Reframing the Climate Refugee question in Bangladesh

Keywords: Climate Refugee, Bangladesh, Rural Poverty, Urbanisation, Natural Disasters, Migration, Livelihood

Date: 02nd Sept, 2024

Bangladesh, a low-lying country at the intersection of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna rivers, is highly vulnerable to climate change and environmental disasters. Lying in the North of the Bay of Bengal, with an average elevation of nine meters, the country is prone to severe floods, terrifying cyclones, and rising sea levels. Over 80 percent of districts such as Sylhet and Sunamganj get inundated, while over 3.5 million people get displaced every year. 

The UN predicts that 17 percent of Bangladeshis may need to relocate in the next decade if global warming continues at its current rate, causing a heightened refugee crisis. This will displace communities and devastate livelihoods, pushing people to move to urban spaces or abroad in search of better opportunities. Thereby, creating a complex ‘climate refugee crisis’, intertwined with socio-economic challenges.

The term ‘climate refugee’ denotes victims of climate change who, due to climate-related or climate-induced activities, are forced to evacuate and move to avoid drowning in areas with high sea levels, cyclone-prone regions, or areas facing extreme temperatures. Advocates for this term recognise that those impacted by climate change/environmental disasters face similar hardships and life-threatening conditions as traditional refugees.

However, labelling them as ‘climate refugees’ risks oversimplifying the situation, as it ignores the complex interplay of climate change with poverty, political instability, and social inequality. This prevents designing and implementing effective solutions.

As per World Bank, Bangladesh is the eighth most populous country in the world and is rapidly urbanising, with over 40 percent population living in urban areas. This emerging pattern of urbanisation surprisingly aligns with the climate change narrative as most people fleeing are from coastal rural areas moving to metropolitan areas in search of better income, health, education opportunities, and higher living standards.

This has more to do with socio-economic motivations than with climate change. They work in the garments industry, brick factories, rickshaw pullers, etc., giving them higher incomes than farming or fishing. Could referring to Bangladeshis as ‘climate refugees’ be a misinterpretation of complex migration patterns? Are individuals moving from climate-affected rural areas to cities being mistaken for refugees instead of labourers seeking better opportunities?

By adopting these climate-reductive narratives as the primary driver for migration, any event appears like an unpredictable and unavoidable peril. This hinders the investigation of the underlying socio-economic triggers, making the analysis imprecise. People migrate for better economic opportunities, social benefits, education, health facilities, etc. They move to escape the poverty trap, unemployment, lack of facilities, etc. 

According to the World Bank, the urbanisation rate in Bangladesh is 2.928 as of 2023. Rural people migrate to the cities to escape the poverty trap, land scarcity, lack of health and education facilities, and declining land productivity, and seek better employment opportunities, higher income, and better healthcare and education facilities. Every year, tens of thousands of rural migrants move to cities or abroad for improved living conditions and better economic opportunities, and they escape the perils of rural livelihoods.

Researchers globally acknowledge this movement pattern as a strategic livelihood choice for Bangladeshis from rural areas, who regularly engage in seasonal migration cycles. For instance, rural communities move to urban spaces to work in industries like brickmaking, garment manufacturing, or crab fishing in the Sunderbans after sowing rice during the monsoon season.

This seasonal migration boosts their earnings as they return home during the harvest season (November-March) and move back to cities during the sowing season (April-October). Adding this climate masala to their migratory stories illustrates how climate change, when added to these migration stories, can amplify perceptions of vulnerability and multiply access to employment opportunities, contributing to their means of subsistence.

Additionally, this narrative misreads the coastal vulnerabilities that help the government escape political responsibility. The World Bank estimates that nearly 12 million people in the coastal areas are impoverished due to climate-related cyclonic inundation, river salinity, and soil salinity.

While climate change is frequently assumed to be the prime contributor to soil salinization, agricultural practices also play a substantial role. Tiger-prawn (Penaeus monodon) cultivation is a lucrative business in Bangladesh. However, this is also a significant contributor to increasing salinity in the soil. It involves building seawater-filled ponds that seep into the surrounding soil, thus increasing the salinity levels.

Additionally, embankments constructed to prevent floods suffer from several infrastructural issues. Unauthorized drilling and use of pipes to increase prawn cultivation results in breaches, causing brackish water to flood agricultural land, further raising soil salinity. As a result, agricultural productivity declines, forcing rural agriculture-dependent people to relocate in pursuit of better prospects, increasing urbanisation pressures and contributing to rural depopulation. 

Furthermore, cyclones are exacerbated by climate change; however, they are immediate phenomena causing short-term damages. This leads to livelihood loss and damage, causing displacement. Affected individuals typically return to rebuild their homes and livelihoods.

This aligns closer to temporary migration observed after natural disasters rather than permanent displacement. Victims often move to nearby cities or regions for employment opportunities during this recovery phase to support their families. This migration is primarily motivated by economic factors and the necessity to sustain livelihoods rather than solely by environmental displacement.

Floods in Bangladesh are not entirely seen as bad in Bangladesh. The ‘Borsha Flood’ is welcomed as it brings silt from the rivers, enhancing soil fertility and boosting crop yield. Additionally, it is considered essential for aquatic life and breeding as it replenishes water bodies. However, when it is a ‘jalabaddho flood,’ it becomes a disaster, causing water logging besides the poor drainage infrastructure, river overflow, and rising sea levels.

The flood-protection embankments constructed in the 1960s worsened the situation due to infrastructure damage, contributed to waterlogging, and blocked the delta’s natural land-raising process through sediment deposits. This poses significant flood risks than rising sea levels. This contributes to the siltation of the water bodies, reducing the flow of the rivers and increasing the riverbeds.

Consequently, the stagnant water and poor sediment transport render it easier for saline water to seep in and mix, worsening the salinity of rivers. Thus, even river salinity is a consequence of poor infrastructure, rather than climate change causing soil degradation, crop damage, and livelihood loss, while triggering poverty and pushing people to relocate.

People move primarily for economic incentives rather than strictly environmental displacement. They seek better opportunities in a manner that closely aligns with seasonal and temporary migration widely practiced in South Asia. This pattern resembles labour migration more than meeting the legal and humanitarian criteria for refugees.

Individuals displaced by climate-related events experience hardships and vulnerabilities akin to those of traditional refugees. However, branding them exclusively as “climate refugees” may oversimplify their diverse motivations and the intricate socio-economic factors motivating their decisions to migrate. Understanding these nuances when designing migratory or refugee policies is necessary to address their concerns effectively.

Ignorance of these other contributing factors halts political action, as climate change is considered natural, uncontrollable, and unpreventable. The government should design policies for silt management and incentivise initiatives encouraging practices such as safe freshwater farming rather than lucrative evasive businesses such as tiger prawn cultivation.

Special attention must be drawn to alleviating rural poverty by providing employment opportunities, equitable land distribution, and better facilities such as health and education opportunities. Additionally, special care needs to be taken for infrastructure construction while repairing the broken infrastructure with a proper drainage system.

Rudrani Garg is a student of International Relations pursuing her Masters at the South Asian University. She is presently an intern with Asian Confluence

Disclaimer: The views expressed above and the information available are those of the author/s and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the position of Asian Confluence