Migration across the Bay of Bengal has a long history, but it has recently reemerged in the international spotlight, along with debates about the push and pull factors that have prompted thousands of people to risk their lives at sea rather than remain in Myanmar or Bangladesh. Yet there is one important factor missing from this discussion: climate change.
In the coming decades, migration across the Bay of Bengal is likely to increase as the impacts of climate change become more frequent and severe. Predictions indicate that climate change will dramatically affect countries ringing the Bay, and climate change migration in wider South and Southeast Asia will be extensive. Southeast Asia is home to the highest annual rate of growth in migration globally, and displacement is already being caused by projects justified as climate change mitigation or adaptation strategies.
The persecution and poverty in Bangladesh and Myanmar that is prompting the present population movement needs to be understood and addressed. But forward thinking is also necessary: these two countries will be among the hardest hit by climate change. The impacts of climate change will produce increasing migration as the environment is degraded, extreme weather events intensify, and economic conditions deteriorate.
For the complete article, please see The Diplomat.
This article is part of “Southeast Asia: Refugees in Crisis,” an ongoing series by The Diplomat for summer and fall 2015 featuring exclusive articles from scholars and practitioners tackling Southeast Asia’s ongoing refugee crisis. All articles in the series can be found here.
To fight illegal coca plantations and conflict actors’ income sources, Colombia’s president wants to loosen the ban on aerial glyphosate spraying. However, considering the dynamics of organised crime, the use of toxic herbicides will not only fail to achieve its aim, it will have many adverse effects for the environment and human health, fundamentally undermining ways to reach peace in the country. International cooperation and national policy-makers need to account for this peace spoiler.
As India grapples with the worsening impacts of climate change, the need to strengthen its adaptation efforts has become more significant than ever. Climate diplomacy and mainstreaming climate adaptation into the most vulnerable sectors could provide some solutions to overcoming barriers, such as the lack of sustainable funding.
“Climate Security risks will materialise in very different ways and forms, whether we talk about Lake Chad or about the Arctic, Bangladesh and the Small Island Developing States,” said the EU’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Joao Vale de Almeida, in his opening remarks. “But for the EU, there is no doubt, as underlined in 2016 in our Global Strategy, and reaffirmed by the 28 Ministers of Foreign Affairs, that climate change is a major threat to the security of the EU and to global peace and security more generally,” he said.
The challenges facing the international community are growing while the willingness to cooperate seems to be waning. Foreign policy must help bridge this gap. One way to accomplish this is by pushing forward a major achievement of multilateralism: the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. At a side event during the 2019 High-Level Political Forum, diplomats and policy experts discussed the role of foreign policy in the global sustainability architecture.