On the move - involuntary migration

This week I had prearranged to indulge further into some of the impacts faced by agriculture due to climate change in developing countries (something that we briefly touched on in the last post). However, yesterday I read a piece released by the UN University that was titled ‘A Climate Migrant’s Story, from an Urban Slum in Dhaka’ which focuses on a lady that was forced to migrate from her home due to issues arising from climate change. So I think I will save the topic of agriculture for another week and focus on one of the major social impacts of climate change.

Now imagine for a second that you are forced to flee your home due to severe weather consequences as a result of climate change. Well that is exactly what happened to Belkis and many of the other migrants currently calling the Bhola slum ‘home’. As mentioned in the article, many of the inhabitants currently living within the slum were forced to leave Bhola Island due to the catastrophic Bhola cyclone of 1970. As people like Belkis who live in developing countries are forced out of their homes due to extreme weather patterns as a result of environmental change, they have to leave behind land and agriculture that they own, which they could have cultivated to increase their living conditions thus amplifying the social impacts that arise as a result of climate change.

Belkis and her family are not the first people who have had to flee their home due to impacts arising from climate change and they certainly will not be the last. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre in a study they carried out back in 2012, up to thirty million residents had to leave their properties and livelihoods behind due to impacts of climate change, with nearly all of those relocation's occurring due to sea level rise and increased rainfall in some regions– thus increasing floods, and reduced rainfall in other regions leading to droughts. The image below shows that out of the 32.4 million people displaced, many of them lived in regions known as 'developing', for example in Chad and Bangladesh, along with Pakistan and Nigeria where over 1 million people in each country had been displaced, the highest amount of any country.

Areas in which people have had to migrate from due to impacts resulting from climate change. Regions in dark red are those that have been the most effected. Photo: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)

Environmental change over the years has had a major influence on worldwide relocation trends according to the International Organisation for Migration. They mention that this is due to the fact that inhabitants in places with low income and poor natural conditions (due to issues arising from climate change) have for many years been displaced from their homes, adding that these internal and external patterns of migration will continue due to the current projection of accelerating climate change. This projection means that many more livelihoods will face unparallelled impacts, especially those living in developing nations as they are less likely to have the resources to implement adaptation and mitigation strategies.

The impacts of climate induced migration:

Although the significances of local and cross border migration are not always damaging, the key impacts devastatingly are, as put by the United Nations Environment Programme. Some of these impacts that the UNEP have looked at such as mounting humanitarian emergencies and hindered growth are currently being faced by Belkis and the other residents of the Bhola slum. Climate migrants are always endangered by hazards and susceptibilities while travelling to and arriving at their new destinations, with some not even making it.

Migration brings huge difficulties to nations with low GDP. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers that allow some of these developing nations to apply for debt relief shows the negative views of migration within Africa. This is because migration has led to an increased number of criminal activity, widespread illnesses and environmental degradation all while consolidating the deficiency the continent is already facing (Tacoli 2009). Much indecision still remains as to how countries will respond to forthcoming climate change, which is why it is important to ensure that adaptation and mitigation strategies are effective in combating current and future impacts that force populations into involuntary climate migration.



 So as you prepare to go to bed tonight, have a think about those who have had to leave their homes due to climate change, like Belkis.