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[Nagraj Adve]

These numbers - if plausible - are worse than we thought.
Naga


 More than 30 million climate migrants in Asia in 2010, report finds

Numbers of people displaced by environmental and weather-related disasters
likely to increase, Asian Development Bank warns

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   -  Fiona Harvey <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/fiona-harvey>,
   environment correspondent
   - guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Monday 19 September 2011
   13.47 BST
   - Article history<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/19/climate-migrants-asia-2010#history-link-box>
    [image: Climate refugees : Family members, displaced by floods in the
   Badin district, Pakistan]
   A family displaced by floods shelters under a tarp during a monsoon
   downpour at a makeshift camp for flood victims in the Badin district in
   Pakistan's Sindh province, September 2011. Photograph: Akhtar Soomro/Reuters

   More than 30 million people were displaced last year by environmental and
   weather-related disasters across Asia, experts have warned, and the problem
   is only likely to grow worse as climate
change<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change>exacerbates
such problems.

   Tens of millions more people are likely to be similarly displaced in the
   future by the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels,
   floods, droughts and reduced agricultural productivity. Such people are
   likely to migrate in regions across Asia, and governments must start to
   prepare for the problems this will create, the Asian Development
Bank<http://beta.adb.org/>warned.

   The costs will be high – about $40bn is the likely price for adapting and
   putting in place protective measures, from sea walls to re-growing mangrove
   swamps that have been cut down, and that can help to protect against the
   impacts of storm surges.

   But the problem is already taking effect, though at a much lower scale
   than is likely in the future. "While large-scale climate-induced migration
   is a gradual phenomenon, communities in Asia and the Pacific are already
   experiencing the consequences of changing environmental conditions including
   eroding shorelines,
desertification<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/desertification>and
more frequent severe storms and
   flooding <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/flooding>," the bank said
   at a workshop last
week<http://beta.adb.org/news/events/philippines-country-workshop-climate-induced-migration>.
   This could lead to a widespread crisis across the region in coming years, if
   preparations are not made to deal with the current and probable future
   consequences.

   Robert Dobias<http://beta.adb.org/contact/dobias-robert?ref=news/experts>,
   climate change project chief at the Asian Development Bank, said that at
   present climate change is still a relatively small cause of migration, as
   economic causes loom largest and as environmental disasters happen
   independently of global warming. However, the problem is likely to increase
   in future years, with potentially severe consequences, including conflict as
   people are forced to move long distances.

   Areas most at risk are low-lying islands such as the
Maldives<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/maldives>,
   whose environment minister, Mohamed Aslam, said the populations of entire
   islands in the archipelago had been forced to move. But coastal cities in
   developed regions could also face the threat of higher seas and storm
   surges, while regions that already suffer severe floods such as
   Bangladesh <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/bangladesh> will have their
   risks intensified.

   The Asian Development Bank warned that governments must start to make
   preparations now, to be ready for the multiplying threats, and because more
   extreme weather has already started to take effect, though changes so far
   have not been dramatic in their impact. "The number of extreme weather
   events is increasing and Asia and the Pacific is the region at the epicentre
   of weather disasters," the group said.

   The bank is working on a report that will set out in detail the likely
   problems and propose a range of potential policy changes to help to deal
   with them. The report will be published next spring, though preliminary
   research is being disclosed at a series of regional conferences in the
   intervening months.

   The probable solutions are likely to include measures to improve vital
   infrastructure, such as energy provision, transport systems and
   communication networks, in order to make such infrastructure more resilient
   to the effects of climate change.