Climate Change, Vulnerability and Migration: the ingredients of a creeping crisis?

The concept of a “creeping crisis” highlights a threat growing in time and space, accompanied by uneven perceptions of urgency and varying uncertainty. The concept captures characteristics and elements of specific types of slow-onset crises which traditional theories on crisis management cannot fully encompass. However, more empirical work is needed to assess the value of the creeping crisis concept. This paper analyzes the case of climate-induced migration with this aim in mind. Only recently has the phenomenon of climate-induced migration gained increasing political and academic attention. Empirical research shows that apart from direct displacement caused by natural disasters, climate-induced migration is also closely intertwined with several other types of human mobility. Moreover, climate-induced migration demonstrates a high level of uncertainty as regards to future estimates of the number of people potentially displaced. Nevertheless, there is consensus that events such as sea-level rise, droughts and the increased occurrence of hurricanes and floods already have, and increasingly will have, drastic effects on migration patterns. This paper explores the concept of a creeping crisis in order to provide two sets of insights. First, it uses the conceptual dimensions of the “creeping crisis” in order to reflect upon whether climate-induced migration could indeed categorize as creeping crisis. Second, this paper uses the in-depth investigation – both the empirical and the political aspects – of the cases as a way to evaluate the analytical framework on creeping crises and to suggest further enhancements of the conceptualization. The paper concludes by considering the implications that categorization could have for politically addressing these phenomena.