BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – Climate change could push more than 200 million people to leave their homes over the next three decades and create migration points unless urgent action is taken to reduce global emissions and bridge the gap development, according to a World Bank report.
The second part of the Groundswell report released Monday examines how the impacts of slow-onset climate change, such as water scarcity, declining crop productivity and rising sea levels, could lead to millions of what the report describes as “climate migrants” in 2050 under three different scenarios with varying degrees of climate action and development.
Under the most pessimistic scenario, with a high level of emissions and uneven development, the report predicts up to 216 million people moving to their own countries in the six regions analyzed. These regions are Latin America; North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Europe and Central Asia; South Asia; and East Asia and the Pacific.
In the most climate-friendly scenario, with a low level of emissions and sustainable and inclusive development, the number of migrants may be up to 80% lower, but it can still lead to the relocation of 44 million people.
The report did not examine the short-term impacts of climate change, such as the effects on extreme weather events.
The findings “reaffirm the power of climate to induce migration to countries,” said Viviane Wei Chen Clement, a senior climate change specialist at the World Bank and one of the report’s authors.
In the worst case, sub-Saharan Africa, the region most vulnerable due to desertification, fragile coasts and population dependence on agriculture, will have the most movement, with up to 86 million climate immigrants which will move within national borders.
However, North Africa is expected to have the highest proportion of climate migrants, with 19 million people on the move, equivalent to about 9% of its total population, mainly due to the increase in water scarcity on the northeast coast of Tunisia, on the northwest coast of Algeria. , in western and southern Morocco, and in the central foothills of the Atlas, according to the report.
In South Asia, Bangladesh is particularly affected by floods and crop failures accounting for nearly half of the projected climate migrants, with 19.9 million people, including a growing proportion of women, moving by 2050. under the pessimistic scenario.
“This is our humanitarian reality right now and we are concerned that it is even worse, where the vulnerability is more acute,” said Professor Maarten van Aalst, director of the International Climate Center of the Red Cross of the Red Crescent. was involved with the report.
The report did not examine climate migration across borders.
“Overall we know that three out of four people who move stay within countries,” said Dr. Kanta Kumari Rigaud, the World Bank’s leading environmental specialist and co-author of the report.
However, migratory patterns from rural to urban areas often precede cross-border movements.
While the influence of climate change on migration is not new, it is often part of a combination of factors that push people to move and acts as a threat multiplier. People affected by conflict and inequality are also more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, as they have few means to adapt.
The report also warns that migration points could appear over the next decade and intensify by 2050. Planning is needed in both the areas where people will be relocated and the areas they leave to help those who remain.
Among the recommended actions, it was noted “net zero emissions in the middle of the century to have the possibility of limiting global warming to 1.5 ° C” and invest in a development “green, resilient and inclusive, according to the Paris Agreement “.
Clement and Rigaud warned that the worst case scenario is “plausible” if collective action is not taken to reduce emissions and invest in development, especially in the next decade.
___
Read more about AP climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/Climate
Read more about PA’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration