Climate change will accelerate humanitarian crises around the world in 2023, adding to the issues created by armed conflict and economic downturns, according to a study by the NGO International Rescue Committee (IRC). The agency, based in New York and led by former UK politician David Miliband, flagged that the number of people in humanitarian need has skyrocketed in the last decade, approaching 339.2 million versus the 81 million seen in 2014.
There is strong evidence that deteriorating environments caused by climate change are driving millions of people to resort to mass migration in their search for a better life, both within countries and across borders. In 2021, about 23.7 million people were uprooted within their own countries, usually temporarily, as a result of disasters, many related to weather extremes, according to the Internal Displacement Migration Centre. Without serious and rapid action to deal with climate change, about 216 million people could be internal climate migrants by 2050, according to the World Bank.
The world must act to prevent ever
worsening climate impacts and to
keep temperature increase to below
1.5°C above pre-industrial levels
Four key climate change indicators – greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification – set new records in 2021. This is yet another clear sign that human activities are causing planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean, and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for sustainable development and ecosystems, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
We are already too late to do much to arrest climate change. Even climate scientists are stunned by the pace at which the climatic conditions are being disrupted by the ignorance and deep-rooted selfishness of humanity. The past seven years have been the warmest seven years on record. The world must act to prevent ever worsening climate impacts and to keep temperature increase to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
The world is now going through a situation where the most vulnerable countries, which deserve the highest level of priority, are failing to access support that is being realised. Major emitters show extreme reluctance on mitigation, which may wreck the international climate regime and put the climate vulnerable countries like Bangladesh at peril. As developed countries are accountable for the severe consequences of climate change, they must provide with necessary financial, technological and intellectual support to the developing countries following the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change. Wealthier countries must help emerging economies speed their renewable energy transition. Needless to say, developing countries like Bangladesh need a global commitment to face climate challenges.
