Climate change to displace up to 200 million
Pastor Dale Morgan
Climate change to displace up to 200 million*
* Story Highlights
* CARE International report: Up to 200 million people could be on
the move by 2050
* Agencies warn that recent gains in the fight against poverty could
vanish
* Official says simple changes could help alleviate big problems,
gives examples
* Women who raise chickens in flood-prone Bangladesh should switch
to ducks
(CNN) -- A new kind of refugee is on the rise. And by 2050, there could
be as many as 200 million of them.
CARE official says people in flood-prone Bangladesh should raise ducks
instead of chickens.
They are not fleeing despicable acts of violence or persecution but the
very land and water on which their livelihoods depend. They are some of
the world's poorest, forced from their homes by global climate change.
Alarmed by the predictions on climate refugees, humanitarian agencies
warn that recent gains in the fight against poverty could vanish unless
issues of forced migration become an integral part of the dialogue on
global warming.
"What can we say? This is not a pretty picture," said Charles Ehrhart,
climate change coordinator for CARE International.
Ehrhart helped author a report for CARE that was unveiled Wednesday at
climate talks underway in Bonn, Germany. Attended by delegates from 184
countries, the Bonn conference is meant to serve as a precursor to a
crucial United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change summit in
December in Copenhagen, Denmark.
That summit is expected to produce agreement on how to tackle global
warming after the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for
industrialized nations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, expires in
in 2012.
"The consequences for almost all aspects of development and human
security could be devastating," says the new study, cosponsored by the
Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information
Network and the U.N. University's Institute for Environment and Human
Security.
Ehrhart said the breakdown of ecosystem-dependent livelihoods is likely
to remain the main driver of forced migration during the next few
decades. In the Mekong River Delta, for instance, the sea level rising
by 2 meters (6.5 feet) could mean the loss of millions of acres of
agricultural land, reducing it by half, Ehrhart said.
Climate change will exacerbate stressful conditions unless vulnerable
populations, especially the poorest, are assisted in building
climate-resilient livelihoods, Ehrhart said. It's morally imperative for
developing nations to adopt policy that addresses these global change,
he said.
Simple changes can help address potential catastrophe. In flood-prone
Bangladesh, for instance, CARE is helping women who raise chickens
switch to ducks. In other regions, it could mean something as simple as
changing water-craving crops to more resilient foods.
"So if the rains don't come when needed, you don't lose an entire crop,"
Ehrhart said.
Ehrhart said climate migration could climb to staggering levels, its
consequences reaching far and wide.
Without money or resources, climate refugees will likely stay within
their own borders, accelerating movement from rural areas to urban
centers and crowding into cities already bursting at the seams.
That could lead to government instability and further unrest.
Koko Warner, head of the U.N. University's Institute for Environment and
Human Security and lead author of the report released Wednesday, said
the challenge is to better understand the dynamics of climate-related
migration and displacement.
"New thinking and practical approaches are needed to address the threats
that climate-related migration poses to human security and well-being,"
Warner said.
For development experts, such as Ehrhart, climate change is a formidable
foe that must be tackled. He doesn't want to see the hopes of the
world's poorest turned to dust.