An Assignment
On
Climate Refugees: A Study on Bangladesh
Course: Refugee and Conflict
Course no: 217

Prepared for:
Maria Hussain
Lecturer
Department of Peace and Conflict Studies
University of Dhaka

Prepared by:
Md. Abu Yousuf
Class Roll :35, 7th Batch,5th Semester
Department of Peace and Conflict Studies
University of Dhaka.

Date of submission: 25 February, 2015
Introduction:
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of the world had ever before. Environment induced disaster is increasing day by day and has the causes of most vulnerabilities and Climate Refugees. Environmental Refugees refers “the persons who no longer gain a secure livelihood in the traditional homelands because of environmental factors of unusual scope, notably drought, desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, water shortages and climate change, also natural disasters as cyclones, storm surges and floods.” The most environmental refugee prone areas are Asia and Africa. The number of environmental refugee in Asia is more than 50 million which was about 42 million in 2010. The over populated areas of the world such as South Asia, Horns of Africa are under danger because of the scarcity of natural resources. Although the “environmental refugees” is more important problem and challenge for the international community to protect the stability of the world system but they are silent. So for the ignorance of international law people tolerate unbearable vulnerabilities for this devastating environment.
Climate Refugee:
The term Environmental Refugee was first appeared in 1970s by Lester Brown. Environmental refugee, climate refuge, environmental migrant are nuances in meaning and all of these refers the force migration of a person from his or her traditional homeland. In according to International Organization for Migration- “Environmental migrants are persons or groups of persons who, for compelling reasons of sudden or progressive change in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad.”
This definition refers the characteristics of environmental refugee as the environmental refugees are who has to leave his or her homeland forcefully because of environmental degradation; this migration has to be for a short time or long and this migration can be within the country or abroad.
Causes and issues:
Environmental refugees migrate from their homeland for environmental changes intertwine with social, economic and political causes. But the main force behind this migration is environmental degradation and depletion such as notable drought, desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, water shortages, climate change, natural disasters as floods, cyclones, storm surges and floods and also the riverbank erosion, increasing soil salinity, and Sea level rising.
Drought is most vulnerable for the local inhabitances; One third of the African people already live in drought-prone areas and 220 million are exposed to drought each year and Bangladesh faced this drought in July 1983 which was the cause of 20,000,000 people of local areas of Bangladesh. Floods are the common problem in both Asia and Africa. Bangladesh faces this common problem every year; it has the bitter experiences of floods more than five times with thousands of killed people. In the floods of 1984, 1987, 1988, 1998, and 2007 caused of losing 8030 people in Bangladesh. These devastating floods affected more than 20,000,000 people in average each time. The more floods prone areas of Bangladesh are Brahmanbaria, Chittagong, Comilla, Dhaka and Tangail.
Cyclones are the demonstrating envisages for the people of Bangladesh, it faced this demon several times with sacrificing more than 150,000 people in coastal areas and the most devastating one was in 1991 with 138,866 people and the recent one is Mahasen in 2013 with 1.1 million of affected people. The most remarkable cyclones in the history of Bangladesh is Aila in 2009, Sidr in 2007 with a lot of loses of life; 190 were killed in Aila and 4236 were killed in Sidr and the number of climate refugees was 4.82 million in Aila and uncountable number in sidr. The amount of this displaced people was 325,000 in 2014.
The strongest Strom which faced Bangladesh in April 1991 with 15,438,849 affected people. The riverbank erosion is the most devastating and vulnerable causes of environmental refugees in Bangladesh.
The most vulnerable areas of riverbank erosion are Nilphamari, Kurigham, Borguna, Patuakhali, Faridpur, Madaripur, Gaibanda, Bogra and Sirajgonj. The riverbank erosion was 2400 km in 2010 which was the causes of 100,00 environmental refugees, riverbank erosion directly affected 5% of crop land and more than hundred upazila are affected by riverbank erosion regularly. This erosion give birth the 26000 environmental refugees in Sirajgonj each year.
The most “hotspots” about the discussion on environmental refugees is the rising of Sea level water and so many researchers predict that this Sea level rising will be caused for 135 million to 170 million environmental refugees and more of these refugees will be in Asia and Africa. For the increasing of 80 cm will be the cause of displacement of 30 million people in Bangladesh to 2100. And the increasing of 2.4 meter about 8 feet of rising water all of 1200 islands of Maldives will be sank. In 1995 Bhola island in Bangladesh was half-submerge by rising sea level and the affected 500,000 people was homeless. The most affected countries for the rising of Sea level will be seven in Asia, two in Africa Egypt and Nigeria and the one is USA. The more vulnerable country is India and the next vulnerable country is Bangladesh.
Types of Environmental Refugees:
The International Organization for Migration proposed three types of Environmental migrants * Environmental Emergency Migrants ( due to environmental hazards people leave their land for a temporary time such as for hurricane, floods, storms people leave the affected areas) * Environmental Forced Migrants ( People who have to leave the land for the upcoming deterioration such as deforestation, riverbank erosion. ) * Environmental Motivated Migrants (People who leave the homeland for the security of their lives from future dangers such as less productivity, increasingly scarce of clean water.)
A study on Bangladesh:
On May 16, Cyclone Mahasen made landfall in Patuakhali district of Southern Bangladesh with a 260km/hr speed causing widespread destruction and 13 people dead. Of the 15 costal districts hit, the three districts of Patuakhali, Bhola and Borguna were the worst affected. The government of Bangladesh has reported approximately 463,303 houses have been affected 23,539 of them were totally destroyed and other 109,687 were seriously damaged. About 28% schools, madrasa, primary and secondary schools were affected and the amount was 1369. The affected costal districts are Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, Noakhali, Laxmipur, Feni, Chandpur, Barguna, Patuaakhali, Bhola, Barisal, Pirojpur, Bagerhat, Jhalokati, Khulna and Satkhira.

