Warming will trigger huge exodus

A rise in sea level due to global warming is expected to affect more than 43 lakh Indians living in the coastal cities of Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata, who are then most likely to migrate to cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune. This is bound to put pressure on these cities, which are already burdened by their growing population.

While predicting this, a social scientist from IIT Madras, Sudhir Chella Rajan, has said he is trying to help prepare people for future exigencies that are likely to be extreme. Rajan notes that the sea level could rise by as much as five metres by the turn of the century.

Meteorological scientists warned that the rising sea level, triggered by climate change, will displace a whopping 125 million people — 10 times more than the human tragedy witnessed during partition in 1947.

Mumbai and Kolkata are at average elevations of 2 to 10 metres. Population from these cities and Chennai may move to big inland cities.

This means Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune and Hyderabad — which will have serious resource constraints by the middle of the century — will have to prepare and accommodate a large number of migrants from the coasts, says Rajan, a US-returned researcher on climate policy who teaches environmental and development economics at the humanities department in IIT Madras.

"Substituting cars with bicycles and improving public transport are among the solutions to prevent the impending tragedy," says Rajan, author of 'Climate Migrants in South Asia: Estimates and Solutions', a paper he has prepared for Greenpeace. The first to move out would be the wealthier and the middle class, including the merchant community.

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