Published on:20/11/2013

Climate change is driving an increasing number of Bangladeshis to migrate from rural areas to the cities, E&E reporter Lisa Friedman writes in “A City Exploding with Climate Migrants.” The article is part three of a special Climate Wire report on Bangladesh and climate migration. Friedman notes that some 500,000 people move to the capital, Dhaka, from coastal and rural areas each year – roughly the equivalent of the entire population of Washington, DC. Many of these people leave their homes because environmental factors have changed and they can no longer earn a living. Coastal flooding is occurring more frequently, destroying crops and rice fields that sustain villagers as saline water pushes further inland. Ferocious storms demolish homes and, in some cases, entire towns. Most of the migrants who come to Dhaka end up in the slums, home to an estimated 3.5 million people – 40 percent of the city’s population. According to the International Organization for Migration, some 70 percent of slum dwellers in Dhaka moved there after experiencing some kind of environmental hardship.see details