Daily Times

KARACHI: By 2050, the worsening impact of climate change in three densely populated regions of the world – South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America – can cause displacement of more than 140 million people from their native places.

Most of these displacements will lead to migrations within national jurisdictions, says the latest World Bank report on climate change impacts released on Tuesday.

“Groundswell – Preparing for Internal Climate Migration” focuses on the nexus between climate change impacts, internal migration patterns and development in the three developing regions of the world.

The detailed study mentions the three regions as the hotspots for in- and out-migration due to extreme weather events as a result of climate change.

Pakistan, India and Nepal in South Asia will continue to see high rates of rural to urban migrations, and the trend can intensify in the future, the report says.

Pakistan is one of the worst victims of climate change and a German think-tank, the German Watch, in its Global Climate Risk Index 2016 ranked Pakistan on number five in the list of top 10 countries most affected by climate change.

Published in Daily Times, March 21^st 2018.