The key conclusion of this paper is that poor countries, may be further trapped in poverty as a consequence of climatic warming.

Climate change, especially the warming trend experienced by several countries, could affect agricultural productivity. As a consequence the income of rural populations will change, and with them the incentives for people to remain in rural areas.

Using data from 116 countries between 1960 and 2000, researchers analyzed the effect of differential warming trends across countries on the probability of either migrating out of the country or from rural to urban areas.

The researchers find that higher temperatures increased emigration rates to urban areas and to other countries in middle income economies. In poor countries, higher temperatures reduced the probability of emigration to cities or to other countries, consistently with the presence of severe liquidity constraints.

In middle-income countries, migration represents an important margin of adjustment to global warming, potentially contributing to struc- tural change and even increasing income per worker.

Such a mechanism, however, does not seem to work in poor economies.

[adapted from author abstract]