The coming years will witness large-scale human migration, and countries need to prepare for it in advance.
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World Bank's "Groundswell Report" on climate change
- The story: The Groundswell report is a stark reminder of the human toll of climate change, particularly on the world’s poorest—those who are contributing the least to its causes. It also lays out a path for countries to address some of the key factors that are causing climate-driven migration. All these issues are fundamentally connected which is why the World Bank's support to countries is positioned to deliver on climate and development objectives together while building a more sustainable, safe and resilient future.
- Latest: The updated Groundswell report released by the World Bank has indicated that climate change could force 216 million people across six world regions to move within their countries by 2050. Hotspots of internal climate migration can emerge as early as 2030 and continue to spread and intensify by 2050.
- Background: The first Groundswell Report was published in 2018 and used a robust and novel modeling approach to understand the scale, trajectory, and spatial patterns of future climate migration within countries, with a focus on three regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. The Seond Report builds on the first, applying the same approach to three new regions: the Middle East and North Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
- Qualitative analyses of climate-related mobility in countries of the Mashreq (i.e eastern part of the Arab World) and in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are also provided.
- The two reports’ combined findings provide, for the first time, a global picture of the potential scale of internal climate migration across the six World Bank regions.
- Internal Climate Migrants: As many as 216 million people could be internal climate migrants across the six World Bank regions (by 2050). This represents almost 3% of these regions’ total projected population.
East Asia and the Pacific: 48.4 million (2.5%);
South Asia: 40.5 million (1.8%);
North Africa: 19.3 million (9 %);
Latin America: 17.1 million (2.6%); and
Eastern Europe and Central Asia: 5.1 million (2.3%).
- Most Vulnerable Region: The scale of internal climate migration will be largest in the poorest and most climate-vulnerable regions.
- SubSaharan Africa: The most vulnerable region due to desertification, fragile coastlines and the population's dependence on agriculture - would see the most migrants.
- North Africa: It is predicted to have the largest proportion of climate migrants (9%). This is due to a great extent to severe water scarcity, as well as the impacts of sea-level rise on densely populated coastal areas and in the Nile Delta.
- South Asia: In South Asia, Bangladesh is particularly affected by flooding and crop failures, accounting for almost half of the predicted climate migrants, with 19.9 million people, including an increasing number of women, moving by 2050.
- Recommendations: Five years after the Paris Agreement, the world is still headed for at least 3°C of warming by 2100. An ambitious action to curb global emissions is critical to reducing the burden of climate change impacts on key resources, livelihood systems, and urban centers that may drive people to migrate in distress.
- Plan for migration: Planning for internal climate migration means accounting for all phases of migration - before, during, and after moving. Before migration, adapt-in-place solutions can help communities stay in place where local adaptation options are viable and sensible. During migration, policies and investments can enable mobility for people who need to move away from unavoidable climate risks. After migration, planning can ensure that both sending and receiving areas are well equipped to meet the needs and aspirations of their populations.
- Summary: The World Bank has provides a roadmap for managing the huge social disruptions that are arriving, due to climate change. The countries of the world, especially the under-developed ones, better take note.
- EXAM QUESTIONS: (1) Explain the idea behind the Groundswell Report of World Bank. (2) Human migrations will accelerate in coming years, due to forced dynamics set in motion as a result of climate change. What can the Indian government do to mitigate the same?
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