Poor communities and Climate change

#climaterefugees #climateaction #climatejustice #environmentaljustice

If you follow news related to climate catastrophes, you see that extreme weather events are becoming more common everyday. These devastating calamities not only warm the planet further but is making life more difficult for people living in the tropics especially the equator. No one is at more risk than the people living near the equator- World's poorest population.

The World Bank report forecasts 143 million climate refugees by the year 2050.

The primary occupation, about two-thirds of the world's poorest population work in the agriculture sector and they make their living on the crops they grow. Rising temperatures will lead to frequent floods and droughts destroying that season's harvest. A warmer climate will also dry up the soil leaving little to no water for crops to grow. In South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, millions of acres of farmland will become substantially drier due to a warmer climate.

The closer people are to the Equator, the worst these effects are. The worst impact of climate change will make their population's health worse. This starts with farmers not earning enough due to crop loss. Low income households cannot afford food, medicines and other healthcare services. Helping malnourished kids to survive with reliable primary healthcare, vaccines to immunize against malaria and other tropical diseases. But most importantly we need to ensure that fewer children are malnourished in the first place by helping poor farmers with better agricultural tools to grow more food.

Rich and middle-income countries are causing the vast majority of climate change with industries and manufacturing plants that heavily rely coal, fossil fuels and it's derivatives. It’s highly unfair that the people who contribute the least to climate change will suffer the worst from its effects. When people can't grow enough food to feed themselves, they migrate to cooler climates. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies estimates that a majority of the 30.7 million people displaced in 2020 is because fleeing floods, wildfire, drought or heat waves and this is number is estimates in the coming years. Extreme poverty has plummeted in the past quarter century, from 36 percent of the world’s population in 1990 to 10 percent in 2015. Climate change could erase even more of these gains, increasing the number of people living in extreme poverty by 13 percent.

Climate migrants in the continent of Africa.

Poorer countries who live close to the ocean are also at a higher risk of facing the worst effect of the climate crisis. Bangladesh, with a coastline of 580kms, bordering the Bay of Bengal and the tributaries of river Ganga occupying 79% of the country's land area results in frequent floods, Bangladesh's extreme vulnerability to climate change clearly evident.

Extreme floods in Bangladesh causing more climate refugees.

The primary occupation of Bangladesh citizens is Agriculture and fishing. 28% of the population of Bangladesh lives on the coast, where the primary driver of displacement is tidal flooding caused by sea level rise.

By 2050, with a projected 50 cm rise in sea level, Bangladesh may lose approximately 11% of its land, affecting an estimated 15 million people living in its low-lying coastal region.

Recently we have also learned that Indonesia is shifting it's capital from Jakarta to Nusantara due to the concerns of climate change and the unequal concentration of wealth across the country. Indonesia already being an island nation, it also faces the worst affects of climate change. A problem as big as climate can only be solved when Corporations, Governments and individuals work as team. Individuals all over the world are protesting to take action. Though we have to be actively working to solve the problem of climate change, there are reasons to be optimistic.

Source: Gatesnotes, World Bank