Asian Giants Driven by Climate--Population Migration Risks in Bangladesh, China, and India (2050 Estimate)

Asian Giants Driven by Climate--Population Migration Risks in Bangladesh, China, and India (2050 Estimate)

Toward 2050, large-scale population shifts triggered by climate change are becoming a reality in South and East Asia. Three countries of particular note are Bangladesh, China, and India. These countries are not only extremely populated, but also face a combination of climate hazards such as sea level rise, drought, extreme heat, and flooding, and their social vulnerability provides the conditions for large-scale migration.

First, in Bangladesh, about one-third of the country is already at risk of submergence due to sea level rise and land subsidence. The lowlands, especially those in the delta region, suffer from constant flooding, along with cyclone strikes and storm surge damage. According to future scenarios, up to 130 million people could be displaced, a figure equal to most of the country's total population. There is a scarcity of highlands within Bangladesh to which people can migrate, and already the country has begun to strengthen immigration measures and border security at its borders with India and Myanmar.

In China, an estimated 500 million people are within the migration risk zone. This is about one-third of the population, especially in coastal areas of major cities - Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin, etc. - that will be affected by sea level rise, typhoons, and salt damage. In addition, inland, water shortages and droughts in the Yellow River basin are becoming more severe, and there are concerns that the imbalance between the climate crisis and economic development will further widen regional disparities. The Chinese government is promoting massive reforestation projects and industrial relocation inland in the name of "ecological civilization" policy, but this has yet to keep pace with the massive population movement.

India faces an even more serious situation. Estimates that up to 1 billion people - the majority of the population - will be forced to move are not just predictions, but warnings rooted in the reality of an agriculture-dependent society, depleted water resources, extreme heat, and monsoon instability. The climate refugee outbreak is already underway in some areas, especially in the Ganges River basin, where glaciers are melting and competing for water. The huge basin communities from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal have a complex structure where politics, economics, and religion intersect, and their migration is not limited to domestic issues but could develop into an international crisis involving neighboring countries.

In the 2020s, these developments were already foreshadowed. Rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, declining agricultural yields, and overcrowded migration to urban areas - all of which are prompting people to "migrate not by choice" and the 2050 landscape should be considered an extension of this trend. A future in which three of Asia's largest countries simultaneously face the unprecedented challenge of population migration due to the climate crisis. It is the challenge of the century that will test political will, international cooperation, and human dignity.