In an online interview with the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction, Sir John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser to the government of the United Kingdom, and head of the Technology Foresight Programme, talked about the program’s recently published report “Migration and Global Environmental Change: Future Challenges and Opportunities.”

In the online interview, Sir John Beddington says,“previous discussions on migration in the context of climate change were saying people were fleeing from areas because of the effect of climate change on sea level, storm surges and so on. But this report actually came out with something that is rather more subtle: that migration is taking people into areas of increasing vulnerability. Obviously cities are one of those.”

Sir John also said: “We need to think more carefully about how science and engineering can help different geographical scales within cities. Every city is different. How do we maintain water supply continuity, address epidemics, and get enough energy to cities? When you get down to the ground and start talking about practical problems, there are not many generalities.”

The report also notes that in 2010, some 42 million people were forced to migrate due to natural hazards, more than twice the number of 2009.