The debate about how environmental or climate factors affect migration decisions has generated
a lot of interest in recent times, however empirical studies about the subject are limited and
fragmented. This paper investigates the effect of climate factors on migration decisions by
comparing the 2005/06 and 2012/13 rounds of Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS5 and
GLSS6), using Heckman two-stage method to account for selectivity bias. The climate condition
in various ecological zones of Ghana is used as a proxy to investigate the effect of climate
elements on migration decision. Results show that socio-economic factors such as anticipated
welfare gains, household size, education, the sector of employment and others, together with
climatic element do significantly affect an individual’s migration decision. Findings further
suggest a positive effect of climate element on migration decisions. The coastal savannah and
forest ecological zones have a greater probability of accommodating more in-migrants relative to
the northern savannah ecological zone. In addition, marginal effects reveal that the probability to
migrate to coastal savannah zone relative to northern zones is higher than the probability to
migrate to forest zones relative to northern zone. Moreover, anticipated welfare gains reinforce
the effect of climate elements and also entrenches the divergence between the probability of
migrating to coastal and forest zones relative to the northern zones. With the current climate
change of high temperature and low rainfall, migration may be considered as one of the several
adaptation strategies in response to changes in the environment.