Navigating Climate-Induced Migration: India’s Reality and Response

Climate change's impact on migration is a pressing global concern requiring localised understanding for effective adaptation and mitigation responses. Reports from IPCC and World Bank emphasise on the need for comprehensive policies addressing climate-induced displacement in vulnerable regions like South Asia, including India. In this blog piece, we delve deeper into the realities of climate-induced migration in India and look at some appropriate responses.

Climate change has emerged as a global issue with planetary concerns and has been studied as a technical phenomenon by scientists, policymakers and researchers. Addressing climate-induced displacement and migration in emerging economies underscores discussions about climate change and climate action and its implication on everyday justice and pressing survival concerns. It also makes a localised, contextual understanding of climate change and its impact, which is imperative in developing adequate adaptation and mitigation responses.

The IPCC AR6 Working Group II Report?

The report assessed that global warming, potentially reaching 1.5°C in the near-term, would cause unavoidable increases in multiple climate hazards and increased climate-induced migration. The level of risk will depend on concurrent near-term trends in vulnerability, exposure, level of socioeconomic development and adaptation. Exposure to climatic hazards is also increasing globally due to socioeconomic development trends including migration, growing inequality and urbanisation.

The World Bank's Groundswell report?

The report estimates climate change could result in the internal migration of approximately 216 million people within their own countries by 2050. South Asia, including India, is one of the regions that would be most affected by internal climate migration. For example, the southern highlands between Bangalore and Chennai in India will likely become an area of increased climate in-migration. Climate out-migration hotspots include the northern part of the Gangetic Plain and the corridor from Delhi to Lahore. It will also occur in coastal metropolitan areas such as Mumbai and Chennai due to sea level rise and storm surge impacts.?

The Indian subcontinent faces a range of natural disasters, including floods, storms, droughts, cyclones, and heavy rainfall, leading to substantial displacements annually. It consistently ranks among the countries with the highest displacement rates. Additionally, projections of significant crop productivity declines, particularly under high greenhouse gas concentrations, will impact water availability and crop yield across India by the end of the century.?

The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) in India primarily focuses on strategies for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. With the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events (cyclones, droughts, floods), the country should start planning to assess existing institutional and policy frameworks at the national and regional levels to address the needs of climate vulnerable contexts and understand institutions' capacity and preparedness to respond to climatic disasters.??

Recently, a story in Scroll highlighted the distressed migrants’ plight demonstrating the economic blow of relocation due to climate change. Escaping rising sea levels, migrants were displaced thousands of kilometres away by limited economic prospects. Prasanna Parida, the sarpanch of Satbhaya village in West Bengal, said:

“This migration is not out of the necessity for a better life as you would see in, say, Bihar. It is forced, since the sea started eating villages. When you leave your village, your lands, and you work in a different place, you work like a slave.”

The DW, Germany’s international broadcaster, in their recent blog highlighted a critical point while discussing case study of Sunderbans - individual migration in the midst of a climate crisis leaves individuals significantly more vulnerable compared to migrating in groups with some form of social support. This accentuates the necessity for proactive policies addressing cluster resettlement or providing training for alternative forms of employment, reducing reliance on specific geographical areas.

Findings from our field surveys in Jharkhand?

During the Jharkhand Migration Survey, over 90% of households, which reported owning agricultural land, mentioned that their crop production has been adversely affected due to sporadic weather events. One such testimony from our field survey:?

“?? ??? ???? ??? ?? ???? ???, ???? ??? ??? ????? ????? ?? ???, ???? ???? ?? ?? ??? ??? ??, ?? ??? ???? ???? ??, ????? ??? ???? ???? ???? ??, ?? ???? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ??” - ????? ????? ,???????? ??????, ???????? ?????, ????? ????

While we recognise that the state government is focusing on addressing crucial infrastructural gaps to break the stagnated growth of agriculture, the limitations posed by uncertain and inconsistent agro-climatic conditions and topography compounded by climate change effects continue to render agriculture economically unreliable and insecure.

We at Policy & Development Advisory Group (PDAG) , centre our efforts towards analysing and informing policies to mitigate climate-induced migration in rural India across different terrains. We aim to engage with stakeholders through mapping exercises that extend to the household level and connect them with climate adaptation practices.?

This is the third blog post in the #Where'sPublicinPublicPolicy series by PDAG.

References:?

National Action Plan on Climate Change. Available at: https://www.cckpindia.nic.in/assets/NAPCC/NAPCC_Document.pdf?

Climate change 2022: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability (no date) IPCC -Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Available at: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/?

Rathore, V. (2023) From odisha to Kerala, a bus of climate migrants, Scroll.in. Available at: https://scroll.in/article/1048724/from-odisha-to-kerala-a-bus-of-climate-migrants#:~:text=%E2%80%9CBut%20after%20resettlement%20in%20Bagapatia,sons%20began%20migrating%20to%20Kerala?

Rigaud, K.K. et al. (no date) Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration, Open Knowledge Repository. Available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/2be91c76-d023-5809-9c94-d41b71c25635

Sinha, D. (2022) Sundarbans’ climate refugees face an uncertain future – DW – 03/21/2022, dw.com. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/forgotten-people-sundarbans-climate-refugees-forced-to-move-again/a-61162969?

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