Barcelona: Climate change can encourage more than 200 million people to leave their homes in the next three decades and make migration hotspots unless urgent actions are taken to reduce global emissions and bridge the development gap, a World Bank report has found.
The second part of the Groundswell report published on Monday examines how slow climate change impacts such as water scarcity, decreased plant productivity and sea level rise can cause millions of what the report described as “climate migrant” in 2050 under three years.
Different scenarios with various levels of climate action and development.
Under the most pessimistic scenario, with high emission levels and uneven developments, the report estimates that up to 216 million people are engaged in their own country in six regions analyzed.
The areas are Latin America; North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Europe and Central Asia; South Asia; and East Asia and the Pacific.
In the most friendly climate scenario, with a low and inclusive emission level, sustainable development, the number of migrants can be as much as 80% lower but still produces 44 million displacement.
The report does not see the short-term impact of climate change, such as effects on extreme weather events “reiterated the climate potential to induce migration within the country,” said Viviane Wei Chen Clement, a senior climate change specialist at the World Bank and one of the reporters .
In the worst scenario, sub-Saharan Africa – the most vulnerable area due to desertification, fragile coastline and population dependence on agriculture – will see most movements, with up to 86 million climate migrants moving within national boundaries.
North Africa, however, is predicted to have the greatest proportion of climate migrants, with 19 million people moving, equivalent to around 9% of the total population, especially to increase water scarcity on the northeastern coast of Tunisia, West Coast Algerea, West and South Morocco, and South Middle Atlas Foothills, the report said.
In South Asia, Bangladesh was strongly influenced by floods and crop failures contributing almost half of the predicted climate migrants, with 19.9 million people, including increasing women’s share, moving in 2050 with a pessimistic scenario.
“This is our current humanity reality and we worry this will get worse, where more acute vulnerability,” said Prof.
Maarten Van Aalst, Director of the International Red Cross Criment Center, who was not involved with the report.
The report does not see climate migration on the border.
“Globally we know that three of the four people engaged in countries,” said Dr.
Kanta Kumari Rigaud, a major environment specialist at the World Bank and Partners of the Report.
However, the pattern of migration from rural areas to urban areas often precedes movement on the border.
While the influence of climate change in migration is not new, it is often part of a combination of factors that encourage people to move, and act as a threatening multiplier.
People affected by conflict and inequality are also more susceptible to the effects of climate change because they have a limited way to adapt.
The report also warns that migration hotspots can appear in the coming decade and increase in 2050.
Planning is needed either in areas where people will move to, and in the area they go to help those who remain.
Among the recommended actions is to achieve “zero-zero emissions in the middle of the century to have the opportunity to limit global warming to 1.5 ° C” and invest in development, namely “green, tough, and inclusive, in accordance with the Paris agreement.” Clement and Rigaud warned that the worst “reasonable” scenario if collective action to reduce emissions and invest in development is not taken, especially in the next decade.