The
worsening impacts of climate change in three densely populated regions of the
world could see over 140 million people move within their countries’ borders by
2050, creating a looming human crisis and threatening the development process,
a new World Bank Group report finds.
But
with concerted action – including global efforts to cut greenhouse gas
emissions and robust development planning at the country level – this
worst-case scenario of over 140m could be dramatically reduced, by as much as
80 percent, or more than 100 million people.
The
report, Groundswell – Preparing for Internal Climate Migration, is the
first and most comprehensive study of its kind to focus on the nexus between
slow-onset climate change impacts, internal migration patterns and, development
in three developing regions of the world: Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and
Latin America.
It
finds that unless urgent climate and development action is taken globally and
nationally, these three regions together could be dealing with tens of millions
of internal climate migrants by 2050. These are people forced to move from
increasingly non-viable areas of their countries due to growing problems like
water scarcity, crop failure, sea-level rise and storm surges.
These
“climate migrants” would be additional to the millions of people already moving
within their countries for economic, social, political or other reasons, the
report warns.
World
Bank Chief Executive Officer Kristalina Georgieva said the new research
provides a wake-up call to countries and development institutions.
“We
have a small window now, before the effects of climate change deepen, to
prepare the ground for this new reality,” Georgieva said. “Steps cities
take to cope with the upward trend of arrivals from rural areas and to improve
opportunities for education, training and jobs will pay long-term dividends.
It’s also important to help people make good decisions about whether to stay
where they are or move to new locations where they are less vulnerable.”
The
research team, led by World Bank Lead Environmental Specialist Kanta Kumari
Rigaud and including researchers and modelers from CIESIN Columbia University,
CUNY Institute of Demographic Research, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research - applied a multi-dimensional modeling approach to estimate the
potential scale of internal climate migration across the three regions.
They
looked at three potential climate change and development scenarios, comparing
the most “pessimistic” (high greenhouse gas emissions and unequal development
paths), to “climate friendly” and “more inclusive development” scenarios in
which climate and national development action increases in line with the
challenge. Across each scenario, they applied demographic, socioeconomic and
climate impact data at a 14-square kilometer grid-cell level to model likely
shifts in population within countries.
This
approach identified major “hotspots” of climate in- and out-migration - areas
from which people are expected to move and urban, peri-urban and rural areas to
which people will try to move to build new lives and livelihoods.
“Without
the right planning and support, people migrating from rural areas into cities
could be facing new and even more dangerous risks,” said the report’s team
lead Kanta Kumari Rigaud. “We could see increased tensions and conflict as a
result of pressure on scarce resources. But that doesn’t have to be the future.
While internal climate migration is becoming a reality, it won’t be a crisis if
we plan for it now.”
The
report recommends key actions nationally and globally, including:
•
Cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to reduce climate pressure on people
and livelihoods, and to reduce the overall scale of climate migration;
•
Transforming development planning to factor in the entire cycle of climate
migration (before, during and after migration); and
•
Investing in data and analysis to improve understanding of internal climate
migration trends and trajectories at the country level.
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