Displacement is the word on climate, not migration
By Daniel Nelson
‘Displacement’ of people caused by climate change is a better term to use than ‘migration’, the Bangladesh High Commissioner said in London this week.
Mohamed Mijarul Quayes‘ remarks came in a meeting at the Overseas Development Institute on ‘How is climate change affecting migration – and how should policy-makers respond?'
The choice of words indicated a sea-change in the understanding of migration in terms of climate change, he said.
If sea-level rose two metres, he pointed out, it was not a question of 35 million Bangladeshis choosing migration – of adaptation to changing conditions – but of being forced to relocate.
“It won’t be a question of people’s resilience”, a term previously used by another panellist, he said: they would be driven out. It was an imposition rather than an option.
The High Commissioner also noted that Bangladesh was caught in a potential squeeze, because of the threat that glacial lakes in Nepal and Bhutan might burst.
Dominic Kniveton, professor of climate science and society at the University of Sussex, recommended looking at migration as a solution to climate change problems rather than as a failure. The Bangladesh government, for example, could organise skills training for people in areas where migration was expected to occur.
He also warned that in some cases people might migrate from areas affected by climate change, such as coastal zones, but move to places, like flood-affected areas of Dhaka, where the impact of climate change could be even greater.
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