CLIMATE DISPLACEMENT IN THE NEWS
For people already in poverty, climate change will prove devastating, as detailed in the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights’ 2019 report, Climate Change and Poverty. For many Bangladeshis displaced by floods and cyclones over the past thirty years, this is a daily fear. Morzina Begum, has been displaced six times, and has lost approximately $30,000 USD equivalent throughout the process — she now lives on a roadside.
With the Covid-19 pandemic restricting travel, the country’s economy is expected to shrink about 30%, pushing its debt limits from 70% to 95%. Antigua and Barbuda is not alone, and stands with other small island states, who we detailed in this SPOTLIGHT last September, that called on donor governments and development banks to help them avert a looming crisis through debt relief and climate finance for 44 small island and low-lying coastal developing states.
The area, known to be ecologically sensitive, experienced catastrophic flooding following a 2013 monsoon, leaving some 6,000 dead. As regional authorities and the Indian military continued search and rescue operations in the wake of Sunday’s incident, various media outlets reported that experts had previously warned of the region’s fragility and how damaging the many planned infrastructure projects could be, especially with the threat of climate change. Former water resources minister Uma Bharti recalled her disapproval of dams in the region, and environmental groups expressed their hope that the recent incident would send a message to the government that ignoring experts’ warnings regarding climate change and infrastructure projects is dangerous and unacceptable.
In confirming a Bangladeshi man’s residence permit renewal, a French appeals court has made legal history by taking into account environmental conditions in the applicant’s country of origin. In an apparent first, the Bordeaux-based court “effectively declared that the environment - air pollution - meant it was unsafe to send this man back,” according to Dr. Gary Fuller, an air pollution scientist at Imperial College London.
A French court in Paris will begin hearings on January 14 on a case filed two years ago by four NGOs and supported by an online petition of 2.3 million signatures, accusing the French government of failing to act on climate change. The petitioners want the court to hold the French government to account for ecological damage, sending a message to urge other governments to take up stronger climate action.
In a joint statement, the NGOs noted the government’s efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which “under this government's five-year term dropped at a pace that was twice as slow as the trajectories foreseen under the law."
Data by the Climate Vulnerable Forum shows only 73 out of 160 nations have complied with the 2020 Paris Agreement deadline for countries to submit revised climate plans to the UN.
Of those 73, 69 countries have stepped up commitments in either adaptation or lowering emissions - 57 countries that submitted stronger emissions reduction targets account for only 13% of global emissions, while the 66 countries that committed to stronger adaptation, account for 1.67 billion people, just a fifth of the global population.
