How climate change threatens human security in Bangladesh?
Introduction
Climate change, one of the most urgent problems of our day, endangers the lives and way of life of billions of people. Climate change is a pressing issue that only appears to get worse, as seen by an uptick in natural disasters, refugee movements, and wars for resources like food and water. Bangladesh is a disaster-prone nation, and the effects of climate change contribute to more frequent disasters that have an influence on all facets of human existence. According to statistical evidence, Bangladesh, which has a population of 160 million, is extremely vulnerable to climate change and sea level rise. As a result of calamity, people will migrate from one climate zone to another in order to survive and continue to exist. Some migration waves have been linked to cultural collapse because people’s once-familiar homes and means of subsistence were no longer given by those environments.
Bangladesh has always struggled with migration and displacement. People have been displaced and relocated for various causes, including social, political, economic, and natural catastrophes. Bangladesh's history reveals that people have been moving from adjacent areas since the beginning. However, recent climate change rhetoric predicts that Bangladesh will confront the problem of external and domestic mass migration due to climate change, and the government is not yet well prepared. Climate change may thus influence internal migration trends in Bangladesh, while large-scale international movements of Bangladeshis are unlikely.
Internal migration is a significant factor in Bangladesh's fast urbanization. Bangladesh's urban population is growing at a pace of about 3.5% yearly. The urban growth rate is 1.3%, and the determinant of 2.2% is impacted by internal, which is one of the primary drivers of Bangladesh's fast urbanization. Climate change has emerged as an environmental push factor associated with magnifying migration rates over the previous decade.
Is Bangladesh well-prepared with policy measures, laws, and infrastructure to help climate migrants adapt?
Migration is widely seen as an adaptation failure in Bangladesh, although regulating migration may be a practical adaptation approach for reducing climate vulnerability and hazards. In Bangladesh's adaptation strategy, no policies or action plans address the issue of migration. Both the NAPA (National Adaptation Programme of Action) and the BCCSAP (Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan) include migration due to climate change and describe efforts to create a monitoring framework for internal and external migration. The Disaster Management Act of 2012 specifies the need to relocate afflicted persons to different parts of the country to continue their usual way of life.
Given the present evidence for climate change, it seems unavoidable that more people will be on the move in the future as a result of climate change and natural disasters. Bangladesh must develop strategies to turn migration into a "transformative adaption" technique rather than a negative experience that pulls people further into poverty. Bangladesh's task is to find and implement climate-adaptive and resilient strategies appropriate for the local environment. The government should include migration as a key adaptation strategy for climate-vulnerable areas in collaboration with funders, NGOs, and civil society groups.
Is there any link between urban local government and climate migration?
When their local government fails to respond to environmental threats, disadvantaged households establish their adaptation strategies and frequently relocate to cities. Nonetheless, when they migrate to new areas, climate migrants require assistance. Their demands are gradually putting pressure on the status quo of towns and cities that attract many climate migrants. Climate migrants are frequently impoverished, often settling in congested inner-city neighborhoods for easy access to work or on the outskirts of metropolitan areas for a lower rent. Such haphazard and illegal land occupation alters urban land use, causing cities to expand and urban poverty to rise. Socio-economic disparities are widening in such towns.
Migrants who have lost almost everything due to climate change are frequently trapped in a downward cycle of urban poverty when they arrive. How to accommodate this new type of migration while still providing housing, services, and economic opportunities is proving to be a significant challenge. The current urban structure in impoverished and emerging countries like Bangladesh is already vulnerable to climate change due to a lack of resources.
Can the urban local government use its efforts to develop the ability and understanding of migrant populations to aid in adaptation?
Although Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is thought of as the region’s centre of economic opportunity, it is also rife with concerns such as extreme poverty, threats to public health, human trafficking, and other dangers like its own susceptibility to flooding. According to statistical evidence, Dhaka receives about 400,000 low-income migrants each year. Livelihood systems are severely impacted by flooding, severe storms, droughts, or more gradual but equally significant changes in area climate. Migration, however, may be a sign of a failed adaptation in extreme circumstances and for persons with limited mobility—a desperate attempt to flee pain or even certain death.
