A rise in extreme weather events in India — from droughts and floods to heat waves and hailstorms — is fueling climate migration as the nation’s poorest people are forced to abandon their homes, land and livelihoods, researchers said yesterday.
In a survey of more than 1,000 households across three Indian states, nearly 70 percent of respondents said they migrated immediately after such weather disasters occurred, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) said.
Seasonal migration was high among people affected by droughts and floods that damaged crops, or by cyclones that hampered fishing, according to the study, one of the first to quantify the impacts of climate change on migration in India.
Many of India’s poorest people — such as small farmers — are finding it harder to cope with the damage caused by severe weather as the nation braces for rising sea levels, more heat waves and fiercer cyclones, researchers said.
“The scale of climate migration is startling,” said Ritu Bharadwaj, a senior researcher at IIED and coauthor of the report. “We cannot afford to pretend this isn’t happening. Droughts, rising sea levels and flooding are heaping extra pressure onto people who are already struggling to get by, forcing them from their homes in order to survive.”
This year’s Global Climate Risk Index puts India in the top 10 nations most affected by climate change.
Last year alone, India suffered its worst locust attack in decades, three cyclones, a nationwide heat wave, and flooding that killed hundreds of people and forced thousands more to migrate.
“The limits to people’s resilience have been breached by more frequent and intense weather,” Bharadwaj said. “Communities are not able to cope and recover easily. The loss and damage they suffer is very high, and they migrate because they have reached the stage of hopelessness.”
India’s first climate change assessment report, published last year, forecast that temperatures would rise 4.4°C by the end of the century in a “business as usual” scenario.
The frequency of heat waves would be up to four times higher, cyclone intensity would increase and sea levels would rise by 30cm if action is not taken, the report said.
Researchers at the IIED interviewed people from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan states, where seasonal migration is prevalent.
Many leave home when there is little work in farming or fishing to find jobs on construction sites or in cotton fields in Maharashtra, Gujarat and New Delhi.
More than 70 percent of households said droughts were happening significantly more often in the past five to 10 years, leading to an increase in so-called distress migration, when people feel they have no other option to survive.
“We need to plan for the hundreds of millions of people who it is predicted will have to migrate in the coming decades due to climate change,” Bharadwaj said.
Making migration safe for people forced to move by climate pressures should involve “anticipatory wage employment” and portability of social protection entitlements, the IIED said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not