ without naming it explicitly, stating that:

IOM will promote approaches that facilitate orderly, safe, responsible, and regular migration in the context of climate change, environmental degradation and disasters due to natural hazards. IOM will support the development and implementation of innovative migration policies and practices, including planned relocation, as a last resort. IOM will seek to develop solutions that leverage the potential of migration for climate change adaptation and risk reduction and enhance the contributions of migrants, diasporas and communities to climate action and resilience building. (IOM 2021, 17, emphasis added)

Alongside the second objective (to help people on the move) and the third objective (to develop solutions to stay), migration as adaptation thus plays a central role in IOM’s self-description. This view was also echoed in the interviews, where the respondents suggested that IOM should either help affected communities towards safe, orderly, and regular migration or provide them with green job options in situ (Interview 5 2022; Interview 6 2022).

Forced Migration

The ‘forced migration’ frame applies to sections where migration is interpreted as a negative consequence of climate or environmental change, a last resort, or a maladaptive response. It becomes evident from the threefold formulation of IOM’s objectives that migration is not always seen as an adaptation strategy to climate change within IOM. Forced migration in particular is seen as harmful and should be prevented. Referring to cyclones for example, IOM notes: ‘Such disasters displace thousands, rendering them homeless and destitute’ (Fatima, Wadud, and Coelho 2014, 6). One interviewee also held the view that people were generally reluctant to move and that while migration would certainly double in numbers that this was rather a last resort (Interview 4 2022, 2).

In its publications, IOM also shows awareness of the criticism voiced regarding the focus on adaptation, specifically citing, for example, Methmann and Oels’ argument that this shifts the responsibility away from polluting states to individual migrants (Odipo et al. 2017). A policy brief focussing on the Marshallese context evokes a dilemma when suggesting migration as adaptation: ‘on the one hand, it is important to be prepared for a future in which islands may become uninhabitable, and to make sure that migration and relocation can take place in an informed, orderly manner that minimizes loss and damage. On the other hand, suggesting migration and relocation as solutions is extremely sensitive as it suggests giving up on the islands’ (van der Geest et al. 2019, 9). Other documents warn against situations where migrants are worse off after they moved, because they find themselves again in at-risk areas (Bergmann et al. 2021, 13). IOM defends its position, though, holding ‘adaptation in whatever form is inevitable since the amount of greenhouse gases already emitted into the atmosphere has caused climate change’ (Odipo et al. 2017, 10).

Security Risk

The ‘security risk’ frame applies to sections where climate migration is presented in a security context as a potential risk or as provoking security risks, for example by stating that climate change might trigger conflicts and thus forced migration, or climate migrants would clash with the local population at their destination. References to mass migration or mass displacement were also included. Vanhala and Calliari describe that this frame interprets climate migration as ‘a border-management or resource control issue, particularly for areas of destination, and tends to (implicitly at least) understand climate displacement as a risk to society, resources and/or culture in destination countries’ (Vanhala and Calliari 2022, 2). The security risk frame urges policymakers to recognise and react to the threat of climate migration, carrying as an implicit or explicit policy solution to prevent migration from happening, possibly through implementing border security practices (Boas 2015).

Specifically, the very early documents paint a grim picture of potential mass migration due to climate change (IOM 2007, 2008), cautioning that ‘[w]hen a certain critical mass is reached, unmanaged migration can also have security implications for concerned countries with the potential to spill over across borders to neighbouring territories’ (IOM 2009, 39). In later publications, IOM often introduces the topic by stating the number of people displaced already today by weather-related events (Naser 2015, 10; Tangermann and Chazalnoel 2016, 2; Heita 2018, xiii), for example in country-specific reports and studies. However, the term of ‘mass’ migration is barely used in newer publications and the organisation refrains more and more from making future predictions on the scope of climate migration. In a similar way, references to conflict and security concerns are reduced over time. Mentions mostly concern the option of conflict over scarce resources. Odibo et al. note that, for example, in Kenya and Somalia, ‘the scarcity of natural resources leads to clashes between local ethnic groups, which often trigger migration as a survival or escape strategy rather than a coping strategy’ (2017, 5). On the other hand, IOM also warns that climate migration may lead to conflict over resources in the area of destination, citing the example of the Syrian civil war, where ‘exceptional drought contributed to population movements towards urban areas that were not addressed by the political regime’ (McAuliffe and Triandafyllidou 2021, 240), aggravating state fragility and the potential for violent conflict.¹ While admitting that the precise relationship between climate change, migration and conflict needs further research, IOM also highlights the risk of presenting climate change as a threat multiplier with ‘the (unintended) consequence […] that it presents climate mobility as a security risk’ (UNICEF; IOM 2021, 10). This framing, it is argued, ‘obscures the role that migration can play as a proactive adaptation strategy, and the need and potential for interventions that prevent displacement and allow people to decide whether or not to move’ (UNICEF; IOM 2021, 10). Adaptation and conflict are seen as opposed: on the one hand, there is the option of ‘good’ migration in a safe, orderly and regular way, represented as adaptation, on the other hand, there is the option of ‘bad’, unmanaged migration triggered by or leading to conflict.

Discussion

In the following, I will analyse IOM’s interpretation of climate migration and its changes over time according to the four dimensions of Critical Frame Analysis: voice, diagnosis, prognosis and call for action. This analysis provides insights about IOM’s self-perception and the role that the organisation attributes to itself in this growing field. It ultimately allows to answer my research question of how IOM’s identity and interests shape how the adaptation framing is deployed in the international governance of climate migration.

Voice

The dimension of voice refers to the actors pronouncing certain frames and potential frame-coalitions. In this case, I concentrated on IOM as an actor, who considers itself to be the ‘UN Migration agency’, and ‘the agency of choice for States wishing to respond more effectively to the shifting dynamics of migration and ensure the well-being of an ever more diverse population of migrants’ (IOM 2019b, 1). The organisation interprets its spectacular growth as having assumed ‘a global leadership on migration in the last decade’ (IOM 2021, 18). Besides this self-perception as the leading intergovernmental migration agency more generally, IOM also insists on having ‘pioneered research’ (IOM 2014d, 3) on climate migration since the early 1990s and being ‘at the forefront of operational, research, policy and advocacy efforts, seeking to bring environmental migration to the heart of international, regional and national concerns’ (IOM 2014c, 1). IOM thereby presents itself as the actor bringing together migrants’ interests with states’ priorities. When it comes to its position compared to other international organisations, one respondent considered IOM better equipped to respond to climate migration than for example UNHCR:

IOM has a much more flexible mandate and I think IOM long before UNHCR saw climate migration also as an opportunity for us to broaden our mandate, to strengthen our mandate. […] [F]rom an institutional point of view, I think we’ve seen that it was an opportunity to seize for IOM as well. So we’ve been very active in the field, especially for the discourse of migration as adaptation, I think for me that’s one of the major added value of IOM at the international level, because the other agencies are more looking at displacement. (Interview 2 2022)

The organisation claims to be the relevant authority regarding questions of climate migration, despite the existence of other fora specifically devoted to this phenomenon. This role was also reflected in the interviews, with one respondent with expertise in climate migration stating that IOM’s commitment towards the topic was decisive in her wanting to work for the organisation: ‘I mean, that’s one of the reasons, personally, why I have joined IOM. […] I joined IOM three years ago because for me, IOM has played a great role in promoting this at the international level’ (Interview 2 2022). It is from this position of self-perception as leading agency that IOM addresses the issue of climate migration.

Diagnosis

Building on Verloo’s definition of diagnosis, I analyse here what is represented as the problem, why it is seen as a problem, and what is mentioned as its causes. IOM portrays climate migration as a problem under certain circumstances. To begin with, the organisation mobilises the ‘forced migration’ frame to reiterate a necessity to ‘minimize forced migration as much as possible’ (IOM 2010, 4). The documents mention the negative impacts that climate hazards may have on populations and add that ‘migration, in its forced forms, can also contribute to further socio-economic and environmental vulnerabilities’ (IOM and UNCCD 2019, 1). Climate migration is thus represented as a problem when it occurs involuntarily. Additionally, migration is understood as problematic when it occurs in an unmanaged way: ‘When displacement occurs, it is important to intervene quickly and decisively to manage it and address urgent humanitarian needs […], as well as to ensure effective protection. In general, environmental migration, as much as any form of migration, should be managed to the extent possible’ (IOM 2009, 41). While being presented as an increasingly important topic, migration is only interpreted as a problem if it happens in an unmanaged way.

