Britain must tackle climate migration before people reach the border
Heavy monsoon rains triggering flash floods in Pakistan, July 2026 (Pakistan Press International / Alamy)
5 min read
Too often, political debate about migration begins with a boat, a border crossing or an asylum claim.
But when Abdihakiin Hassan Jiirow gave his testimony to our recent APPG inquiry on Climate Change and Migration, he did not offer such a simple explanation for how and why people move. He described drought and the loss of livestock; he spoke of flooding, insecure shelter, food shortages and scarce clean water; he talked about interrupted schooling, and persistent violence from militias and non-state actors.
For him and for many others, those pressures accumulated until the conditions necessary for ordinary life had broken down. At that point, remaining at home was no longer a meaningful choice. His testimony should change how we discuss climate migration.
That is the central argument of Before the Border, the new report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate, Nature and Security. It is also why the government’s new Climate Security Taskforce must be matched by a permanent capability able to identify emerging risks and act before crisis becomes displacement.
Climate change does not operate as a single trigger sending people directly towards Britain. It acts through systems. Drought, flooding, extreme heat and environmental degradation interact with poverty, conflict, weak governance and failing infrastructure.
Movement is usually internal or regional. People travel first to the nearest town, city or neighbouring country where they hope to find safety, employment or essential services.
But geographic distance is not strategic distance. When host communities are overwhelmed, public services fail, food prices rise and governments lose legitimacy, the consequences can reach the UK through humanitarian crises, conflict, disrupted supply chains, pressure on allies, organised crime and irregular migration routes.
The principal security threat is not the person who moves. It is the unmanaged systems failure that removed their choices.
Our evidence also showed what can happen when some of those choices are restored. Ahmad Ouwier arrived in Jordan as a Syrian refugee. He moved from informal work into information technology and entrepreneurship, founded a business, and created opportunities for refugees and Jordanian citizens.
His story shows that resilience depends upon institutions as much as individuals. Ability and ambition can still be frustrated by restrictions on documentation, lawful work, education, finance and company registration.
Shahd Smadi made the same point when speaking about displaced young Syrians. They do not want to remain permanently defined by vulnerability or treated solely as recipients of aid. They want education, skills, lawful employment that facilitates agency and ability to further the social and economic future of the country hosting them – the opportunity to potentially contribute rather than permanently consume.
These testimonies illustrate two paths. Where institutions collapse, displacement can become prolonged, destabilising and intergenerational. Where people retain access to education, water, lawful work, finance and functioning local government, mobility can become a form of adaptation - a means of rebuilding lives and strengthening receiving communities.
This is not only a humanitarian issue. It is a matter of preventive security.
Britain already possesses expertise across government, the intelligence community, local authorities and universities. What it lacks is a permanent mechanism capable of combining that knowledge, identifying where climate pressures are converging with fragility and translating warning into action.
Our report therefore recommends a UK Climate Security Intelligence Team: a small, cross-government capability focused not on producing more reports but on improving decisions.
It should identify where pressures on water, food, livelihoods, infrastructure and public trust are approaching critical thresholds. It should assess those already displaced, but also those trapped because they lack the resources to move. Every warning should be linked to a practical policy choice – diplomatic engagement, adaptation finance, humanitarian assistance or conflict prevention.
This capability must work with countries, not impose solutions upon them. The climate security intelligence model developed with Jordan and funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office demonstrates the value of nationally owned systems combining environmental data with local knowledge and political analysis.
Satellite data can reveal rainfall decline, vegetation loss or rising temperatures. It cannot explain whether a family will adapt, move, become vulnerable to exploitation or lose faith in the state. Effective warning requires both data and human judgement.
Britain must also recognise its own exposure. Flooding, coastal erosion, extreme heat and infrastructure disruption will increasingly affect where people can live and whether receiving communities can absorb internal movement. Managed retreat and local resilience are now matters of national preparedness.
Migration policy will remain necessary. Borders will still require management. But a government that begins its response only when people reach a border has begun too late.
The risks posed by climate change and ecological collapse have been recognised in the National Security Assessment; and the new Climate Security Taskforce is a very positive move. Government now needs to establish a permanent warning capability, and the financial strategy and parliamentary accountability required to turn awareness into action.
Security policy is ultimately about preserving choices before events remove them. Acting before the border means helping communities remain safely where they are, enabling movement where necessary and preventing environmental stress from becoming institutional collapse, conflict or coercion.
Climate change is already reshaping mobility. The question is whether Britain will manage the consequences intelligently and early, or continue paying more to confront them after prevention has failed.
Barry Gardiner is Labour MP for Brent West and chair of the APPG on Climate Nature and Security, and Prof Tim Clack is an associate fellow of the Centre for Historical & Armed Conflict Research
