On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Sixth Assessment report, once again turning the global news reporting towards climate change. As we near the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, the 1300-page synthesis of climate science, climate model simulations, and physical, chemical, and biological climate processes is key to equip leaders with the most accurate and current information.
The report is straightforward about the effects of ‘human-induced’ climate change, but lost in the amplification, as well as the media coverage of the stark warnings is the clear connection of climate change to the burning of fossil fuels by a much smaller group of ‘humans’ who hold particular responsibility for the present climate crisis.
The effects of climate change, including extreme heat, increased precipitation and flooding, severe agricultural and ecological droughts, and intensified severe weather events, are effects long experienced by the Pacific and Caribbean Islands, and countries such as Uganda and Bangladesh.
While the report does not explicitly mention “climate migration”, climate change has already skyrocketed climate displacement.
Abdul Kalam Moment, Bangladesh’s foreign minister, estimates that every year, 500,000 people are displaced by climate change. Many migrate to urban hubs such as Dhaka, a city that has been overwhelmed and can no longer support its over 21 million residents. "For now, we can accommodate them in our slums," he says, "but for how long? With sea level rise, we could see millions more displaced.”
Saleemul Huq, Director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, says he is not surprised by the IPCC report, describing how Bangladesh has been suffering for decades at the hands of extreme weather events caused by climate change. He believes that leaders in the Global North can learn from South Asia’s response to climate change. Last year when Super Cyclonic Storm Amphan hit Bangladesh, their early warning system and efficient evacuation brought the death rate down significantly from similar events in the past.
Huq was also critical of the clear difference in news coverage between the Global South and the Global North. “We’ve been dealing with it as best we can, with the rest of the global media not taking much interest — maybe a few seconds to report on a flood or a drought or a hurricane, and that was it. Now that it’s happening in the rich world, in Europe and in the United States, it’s getting a lot more wall-to-wall television coverage.”
Moreover, it is becoming clear that many of the world’s least-developed countries, who will face the brunt of climate-induced challenges, don’t have the financial means to adopt appropriate climate adaptation responses. A recent study by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) suggests that these countries need at least $40 billion a year for adaptation mechanisms, while just $5.9 billion was received.
The inequities in climate change coverage and funding reflect the overall attitude still exhibited by the public and global governance: climate change and climate displacement are things of the future. The IPCC report is clear: warming must be kept to 1.5 degrees celsius, a goal in which feasibility is diminishing with every hour of inaction. Without concrete action, climate displacement will continue to soar, overwhelming cities and plunging larger portions of the population into poverty. (BBC, Sky News, Democracy Now)