Climate change impacts: Bangladesh on frontline of mass migrations About 15 million (1.5 crore) people in Bangladesh alone could be on the move by 2050 because of climate change, causing the worst migration in human history. "They'll get displaced as temperatures are rising and desertification has set in where rainfall is needed most. They'll be on the move since more potent monsoons are making flood-prone areas worse," said AFM Shahidur Rahman, an environmentalist. "They'll desert their homesteads because they'll find their villages under water due to sea-level rise caused by melting glaciers, and the slow and deadly seepage of saline water into their wells and fields," he added. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a minimum of 207 million people in Latin America, Asia and Africa will not have enough water inside a decade. In Asia, an extra 130 million people will be at risk of hunger by the middle of the century. By 2100, crop revenues in Africa will drop 90 percent. And scientists see Bangladesh as ground zero. The country's 150 million inhabitants live in the delta of three waterways about the size of Iowa, and the majority of the country sits less than 20 feet above sea level. The IPCC statistics show that rising sea levels will wipe out more cultivated land in Bangladesh than anywhere in the world. By 2050, rice production is expected to drop 10 percent and wheat production by 30 percent. Experts say the first shifts will start within countries. Scientists see families flocking from rural and coastal areas to cities where livelihoods are less tied to fickle weather patterns. It's a pattern that is already happening against a background of rapid global urbanization, in which the desperate rate of urban population growth far outpaces jobs and infrastructure. Nearly 3.5 million people in Dhaka, about 40 percent of those live in slums. The World Bank estimates that by mid-century, half of all Bengalis will live in urban centers. The next step in the migration pattern is across national borders. Military experts predict a downward spiral of violence and conflict as people desperate for food, water and jobs cross into neighboring countries where resources may be only slightly less scarce. Wealthy nations like the United States and the European Union, meanwhile, could also be asked to take in millions of the world's displaced people even as they negotiate international disputes. "Those people who are most vulnerable right now, and having a problem of just surviving, and having the normal development challenges of clean water, fighting disease, getting an education - those are the ones most affected," said Koko Warner, head of the Environmental Migration, Social Vulnerability and Adaptation Section at the U.N. University. In Bangladesh, the issues are magnified by the density of the population. Any climate-induced disaster "inevitably affects millions of people," researcher James Pender wrote in a recent sweeping report on Bangladesh. He estimated that by 2080, almost all the 51 million to 97 million people currently living in coastal zones may have to leave. The worst-off won't even be able to do that. "If those who are causing the greenhouse gas emissions are unable to control carbon emissions, the people in the vulnerable areas, many of the coastal areas, are going to be inundated," said Shahidur Rahman. He added: "The vulnerable, the uneducated, the lowest of the communities will never be able to migrate to the U.S., to Canada, to Australia. There will be pressure on the not-so-vulnerable part of Bangladesh." Cities like Dhaka are bursting at the seams. Migration to other smaller cities appears to be occurring at a higher rate as well though the government leaders are reluctant to acknowledge the reality. The hardest hit, experts say, will be the families who won't be able to move. They are the ones most vulnerable to traffickers and others who prey upon the poorest of the poor. They are left to make do as best they can, say social scientists. It is unclear how the government will feed, house or find enough clean water for vast numbers of climate refugees in a country of 150 million people crammed into an area of merely 55,500 sq miles. Experts think that Bangladesh should change cultivation practices to boost food security, plant large areas of forest in flood-prone areas along rivers and the coast, and build embankments to cope with the emerging problems. http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2009/12/02/news0732.htm |
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