The relationship between climate change and migration has been poorly understood in the literature and it deserves the attention of scientific community (Stern, 2013; Licker and Oppenheimer, 2013). This work wants to be an additional contribution to the existing literature. The aim is to show under which economic conditions climate change can increase international migration and to what extent international migration can be beneficial or detrimental for the economic losses of climate change.

To achieve this goal we apply Sea Level Rise (SLR) impacts to a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model which allows for international migration. Physical impacts of SLR stem from the DIVA bottom-up tool (Hinkel and Klein, 2009) and are implemented as negative productivity shocks of primary production factors in the CGE model. The propagation of the climate shocks into the migration process takes place essentially through the economic equilibrium in the global labor market.

Results show that the international migration driven by a more integrated labor market at the global level could represent a useful adaptation strategy option to slightly decrease the economic losses of SLR even if it cannot substitute in any way the adoption of strong mitigation policy to reduce damages, especially in some regions as Rest of Asia.