Most climate-driven movement isn't the dramatic cross-border exodus often pictured — it's internal, gradual, and already underway.
The majority of people displaced by climate-related disasters each year move within their own country — from a drought-hit rural region to a nearby city, or away from a flood plain to higher ground a short distance away. That pattern is easy to miss because it rarely makes international headlines, but it strains urban infrastructure and rural economies alike.
Where formal planning is absent, this movement happens haphazardly — informal settlements growing on the edges of cities, often in the same flood-prone or unstable land that pushed people to migrate from elsewhere. Where it's planned for, cities can zone for growth, extend services proactively, and treat new arrivals as a labor and community asset rather than a crisis to manage.
The policy tools that work best treat migration as an adaptation strategy in its own right — not a failure of resilience, but sometimes the most rational response available. Supporting people to move safely, with resources and legal standing intact, is often more effective than trying to keep every community in place indefinitely.