Will We Become A Refugee of Climate Change...?

Vast stretches of coastal India may just go under water if global warming goes unchecked.

According to a report titled Blue Alert by Greenpeace, if present trends are any indication, there will be a five-degree increase in temperature over the next hundred years. This will submerge large areas and displace around fifty million people in India alone. The report also indicates that a policy change can still avert a two-degree rise in less than a decade.

Now an attempt is being made to mobilise public support to force the government to take a firm stand on climate change. In Chennai, (the city where I live) alone there will be ten million people who may be displaced. We'll become climate refugees.

Many countries have signed the Kyoto protocol in order to bring down green house gas emissions to levels that existed before 1992. But global emissions have actually risen by 24 per cent mainly due to emissions from developing countries like India and China.

Although the US tops the list in CO₂ emissions, it wants developing countries like India and China to take the lead.

In an effort to make the government understand this and pressurize them take action, an attempt is being made to campaign for the public support to mitigate climate change rather than waiting for the catastrophe to happen!

Climate change could also trigger erratic monsoons and break down agricultural systems in the vast and densely populated Gangetic delta. A study conducted on the rapidly warming South Asia, the global environment group said India, whose economy has grown by 8-9 per cent annually in recent years, contributes around 4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions as its consumption of fossil fuels grows.

The UN Development Programme in its latest report has also warned climate change will hit the world's poorest countries, increasing risks of disease, destruction of traditional livelihoods and triggering massive displacement. Together, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan have nearly 130 million people living along coastal areas less than 10 metres (33 feet) above sea level. (See map). All of us are in the danger of becoming Climate Refugee!

We are already seeing the effects," said Sudhir Chella Rajan, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai. He said the effect of rising temperatures was already apparent in the recurrent floods in coastal Bangladesh.

Join the Campaign!

Greenpeace has simultaneously launched the ‘Blue Alert’ campaign in five of the most vulnerable coastal cities in India: Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi and Goa. The campaign aims to catalyse people in the coastal danger zones, empowering them with information that they can raise with their elected representatives.

Globally more than 1 billion people live in low-lying areas that could be affected by sea level rise. Much of the productive land used to produce food is also in coastal areas at risk from rising sea levels.

The solutions to prevent catastrophic climate change impacts and avoid hundreds of millions of people from being displaced already exist. What’s needed is a revolution in the way we generate energy and an end to global deforestation.

Your voice can help start that revolution!

If you are a citizen of Chennai, please assemble at Besant Nagar Elliot's Beach on Saturday, April 12, 2008.

For further information you can contact the campaigners in the following cities:

Natasha Chandy
+91 93713 33492
natasha.chandy@greenpeace.org

Tanvir
+91 97104 44255

Bangalore
Vinuta Gopal +91 98455 35418
vgopal@dialb.greenpeace.org

Ankur Agarwal +91 98866 22143
aagarwal@in.greenpeace.org

Mumbai
Brikesh Singh +91 98800 92210
bsingh@greenpeace.org

Shweta Ganesh
+91 98450 68125
shweta.ganesh@in.greenpeace.org

Kochi

Somnath Narayan
+91 99020 96657
snarayan@in.greenpeace.org

Kolkata
Maitree Dasgupta
+91 99001 45422
mdasgupt@greenpeace.org

Jayashree Nandi
+91 93438 68011
jnandi@greenpeace.org

Goa

Saumya Sanati
+91 98237 21681
soumya.sanati@gmail.com