Climate change impact will displace 50 million people by 2100!

Global warming has advanced to the point where the question is no longer how to stop it, but to what extent it can be mitigated. According to experts, raising seas, floods, and intensifying cyclones are just a few of the calamities that threaten many developing countries, including Bangladesh, one of the most climate change-vulnerable countries in the world. Despite producing only 0.56 percent of the global emissions changing, Bangladesh ranks seventh on the list of countries most vulnerable to climate devastation.

Ecosystems, food production and health and infrastructure have already sustained considerable damage to the developing nations. However, further damage can be contained to some extent if the temperature rise is kept to around 1.5 degrees, but it will not be possible to eliminate all adverse effects, experts have said. Although the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Glasgow last autumn, agreed to keep striving to contain the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, as well as phased reduction of coal-fired power generation, the agreement could not have been more conservative.

However, in the pursuit of creating change it is important to be committed but not to be crusaders. Change takes time and overwhelming people with information and asking them to make too many changes too quickly may be counterproductive. Experts warn that extensive damage has already been done. By now between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion people around the world fall into rapid climate change victims, and what happens in the next 10 years is deemed to be crucial.

Talking about climate impacts in Bangladesh would hardly be complete without mention of the staggering injustice the country faces. Because overwhelmingly, climate impacts are being imposed on Bangladesh by high-emitting, wealthy countries — not by the people of Bangladesh themselves. The wealthy countries should give every consideration to the people of Bangladesh who won’t be able to bear the burden. Otherwise, some scientists project a five-to-six foot sea-level rise by 2100, which would displace perhaps 50 million people.