Background
A rise in sea levels and coastal erosion could lead to a loss of 17% of land surface and 30% food production by 2050. It has been predicted that only due to heat stress per year GDP losses would be 4.9% or at least USD 30 billion losses by 2030; and 3.83 million full-time job losses by 2030. Climate-fueled disasters (e.g., drought, floods, and storms) would cause of around USD 4.075 billion losses per year by 2030. And one-third of Bangladesh population at risk of displacement by 2030. Climate change has been acting as a threat multiplier in Bangladesh – climate change is now a growing humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh.
Human displacement varies depending on different push and pull factors such as socio economic, demographic and cultural factor including unavailability of work, unemployment, poverty, natural disaster e.g.: flood, drought, riverbank erosion or salinity intrusion, also there are some other socio cultural factors that influence the migration those are such as marriage, family conflict, better living, better education facilities, social discrimination and insecurity and political chaos (Rahman and Rahman,2012; Rabbani, Khan, and Tuhin, 2015). Historically climatic events and environmental factors had a long impact on migration flows worldwide and people had to fly from their native place with severe or worsening conditions due to shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption etc. (IOM, 2016; Islam and Shamsuddoha, 2017).
World’s climate has gone through major changes throughout the history of the planet and since the industrial revolution, when the energy consumption from fossil had increased which accelerates the emission rate of greenhouse gases, the process of climate change has become more a consequence of human action than of natural phenomena (Milán-García et al, 2021). Since the last century change in the global climate patterns has been observed that has triggered more extreme weather events including hurricanes, heat waves, and droughts globally. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected that, at the current rate, global temperatures are likely to average 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels at some point between 2030 and 2052 (Sherbinin, 2020). Since the early 20th century global warming is following the upward trend of the average surface temperature, and most notably since the late 1970s, already has and will continue to change the conditions of life on planet Earth. This phenomenon has influenced the probability of natural hazards and their magnitude such as floods, storms, or droughts and the sudden change in climate behavior has posed remarkable changes in local living conditions that leave population in many regions with worsening conditions for which they consider moving to better places, for an affordable and better life (Berlemann and Steinhardt, 2017). Climate change is impacting humane migration has gained growing attention among both among scholars and policymakers and it has also been recognized as the key drivers of mobility by the United Nations Summit for Refugees and Migrants, and the Global Compact for Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees in the Agenda for Humanity, in 2016 (Kaczan, and Orgill-Meyer, 2020.). An estimate of Internal Displaced Monitoring Center (IDMC)1 shows, that more than 17 million people worldwide has been displaced in 2018 due to natural disaster while a large amount of people was displaced by long term environmental changes caused by increasing temperatures and changes in precipitation and rainfall patterns (Wiig et al, 2020), an effect of global warming. According to recent estimate by Internal Displaced Monitoring Center (IDMC)1 shows, disaster has caused new displacement worldwide of 30.7M people in 145 countries and territories and internally 7M people has displaced in 103 countries and territories. Some study claims that by 2050 as a result of climate change, up to 143 million people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America will become internally displaced (Rigaud et al., 2018; Wiig et al, 2020). Most new displacements in 2020were recorded in East Asia and the Pacific that is 12.1 million and in South Asia which is 9.2 million and these regions are highly exposed to tropical cyclones, monsoon rains, and floods and home to millions of people (Clement et al, 2021). Besides, sudden onset disaster impact on human mobility slow-onset climate change impacts like temperature and precipitation patterns, as well as sea-level rise are also increasingly driving human mobility (Clement et al, 2021). Factors like variability and anomalies in rainfall, extreme precipitation; temperature changes and extremes; and droughts can increase migration (Hoffmann et al. 2020; Šedová, Čizmaziová, and Cook 2021) and these particularly affect internal migration in agriculture-dependent countries like South Asia, Africa, and South America, leading to out-migration (Berlemann and Steinhardt 2017; Hoffmann et al. 2020; Clement et al, 2021).
Marginalized groups have fewer opportunities and capabilities to face natural disasters and environmental crisis because usually the poor, the elderly, women, children, and minority group face cultural or religious barriers to migrate (Chindarkar, 2012; Sams, 2019). Therefore, gender is an important element to understand the relationship between gender, vulnerability and migration because it is shaped by social, cultural, economic, political, environmental and ecological factors. Several studies show that women are generally more oppressed to environmental and climatic risks
and more affected for their specific gender roles and responsibilities in family and community (WEN, 2010; Chindarkar, 2012; Gioli, 2012; IOM, 2010; Sams,2019) and also women and girls are more likely to be exposed to gender based violence and trauma because they more often lost their homes and shelters due to natural hazards for reducing in economic activities and increasing the workload for survival. Thus, their vulnerabilities to any natural hazard are relatively greater than men’s (Sams, 2019).
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