Building on the original conceptual framework proposed by Carter and Barrett (2006), the potential for mobility in the case of slow-onset events is mediated by _in situ_ adaptation, assets, and liquidity constraints. _In situ_ adaptation encompasses various on-farm practices, including the use of fertilizers, pesticides, improved seeds, irrigation, and the adoption of sustainable land management practices. The availability of assets is crucial for identifying dynamic thresholds, above which households are expected to maintain a smoother consumption path (through asset decumulation) over time and experience less pressure to migrate. Liquidity constraints can significantly impede mobility, especially when compounded by adverse weather shocks induced by climate change. The “+” and “-” signs above the arrows (in Figure 1) represent the signs of the depicted relationships and impacts.

This conceptual framework provides valuable insights for empirically analyzing climate-induced mobility. First, it emphasizes that the relationship between weather shocks and mobility is complex and non-linear, mediated by several key factors that depend on household-specific values and contextual elements. Second, it underscores the need to identify heterogeneous effects of climate shocks, where outcomes are not binary but instead include mobility, immobility, and traps that perpetuate immobility. Third, it highlights the importance of estimating critical thresholds that determine households’ migration responses based on their assets, welfare, and liquidity constraints.

Understanding whether this mobility is temporary or long-term and assessing its impact on local labor markets or other domains, potentially even across borders, requires further investigation and the identification of additional transmission channels. However, while these departures can also be associated with cross-border movements, the existing literature tells us that this is less likely: international migration as a response is rare as its costs are prohibitive for most households living in rural developing contexts. Internal migration is much more common and usually takes the form of rural-urban movements.<sup>19,20</sup> The initial stage of migration is typically a choice of relatively better-off households who aim to diversify risk and income and can sustain the costs associated with the departure of one of its members. For the poorest households, however, the most likely outcome is an immobility trap, in which the slow-onset changes further deplete their already limited assets and resources and aggravate their liquidity constraints, forcing them to stay even if they are unable to adapt. As household members migrate internally in response to slow-onset events, there is a potential domino effect: flows into cities may lead to pressures on urban labor markets through wages and urbanization effects. This, in turn, may trigger economically motivated cross-border movements from these overcrowded cities to other countries and regions.<sup>21</sup> In such cases, climate change would be an _indirect_ rather than _direct_ push factor. From an empirical perspective, this means that internal migration can result in

> 19 Note that rural-rural movements can also be comprised within the rural-urban migratory response if progressive arrivals in the same rural destination gradually lead to a reclassification of this rural area into an urban one.

> 20 Indeed, international patterns go beyond the scope of this appraisal, as our main objective is to assess the utility of household surveys in shedding light on the initial stage of the depicted framework, while addressing the inherent challenge of the “rare event” issue. 21 We remark that the channel leading to secondary cross-border migration may not be necessarily an economic one but could also consist of social unrest or political instability in urban areas due to problems such as discrimination, labor exploitation, unequal access to basic services.

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