Global Warming Already Producing Refugees

In Bangladesh, climate change is creating climate refugees as increasing numbers of people are moving inland, away from rising sea levels that are already submerging coastlines. Despite the fact that the country’s major rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, carry enough sediment to create new sand bars and extend the coastline by a rate of about 8 square miles per year, the number of climate change refugees continues to climb.

According to The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there will be 20 million people internally displaced people within Bangladesh by 2050 as a result of climate change, while James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute predicts that the country's entire population of 144 million are at risk of becoming environmental refugees by the end of the century.

However, some don’t believe that climate change is eroding the land because of visible new land. The Dhaka-based Centre for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) has studied 32 years of satellite images and says the country's landmass has increased by 20 square kilometers (eight square miles) annually. In the past 30 years, CEGIS says that 1,000 square kilometers of land have risen from the sea.

But according to one of Bangladesh’s leading climate change experts, Atiq Rahman, the number of refugees is still increasing, despite evidence of new land. He says, "Yes, the new land is forming, but because sea levels are rising so fast that millions of people will still be climate refugees.”

Bangladesh diplomats plan to plea for international support to help fight the consequences of climate change.

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