Prognosis

For the prognosis dimension, the proposed solution to the identified problem, IOM consequently focuses strongly on the fact that migration needs to be managed in order to work for climate adaptation and – not surprisingly – sees itself as the actor best positioned to implement this migration management:

Until now, migration in the face of environmental degradation and climate change figures in the thought processes and policy making of many stakeholders merely as a worst-case scenario that brings chaos and violence to regions of origin and destination and routes of transit. Indeed, unmanaged migration is a problem that needs to be addressed. Through its work, IOM is making the case that migration in the context of climate change does not necessarily have to be a worst-case scenario. On the contrary, migration can also be understood as an adaptation strategy to the impact of climate change under some circumstances, particularly in the early stages of environmental degradation. Yet, for migration to become a viable alternative – an adaptation strategy that increases the resilience of vulnerable populations – environmental migration needs to be managed, in particular with a view to enhancing positive and sustainable developmental outcomes. (IOM 2009, 24)

This point of view is reiterated across the documents, agreeing that ‘planned and managed migration can represent a coping strategy’ (IOM 2019a, 29, emphasis added). Notably, through the ‘migration as adaptation’ framing, climate migration is in IOM’s discourse deproblematised and depoliticised. It becomes a task to be managed instead of a legal or ethical question. Relatedly, while continuously referring to rights-based approaches, IOM does not call for a new migratory category. Instead, interviewees suggested that ‘migration policies that can create new migration pathways, free movement, free movement protocols between states, new labour migration schemes’ (Interview 2 2022) fall under IOM’s initiatives as well as, for example, planned relocation, humanitarian visas and labour migration as best practices (Interview 1 2022; Interview 2 2022; Interview 3 2022). The institutional strategy also considers a wide array of policy areas part of climate migration management including ‘border management, visas, entry and stay, consular services, evacuation, planned relocation, returns and diasporas engagement’ (IOM 2021, 3). However, while these examples are promoted by IOM through publications, my interview partners underlined the difficulty to harmonise these objectives with donor priorities, often targeted at inhibiting instead of encouraging migration (Interview 1 2022). This contradiction cannot be fully resolved.

Interestingly, IOM described migration in earlier publications as a natural strategy to cope with environmental stressors, referring to communities whose ‘daily lives are a permanent adaptation to different challenges originating in the ecology, economy and society’ (Odipo et al. 2017, 3). The following example is cited:

Migratory responses to environmental degradation, especially at early and intermediate stages, are often temporary in nature and serve as an adaptation strategy to environmental change. ‘Eating the dry season’ by sending a family member to the nearest city is a widespread strategy to adapt to difficult environmental conditions. Some communities, such as pastoralist or nomadic communities in the Sahel, the Middle East or Mongolia, have turned this practice into a way of living. (IOM 2010, 3)

Later, however, the organisation underlines that while migration is a common adaptation strategy to navigate the dry and rainy season in West Africa, ‘climate change is altering these patterns and worsening living conditions of the already poor rural households, as it widens inequalities’ (IOM 2020b, 7). Migration as adaptation thus no longer functions in traditional ways and according to IOM, this means that by no means this adaptation procedure can go unmanaged. Efficient migration management is thus the suggested solution, aligning adaptation, which was before described as not requiring external involvement, with IOM’s institutional focus on migration management.

In a perfect scenario, IOM envisages migrants to contribute to their communities of origin through remittances, making them resilient to climate change and contributing to the ideal of sustainable development: ‘In the immediate short term, overseas work opportunities allow migrants to send remittances to family members remaining on the islands so that they may remain in their homes as long as possible’ (Warner et al. 2014, 8). Adaptation becomes, in this context, often redefined as economic aspect: ‘Migration was a key coping strategy for households looking to diversify their incomes or to move away from areas at risk on a temporary or permanent basis and thus reduce the likelihood of displacement. However, if not well managed, it could exacerbate vulnerabilities and undermine human security and human rights’ (IOM 2022, 27). This vision reveals the focus on migrants bearing the task of adaptation to climate change, granting them agency but also responsibility.

Call for Action

IOM regards itself as the main actor harmonising international engagement regarding climate migration practices. It is indeed true that while specific fora have been created, such as the Platform on Disaster Displacement and the Task Force on Displacement under the Warsaw International Mechanism, IOM is more involved in operations on the ground reaching from capacity building to actual operational measures. By increasingly refraining from calling for a legal category to protect climate migrants, IOM privileges an international set-up where ad hoc responses to climate migration are dominant. In this context, the organisation can more easily claim to be the relevant agency to respond to climate migration scenarios.

