NUMBER OF AFRICAN MIGRANTS WILL DOUBLE BY 2050 AND CLIMATE CHANGE WILL MAKE IT WORSE
The number of Africans leaving their home country to move to other parts of the globe is expected to more than double in upcoming years, with climate change acting as a main accelerator of this expected migration. Although an imminent mass exodus is not expected, new findings do show the real-life effects of changing weather patterns.
A European Commission report aimed to identify past and present migration patterns in Africa and use these models to predict how future migration may look. Results revealed that although the number of Africans leaving their country of birth for long periods of time or for good is currently about 1.4 million a year, by 2050 this number is expected to reach between 2.8 million to 3.5 million a year.
More than half of these future African migrants are expected to remain on the African continent, simply moving to African nations different than that of their birth. North African migrants are more likely than other Africans to leave the continent and head overseas. The remaining 40 percent of migrants will most likely move to Europe, but also North America and Western Asia. However, the report emphasized that the U.S. and Canada are not a main target destination for most African immigrants.
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