As the planet warms, floods, storms, rising seas and drought will uproot millions of people, and with dire wider consequences. Barack Obama, collecting his Nobel peace prize, said that climate change
Agriculture scientist Dr M.S. Swaminathan, has warned that Kerala would need to brace itself for climate refugees from within.
Addressing an invited audience hosted by the Trivandrum Management Association here, Dr Swaminathan said that food and water security could be at worst risk due to sea-level changes entailed by climate change.
The First Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990 noted that the greatest single impact of climate change might be on human migration. The report estimated that by 2050, 150 million people could be displaced by climate change-related phenomenon. More recent studies increase this estimate.
KENDRAPARA: Even as the world leaders are debating the grave danger to earth at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in Denmark (COP 15 Copenhagen), back home in Kendrapara district the victims of climate change are unaware of the brain-storming sessions.
Climate change is without doubt one of the foremost and most profound threats to environmental security and basic human rights, and its effects are already being observed across the globe. For human populations, the impacts are considerable, with an estimated 325 million people adversely affected, and 300,000 deaths each year.
For centuries, Adam Abdi Ibrahim's ancestors herded cattle and goats across an unforgiving landscape in southern Somalia where few others were hearty enough to survive. This year, Ibrahim became the first in his clan to throw in the towel, abandoning his land and walking for a week to bring his family to this overcrowded refugee camp in Kenya.
