BERLIN — Europe could see a surge in “climate refugees” as global warming increases poverty and hardship elsewhere in the world, scientists said Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT“We find a statistically significant relationship between fluctuations in asylum applications and weather anomalies,” the U.S.-based authors wrote of the 15-year period. The authors, Wolfram Schlenker and Anouch Missirian of Columbia University, said their study doesn’t account for other factors — such as the outbreak of conflicts — that may impact asylum applications. Schlenker said the impact of climate change on agriculture may also not be immediate. “A lot of people argue that climate impact will mainly hit developing countries, but this shows it will have big spillover effect,” he said.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer December 22, 2017 03:11 UTC