Climate change causes mass internal migration

Rayhan Ahmed Topader :
Climate change in Bangladesh has started what may become the largest mass migration in human history. In recent years, riverbank erosion has annually displaced between 50,000 and 200,000 people. The population of what the Bangladesh government calls “immediately threatened” islands, called “chars,” exceeds four million. The Bangladesh riverine environment is so dynamic that, as chars wash away, the process of accretion creates new chars downstream. Land is so scarce and the population so dense that the displaced people try to eke out an existence on these new, highly unstable sand bars. A three-foot rise in sea level would submerge almost 20 percent of the entire country and displace more than 30 million people. Some scientists project a five-to-six foot rise by 2100, which would displace perhaps 50 million people. As perspective, the ongoing tragedy in Syria has caused the exodus of approximately three million people. In some places, the impact of climate change is obvious. In others, scientists predict that climate change will occur based on elaborate computer models. In Bangladesh, it is already happening at a scale that involves unprecedented human tragedy.
Bangladesh sits at the head of the Bay of Bengal, astride the largest river delta on Earth, formed by the junction of the Brahmaputra, Ganges, and Meghna rivers. Nearly one-quarter of Bangladesh is less than seven feet about sea level; two-thirds of the country is less than 15 feet above sea level.
Most Bangladeshis live along coastal areas where alluvial delta soils provide some of the best farmland in the country. Sea surface temperatures in the shallow Bay of Bengal have significantly increased, which, scientists believe, has caused Bangladesh to suffer some of the fastest recorded sea level rises in the world. Storm surges from more frequent and stronger cyclones push walls of water 50 to 60 miles up the Delta’s rivers. At the same time, melting of glaciers and snowpack in the Himalayas, which hold the third largest body of snow on Earth, has swollen the rivers that flow into Bangladesh from Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and India. So too have India’s water policies. India diverts large quantities of water for irrigation during the dry season and releases most water during the monsoon season. According to the Bangladesh government’s 2009 Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, in an ‘average’ year, approximately one quarter of the country is inundated.” Every four to five years, “there is a severe flood that may cover over 60% of the country.” Rapid erosion of coastal areas has inundated dozens of islands in the Bay. For example, Sandwip Island, near Chittagong, has lost 90 percent of its original 23-square-miles mostly in the last two decades. It is not just people who are affected. The Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world and a World Heritage Site, lies in the delta of the Ganges River in Bangladesh and India.
Home to the iconic Bengal tiger, the Sundarbans also play a critical role in protecting Bangladesh’s coastal areas from storm surges caused by cyclones. Nevertheless, across coastal Bangladesh, sea-level rise, exacerbated by the conversion of mangrove forest for agricultural production and shrimp farming, has resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of acres of mangroves. In the Sundarbans, the number of tigers has plummeted. The World Wildlife Fund predicts that the tiger may become extinct. Further loss of mangrove habitat, especially in the Sundarbans, also means that Bangladesh will lose one of its last natural defenses against climate change-induced super-cyclones. Engineering adaptations to climate change that have been successful in other nations such as the dikes constructed in the Netherlands won’t work in Bangladesh because the soils are sandy and constantly shifting. The government has undertaken measures to adapt to climate change. It has developed an effective early warning system to alert coastal rural areas of impending cyclones; built a network of 2,100 cyclone shelters, which can accommodate more than a million people; and financed 4,000 miles of coastal embankment projects. It is even planting trees on chars in an effort to create islands that are more durable. However, despite its economic progress, Bangladesh remains a poor country with limited resources.
British people’s concern over climate change hit the highest level in almost a decade amid the record-breaking heatwave which swept across Britain this summer, a new poll has revealed. While many people took the opportunity to enjoy the hot weather, the unprecedented temperatures also appear to have led many to worry about what caused it.
The poll by Opinium showed 60 per cent of British adults think climate change made the heatwave stronger or more likely to happen. It also revealed almost a third of respondents 30 per cent now describe themselves as very concerned about climate change higher than any poll since 2008. A further 42 per cent said they are fairly concerned. The soaring summer heat surpassed the record set in 1976 in England and daytime temperatures regularly rose above 30C across the country throughout June and July. The dry conditions had a significant impact on farms, with warnings food prices could rise in the coming months. There were also record A&E admissions over the summer. Meanwhile temperatures across the northern hemisphere were also anomalous. Sweden recorded its hottest July in over 260 years, and was forced to issue an appeal for international aid as wildfires ravaged swathes of forest above the Arctic Circle where temperatures exceeded 30C. The heatwave which enveloped northern Europe was made twice as likely due to the effects of climate change, according to an international team of scientists from the World Weather Attribution network.
But climate change writer Leo Barasi, author of The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism, who developed the Opinium poll, suggested the impact of the heatwave in the UK was still yet to be fully realised and concern could soon increase further. In the UK we have just had this heatwave which most people link with climate change concern has gone up, but it hasn’t completely rocketed. It’s a bit of a double-edged thing they believe it was definitely a sign of climate change, just as the science says, but most people’s experience of it was not unequivocally awful not like a massive forest fire or a terrible hurricane.
Some people quite enjoyed it. But what we will start getting are the consequences of it food prices being higher, data from hospitals showing the effects of the heatwave, and farmers having problems with feed for their animals. If there’s a penny dropping about the heatwave, then it’s when the effects start to hit people. The research also indicated that climate change is among the top five issues the public, particularly younger people, want politicians to talk about more ahead of prominent issues like Brexit, the economy and education, though behind health, immigration, housing and crime. Dr Jonathan Marshall, head of analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, told The Independent: “Public awareness of the effects that climate change is having now is in tune with the science, which has shown that emissions from human activity made this summer’s heat wave twice as likely to occur.
This is also not the first time that the fingerprints of climate change have been seen on extreme weather events in the UK, with devastating storms that caused hundreds of millions of pounds in damage in 2015 made 40 per cent more likely by climate change. As more of these events occur in the UK, public support for action to cut emissions is likely to continue to swell. A spokesperson from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said. We are taking robust action to ensure our country is resilient and prepared for the challenges a changing climate brings.
Our long-term plan for climate change adaptation sets out ongoing work and investment to make sure food and water supplies are protected, businesses and communities are properly prepared and the right infrastructure is in place. These changes are happening to the people of Bangladesh, not caused by them. As a country, Bangladesh emits only 0.3 percent of the emissions producing climate change. Climate refugees, mostly rural farmers and fishermen, are moving into the slums of the country’s two largest cities, Dhaka and Chittagong.
As conditions deteriorate, the capacity of these areas to absorb more people is nearing the end. The sad reality offers limited options to those displaced. Climate refugees from Bangladesh, a predominantly Muslim country, are not welcome in the neighboring countries of India and Myanmar. India is building its version of a border wall, a barbed-wire fence; violence in Myanmar in December 2016 drove an estimated 65,000 Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority, into Bangladesh.
It is exceedingly unlikely that the Trump Administration either will welcome Bangladeshi refugees or provide financial support to underwrite costs of relocation to other countries. Opportunities for resettlement in the rest of the world are dwindling. The unfolding calamity demands a response from the international community. Wealthy countries have generated most of the greenhouse gases that are harming Bangladesh. If these countries are unwilling to absorb tens of millions of refugees, there is a moral imperative for them to help. They should underwrite the adaptation efforts of the Bangladesh government and the construction of roads, power plants, water supply systems, housing and other infrastructure to allow these climate refugees to remain and thrive in their own country.