Among the actions that IOM proposes, the case of labour migration is mentioned across the years and surfaces repetitively as positive example of migration as adaptation (IOM 2007; Martin and Herzberg 2014; Olimova and Olimov 2012). Schemes allowing migrants to provide their communities with remittances, allowing them to stay or helping them to move at a later point in time, are presented as a desirable practice in regard to climate migration as adaptation (Warner et al. 2014). Temporary or circular migration is likewise portrayed as a viable adaptation strategy (IOM 2014c; Melde 2015, 3) and specific national or regional agreements on humanitarian visas figure among the proposed solutions. Finally, planned relocation is mentioned throughout documents and interviews as strategy to minimise risk and exposure to climate change impacts (Interview 2 2022; IOM 2017b, 2021; Sobhee 2016). One of the interviewees working in a regional office for IOM highlighted an important operational obstacle to more adaptation-focused projects for the organisation: ‘If you go to a donor and say, listen, I have two projects. One is going to help people move and one is going to help people stay. 95 or 99% of donors from the Global North will likely choose the second’ (Interview 1 2022). As IOM is highly dependent on donor funding, the organisation has to comply with states’ priorities when planning operations. Therefore, at least in the current political context, projects that minimise or avert migration are more likely to be funded than projects helping people to move out of harm’s way.

IOM’s appeals are mostly directed at states to mainstream climate change into their migration policies and vice versa. For example, in a document addressing vulnerable countries, IOM recommends to ‘[d]evelop and/or strengthen national policies, strategies and legal frameworks of relevance to systematically include migration and climate change concerns […] to: (i) minimize forced and poorly managed forms of human mobility and reduce vulnerabilities; (ii) provide assistance and protection to migrants moving in the context of climate change; and (iii) facilitate migration in the context of climate and environmental changes by fostering regular migration pathways’ (IOM 2019a, 31). The document furthermore recommends to ‘[m]ainstream migration as an adaptation, resilience or coping strategy in relevant national policy frameworks’ (IOM 2019a, 32). Solutions are thus expected to be created on a national or regional level, e.g. via integration into national climate adaptation plans or bilateral agreements between specific states without an overarching global framework. IOM holds in this context the key role to actually implement these agreements.

Conclusion

When migration was for the first time officially recognised as a consequence of climate change in the Cancún Adaptation Framework in 2010, it was framed as a matter of climate change adaptation. While human mobility has officially been moved to the ‘Loss & Damage’ pillar of the UNFCCC climate negotiations, the initial adaptation framing has left its imprints that can be traced in IOM’s stance on the topic until today. IOM took up the adaptation framing even before the Cancún conference and advocated for its use in Cancún and afterwards. While the wording has sometimes changed, the initial idea of regarding migration as a positive solution to environmental hazards has remained a cornerstone of IOM’s approach towards the issue. The organisation has equally started to operationalise the discursive principles and described for example planned relocation projects, humanitarian visas, and labour migration schemes as cases of successful adaptation through migration. While insisting on a rights-based approach, IOM does not demand for a new legal status for climate migrants. However, IOM has changed its own interpretation of what the ‘migration as adaptation’ framing means by moving it away from the notion of adaptation being a regular and often-practiced response to environmental shocks towards an understanding more in line with its own philosophy according to which migration needs to be well managed in order to work for climate change adaptation. IOM’s identity as a decentralised and mandate-wise flexible organisation – and its structural interest to develop new projects to access the related funding and economically survive and expand – has shaped how the organisation deploys the adaptation framing. In this new interpretation, migration can only be a positive response to climate change if it is well managed, a role that IOM is prepared to take.

Despite changes in the climate migration discourse over time, I have shown that the ‘migration as adaptation’ framing has shaped IOM’s position on the topic today, with the organisation utilising this framing to position itself internationally as the key actor on climate migration. While naming certain operations that could represent ‘migration as adaptation’ in practice, insights on how IOM actually implements the framing are still lacking. Further research may be required to understand how the adaptation framing plays out in IOM-led projects on the ground.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the four anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This claim has been contested in the literature with authors finding little evidence that climate change had an impact on the Syrian pre-war drought and that internal migration due to the drought contributed to causing the civil war (Selby et al. 2017).