Table1: killed people and affected houses No | District | Killed | Affected Houses | 1 | Barguna | 6 | 1000 | 2 | Bhola | 3 | Several hundreds | 3 | Patuakhali | 2 | 500 | 4 | Pirojpur | 1 | 100 | 5 | Chittagong | 1 | | | | Total= 12 | |

Conclusion:
Environmental refugee is the most important term in this present international system. The increasing rate of environmental refugees is very high and has been increase day by day. Africa and Asia are more vulnerable for this affects. Bangladesh is more prone to environmental degradation. Floods, cyclones are the most dangerous companions of Bangladesh and have suffered every year for a lot. More than thousands of people are being homeless and stay in a slum in the capital city. So international community should make the legitimate way to behave them and environmental security should be protected by implementing strict rules on environmental protection.

References: Norman Myers, ‘Environmental Exodus, An Emergent Crisis in the Global Arena’ (Project of the Climate Institute, Washington DC, June 1995) http://www.climate.org/PDF/Environmental%20Exodus.pdf accessed 24 February 2015
2 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) - Norwegian Refugee Council. "Displacement due to natural hazard-induced disasters: Global estimates for 2009 and 2010". Internal-displacement.org. Retrieved 2014-02-23
3 Brown, L., Mcgrath, P., and Stokes, B., (1976). twenty two dimensions of the population problem, Worldwatch Paper 5, Washington DC: Worldwatch Institute
4 Available at http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/about_iom/en/council/94/MC_INF_288.pdf 5 Norman Myers, ‘Environmental Exodus, An Emergent Crisis in the Global Arena’ (Project of the Climate Institute, Washington DC, June 1995) http://www.climate.org/PDF/Environmental%20Exodus.pdf accessed 24 February 2015 6 Major natural disasters by affected population in Bangladesh during the last 30 years (Source: EM-DAT 2010)
7Major natural disasters by number of population killed in Bangladesh during the last 30 years (Source: EM-DAT 2010)
8 Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, 19 January 2015, available at www.internal-displacement.org, last access 24 February 2015
9 ibid
10 Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, 9 October 2014, available at www.internal-displacement.org, last access 24 February 2015
11 Available at http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/climate-refugee/?ar_a=1 last access 24 February 2015
12 ibid
13 David wheeler, Quantifying vulnerabily to climate change: Implication for Global Development, 2011
14 Available at http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/about_iom/en/council/94/MC_INF_288.pdf
15 Available at http://www.lcgbangladesh.org/HCTT/Documents/Phase%203%20Education%20Assessment_MAHASEN_Final%20Report/Education%20Phase%203%20Assessment_MAHASEN%20report_Final.pdf

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[ 2 ]. Norman Myers, ‘Environmental Exodus, An Emergent Crisis in the Global Arena’ (Project of the Climate Institute, Washington DC, June 1995) http://www.climate.org/PDF/Environmental%20Exodus.pdf accessed 24 February 2015
[ 3 ]. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) - Norwegian Refugee Council. "Displacement due to natural hazard-induced disasters: Global estimates for 2009 and 2010". Internal-displacement.org. Retrieved 2014-02-23
[ 4 ]. Brown, L., Mcgrath, P., and Stokes, B., (1976). twenty two dimensions of the population problem, Worldwatch Paper 5, Washington DC: Worldwatch Institute
[ 5 ]. Available at http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/about_iom/en/council/94/MC_INF_288.pdf
[ 6 ]. Norman Myers, ‘Environmental Exodus, An Emergent Crisis in the Global Arena’ (Project of the Climate Institute, Washington DC, June 1995) http://www.climate.org/PDF/Environmental%20Exodus.pdf accessed 24 February 2015
[ 7 ]. Major natural disasters by affected population in Bangladesh during the last 30 years (Source: EM-DAT 2010)
[ 8 ]. Major natural disasters by number of population killed in Bangladesh during the last 30 years (Source: EM-DAT 2010)
[ 9 ]. Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, 19 January 2015, available at www.internal-displacement.org, last access 24 February 2015
[ 10 ]. ibid
[ 11 ]. Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, 9 October 2014, available at www.internal-displacement.org, last access 24 February 2015
[ 12 ]. Available at http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/climate-refugee/?ar_a=1 last access 24 February 2015
[ 13 ]. ibid
[ 14 ]. David wheeler, Quantifying vulnerabily to climate change: Implication for Global Development, 2011
[ 15 ]. Available at http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/about_iom/en/council/94/MC_INF_288.pdf
[ 16 ]. Available at http://www.lcgbangladesh.org/HCTT/Documents/Phase%203%20Education%20Assessment_MAHASEN_Final%20Report/Education%20Phase%203%20Assessment_MAHASEN%20report_Final.pdf