Planning for development, raising social awareness, taking part in government initiatives, working with NGOs as development partners, disaster preparedness, and judicial and extrajudicial performance all reflect the quality of governance in Bangladesh. As a result, disaster-related migrants, who are a marginalised group in society, are all but denied access to political benefits. The government oversees addressing local issues including natural disasters, poverty, ageing, widowhood, vulnerability, illness, unemployment, workplace injuries, disability, etc. by offering several forms of aid such as social services and social support. However, the government’s social security activities fall short of meeting the current social needs, leaving fewer benefits for catastrophe victims or refugees brought about by disasters.
How climate migrants in Dhaka endanger the city's social and cultural ecosystems?
People, especially migrants and disaster victims, are struggling as a result of unemployment, health risks, population expansion, and exorbitant prices for necessities. One of the deciding elements for potential migrants’ future is their ability to make a living in a particular climate and location. In Dhaka city’s slums and squatter settlements, more than 3 million people reside with scant access to utilities. The low-income segment of people in Dhaka city is housed in slums and squatter settlements.
Conflict (quarrel, clash, brawl) among squatters and residents of slums is a common occurrence. Noise and violence are produced as a result, disturbing city inhabitants, especially those who live nearby, as well as office employees and schoolchildren. In addition, a significant portion of slum dwellers engages in prostitution, drug trafficking, hijacking, mugging, etc. The social and cultural environments of the city are at risk from these actions.
How does climate migration impede progress towards the SDGs?
The influence of climate change-induced migration (CCM) on sustainable development and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is still a developing and understudied problem. The surge in migration caused by natural catastrophes has garnered much attention in recent years, both in the media and the political realm. In the near term, the major problem associated with displacement induced by natural catastrophes is humanitarian; in the long run, policymakers must ensure a sustainable future for the afflicted communities. Bangladesh is most badly impacted by the effects of climate change. Natural calamities and minor environmental changes jeopardize the livelihoods of many Bangladeshi farmers. Migration is a way of adapting to these changes. Climate change may thus influence internal migration trends in Bangladesh, while large-scale international movements of Bangladeshis are unlikely.
How does a multi-stakeholder strategy assist Dhaka in mitigating the effects of climate migration?
It is crucial to investigate how shifting environmental conditions influence people’s decisions to migrate as the need for discovering suitable adaption pathways for climate change grows increasingly pressing. In addition, the government must assume responsibility for providing social security for the migrant population living in slums so that they can coexist peacefully and prevent social upheaval.
To be able to support the flux of forced climate migrants at the international and national levels, institutions must be strengthened or created, and the idea of catastrophe and climate-induced migration must be developed. At the national level, this could entail bolstering and encouraging various ministries to collaborate (such as the Ministries of Home Affairs, Environment and Forest, Social Welfare, and Disaster Management, among others) in order to address the problem jointly and incorporate a multidimensional array of competencies and viewpoints.
As a matter of human security, climate change must be prioritised. In order to better understand how migration and urbanisation trends will be impacted by climate and environmental change and to incorporate these considerations in urban planning and important sectoral policies, the UN and the development partners based in Dhaka must support the Dhaka city government. They must help local governments create inclusive urban policies and guide and speed up local, national, regional, and global responses to climate change and urban migration.
Conclusion
The research we are currently undertaking will illustrate the migration scenario in urban areas, the adaptation approach, and strategies of climate-induced migrants in the urban areas due to devastating natural disasters like cyclones, floods, storm surges, droughts, and salinity intrusion etc., from the various regions of Bangladesh. We hope, this research will provide information about nature of impacts of natural disaster on life and livelihood of migrant’s people, causes, factors influencing and patterns of migration due to climate-induced disasters, economic and social aspects of climate-induced migration, copping and adaptation strategies of the migrant etc.
Our research will create new opportunities for further research for researchers, practitioners, academicians, and planners in the field of climate change, natural and migration in climate change-induced natural disasters, migration in urban settings, and adaptation strategies with the adverse situation caused by climate change. The scope also extends to influence national policies by suggesting future action needs to address the displacement and migration issue with a broader socio-political, economic and environmental aspect.
About authors
Md. Zaki Faisal is the Programme Officer of the Aspire to Innovate (a2i) Programme, ICT Division, Dhaka, Bangladesh and honorary Deputy Director, Centre for Local Governance Discourse, Bangladesh.
Professor Dr Mohammad Tarikul Islam, Visiting Scientist, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University, Professor in Government and Politics, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh and Visiting Professor at Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, and Harvard.