Climate change will cause 200 million displaced people by 2050

The water shortages, declining crop productivity, and increase the level of the sea that cause climate change but are acting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could lead to more than 200 million people leaving their homes by 2050. This is estimated by a new World Bank report, which warns that these massive migrations, which would be mostly internal, would begin in 2030 and intensify in the middle of the century.

Climate change will cause 200 million

Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected with 86 million displaced; followed by East Asia and the Pacific, with 49 million; South Asia, with 40 million; North Africa, with 19 million; Latin America with 17 million; and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with 5 million.

“The report is a stark reminder of the human cost of climate change, particularly in the world's poorest countries, which are those that contribute the least to its causes. It also clearly sets a path for countries to address some of the key factors that are causing climate-driven migration, ”said Juergen Voegele, Vice President of Sustainable Development at the World Bank. "All these issues are fundamentally connected, so our support to countries is positioned to meet climate and development goals together while building a more sustainable, secure, and resilient future, " he explained.

However, the solution to this difficult situation seems within reach. The report notes that immediate and concerted action to reduce global emissions and support green, inclusive, and resilient development could reduce the scale of climate migration by up to 80%.

Paris Agreement

Specifically, World Bank experts consider that the priority is to do everything possible to meet the temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement, although they also see it necessary to integrate internal climate migration into ecological development planning forward-looking, resilient and inclusive, as well as preparing for each phase of migration so that internal climate migration as an adaptation strategy can deliver positive development outcomes. Finally, they call for investment in a better understanding of the drivers of internal displacement to inform well-targeted policies.

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, especially in the current context where it is not yet possible. has reached peak emissions. In this sense, people affected by conflict and inequality are also more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and are more likely to become displaced, as they have limited means to adapt.

Of course, most of these migrations occur within countries, which is why the World Bank report focuses mainly on these internal displacements. “Globally, we know that three out of four people who move stay within countries,” explains Kanta Kumari Rigaud, a leading environmental specialist at the World Bank and a co-author of the report.

Three scenarios

Although the report sees beyond any doubt that there will be an increase in the number of internally displaced persons in the coming decades, the volume of these migrations could vary, which is why the World Bank has developed three different scenarios based on different degrees of action. climate and development.

In the most pessimistic scenario, with a high level of emissions and uneven development, the report predicts that up to 216 million people will be displaced within their own countries in the six regions analyzed, while in the most optimistic one, with low-level emissions and sustainable and inclusive development, the world could still see 44 million people forced from their homes.

However, North Africa is projected to have the highest proportion of climate-displaced persons, with 19 million people on the move, which is roughly 9% of its population, mainly due to increasing water scarcity in Northeast Africa. Tunisia, northwestern Algeria, western and southern Morocco, and the central foothills of the Atlas, according to the report.

In South Asia, Bangladesh is particularly affected by the floods and bad harvests, representing nearly half of climate displaced expected, with 19.9 million people, including an increasing number of women, who will move by 2050 in a pessimistic scenario.

The report did not analyze the short-term impacts of climate change, such as the effects of extreme weather events, and did not analyze climate migration across borders, so the figures could be underestimated, according to the warnings themselves. authors.

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