In 2016 people in South Asia are suffering devastation due to extreme weather and people are on the move like never before. In May 2016, Cyclone Roanu ripped through Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh causing widespread damage and leaving in its wake reconstruction costs estimated at $1.7 billion. In April 2016 temperatures reached a record-breaking 51 degrees in Rajasthan, India. And across India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, 2015-16 brought with it extended drought and crop failure, affecting 330 million people in India alone and many more across the region.
While the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) anticipates climate change impacts will be felt even more severely in future years, political disputes and cross-border fighting often characterise the reaction to migration across the region more than active solutions and problem-solving.
Sanjay Vashist, Climate Action Network South Asia’s Director, said:
“The governments of South Asia must recognise that climate change knows no borders. Governments have a responsibility to use our shared mountains, rivers, history and cultures to seek common solutions to the droughts, sea-level rise and water shortages that the region is increasingly experiencing. We urgently need more cross-border efforts to help people cope with the new normal of climate disasters and protect people who are forced to migrate.”
The need for South Asian governments to monitor the specific impact of climate migration on women and girls is highlighted as a key concern for the region to address. The report outlines the growing and alarming trend of women and girls trafficked into sexual exploitation as a result of migration, as well as the burden placed upon women at home whose husbands are forced to migrate.
The Warsaw International Mechanism, established in 2013 at the UN and affirmed by the last round of climate talks at Paris last year, does seek to address climate-induced displacement and migration. However, little has yet been secured to protect the rights of people displaced by climate change, leaving their international legal status uncertain and not akin to the rights of people fleeing conflict who have in some cases similarly lost their homes, families and jobs.
Harjeet Singh, ActionAid’s Global Lead on Climate Change, said:
"The UN's Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage must work to ensure legal protection for people who are forced to migrate or are displaced by climate change. South Asian countries need support so that climate change doesn't inevitably translate into alarming levels of unsafe migration and conflict over resources. Rich nations must also not fail to recognise their role in causing the climate crisis. They must help fight the flames in South Asia and elsewhere that they themselves kindled through carbon emissions in the first place."
Sophia Wirsching, Bread for the World’s Policy Advisor on Migration and Development, said:
“The world faces an unprecedented environmental crisis. The study raises an alarm on the reality of climate change-induced migration in South Asia and stresses the need to protect the human rights of people who are forced to migrate.”
The Global Forum on Migration and Development runs from 10 to 12 December in Dhaka, Bangladesh where meetings around the theme of a “transformative migration agenda” will be held. The meetings will bring together government policy makers, civil society and development representatives, UN bodies and migration experts from around the world to agree upon solutions to migration issues.