Crisis: Justice for Climate Refugees

What does it mean to be a climate refugee? For 50,000 to 200,000 Bangladeshi farmers and their families each year, they find themselves becoming climate refugees: people forced to move away from their homes due to changes in local climate that destroy livelihood. Climate change affects countless people all over the world, albeit in a fundamentally unequal way. Despite lower-income communities like the Bangladeshi farmers contributing the least to climate change, this phenomenon impacts these communities in the most punishing ways.

Bangladesh, a Southeast Asia nation, traditionally relies on agriculture as a major driving force of its economy. In 2023, crop production accounted for 14.1% of the country’s economy, with rice, the most important crop, supporting over 16 million households across the country, followed by wheat. Many of the nation’s rice and wheat farmers subsist on their own crops, making farming their sole livelihoods. Their traditional farming techniques contribute little to climate change; Bangladesh only produces about 0.56% of the global carbon dioxide emissions, while the US contributes about 13.5%.

However, Bangladesh now faces a devastating impact on its agriculture industry largely due to climate change. Caught between high tides, flat coastal regions, and the funnel of the Bay of Bengal, the country is already geographically susceptible to tropical cyclones; in the past decades, these cyclones have only increased in frequency and strength due to climate change. These cyclones cost Bangladesh about $1 billion annually, a burdensome sum that cannot be easily sustained by the developing country.

However, cyclones are just an extreme case of how climate change has devastated Bangladeshi farming communities. From 2000 to 2019, as much as 185 climate-related extreme weather events hit Bangladesh, destroying the landscape crucial to a farming lifestyle; the rising sea levels and changes in rainfall patterns also routinely disrupt agricultural yields, contributing to the difficulties that Bangladesh faces.

Despite the near-impossible challenges posed by climate change, Bangladeshi farming communities have not stayed passive. Farmers are adopting climate-resistant techniques to preserve their livelihoods. For example, since climate change has led to a decline in groundwater levels, farmers have begun to rely more on groundwater or practice aquaculture instead. Furthermore, farmers are embracing adaptations in crop management such as specialized fertilizers and seeds and crop diversification. Since traditional varieties of rice, the favored crop, fare poorly under new soil conditions with increased salinity levels, farmers are cultivating multiple varieties of new, more salinity-tolerant rice, such as the High-Yielding Variety.

New farming rotation methods, such as the gher—a tri-part combination of High-Yielding Variety rice, fish, and prawn farming that makes efficient use of limited resources and Bangladesh’s prime aquaculture conditions to raise freshwater prawns and carps—are also popular. This system rotates the three farm products seasonally, especially allowing the prawn, an export cash crop, to flourish and make an extra profit while subsisting off rice and fish. Although these methods are not as energy efficient as the traditional practice is, they provide ways for farmers to sustain a new living.

However, the success of these farming adaptations should not be overstated; most Bangladeshi farming communities’ needs are still underserved. Much of the nation’s farming populations on the most heavily impacted Chittagong coasts continue to have to abandon their traditional livelihoods and move inland, causing internal migration figures amounting to 7.1 million people in 2022. When these migrants arrive in their new destination, which is usually Dhaka, the capital city, they need to be rehoused and reskilled to find new employment within an overpopulated urban center that has already been stretched to its limits in terms of holding capacity and resources.

With little support to begin their new lives, these climate refugees live in squalid illegal settlements like the Korail community, where houses are built from temporary tin-shed materials and sanitation, plumbing, water, and electricity are not permanently available. These refugees need to be resettled in new homes and begin a new life for themselves. Efforts like the government-funded Ashrayan Project saw to the building of thousands of barracks starting in 1997 to house these climate refugees; its success continued into recent years by building high rises with modern facilities around the Cox’s Bazar Airfield.

Furthermore, local non-profit organizations such as the Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) have also stepped in to build sturdier housing that can endure harsh weather. Nations such as the United States and Scotland also set aside funds for the loss and damage in Bangladesh to facilitate settlement projects, forming a collective global effort to bring better living conditions for climate refugees.

While efforts to build new homes provide much-needed relief for the most urgent needs of climate refugees new to urban centers, such efforts are not enough. Long-term international efforts must work to increase Bangladesh’s current resilience against climate change and prevent mass climate migration. To this end, Bangladesh is participating in international cooperation efforts to fight against climate change from the base. In 2023, Bangladesh and its international partners launched the “Bangladesh Climate and Development Platform,” which can help fund and support Bangladesh’s rebuilding efforts. This project considers climate risks and fragility while making plans for future investment. By monitoring the spending on climate, the platform can evaluate the effects of disaster and make the necessary fortifications to reduce risks.

Bangladesh has been working on developing plans for climate-inclusive financial strategies such as the Bangladesh Renewable Energy Facility, which aims to reduce nationwide carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. This is a major step in the transition toward green energy in Bangladesh. A loan of EUR 350m could finance many renewable energy plants and ensure that people’s lives are not affected by this new development. Although such measures might be effective within Bangladesh, a global effort involving developed countries that contribute more to climate change is necessary to reverse the current problems farmers face.

Thus, in addition to local plans to rehabilitate and redesign the distressed agriculture, Bangladesh has become a proactive leader in advocating for international attention to climate change. Bangladesh has launched international plans such as the Global Center on Adaptation’s regional office and the Commission of Small Island States and Climate Change and International Law (COSIS) aimed at bringing other developing nations in the same predicament together to implore the international community to take action. COSIS has worked to develop international law to protect and preserve marine ecosystems and economies.

Bangladesh, like other developing countries, should not face climate change alone—its requests for cooperation from the world at large should not go unanswered. Through long-term plans to restructure economies, provide aid, and embrace renewable energies, the international community must do its fair share in bringing about climate justice.