Global warming coming faster than we thought, 2M refugees by 2100: Land Use Policy

The rise of global warming is a major concern the world over, as is evident from the fact that 50 countries have pledged to switch to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. India’s contribution to renewable energy currently stands at 44.812 GW, which the government plans to increase to 175 GW by the end of 2022.

According to a study published by Land Use Policy, global mean sea level rise may affect and dislocate approximately one-fifth of the world's population by 2100, turning them all into climate-change refugees.

People who lived in coastal cities and villages will face issues with relocation and resettlement while they are in constant search for appropriate inland habitat, said the journal. The lead author of this journal and Professor Emeritus of Development Sociology at Cornell University, Dr Charles Geisler, said,

We're going to have more people on less land and sooner than we think. The future rise in global mean sea level probably won't be gradual. Yet few policy makers are taking stock of the significant barriers to entry that coastal climate refugees, like other refugees, will encounter when they migrate to higher ground.

According to a report by Livemint, Geisler said,

The colliding forces of human fertility, submerging coastal zones, residential retreat, and impediments to inland resettlement are huge problems. We offer preliminary estimates of the lands unlikely to support new waves of climate refugees due to the residues of war, exhausted natural resources, declining net primary productivity, desertification, urban sprawl, land concentration, 'paving the planet' with roads, and greenhouse gas storage zones offsetting permafrost melt.

According to a report by Huffington Post, Geisler said,

Bottom line: Far more people are going to be living on far less land, and land that is not as fertile and habitable and sustainable as the low-elevation coastal zone. And it’s coming at us faster than we thought.

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