Climate change refugees

/
Source: World Bank

Source: World Bank

We have talked before about the increasing urbanization rates in Vietnam. As you can see in the chart to the right, Vietnam’s urbanization has increased 15 percentage points since 1991 to 35% of the total population. That’s a big jump. Now almost 35 million people live in cities, and it is increasing every day.

We talked about reasons for the move: agricultural jobs falling and manufacturing jobs increasing. It’s hard to determine the causality. It likely comes from both high and growing salaries in manufacturing while agriculture wages are not keeping pace.

Well, I should have also talked about another reason that people are moving: climate change.

This BBC story looks at climate refugees fleeing the Mekong delta. A few stats that caught my eyes:

  • BBC quoted the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development saying that 30-100 meters of coastal land could be lost to erosion.

  • The Vietnamese in the story say: “The weather has changed drastically. The river has moved closer to us.”

  • 1,300,000 moved out of the Delta, and only 300,000 moved in in the past 10 years.The total population of the Delta is 18 million, so these are big numbers.

  • Of those who moved, 15% did so because of climate change (or almost 200,000), according to “a study at a Vietnamese University.” This might understate the numbers - sometimes people move for economic reasons, and the economic reason is that there is not enough land to farm, or the land no longer gets enough water and is therefore barren, etc.

  • Dams higher up on the Mekong are also a problem for the Vietnamese.

In response, the government, according to this report, created relocation programs for people in vulnerable areas. They have also constructed dykes in the river, but these may be affecting the health of the river.

It is a difficult situation, and it doesn’t look like Vietnam or the world is really prepared to the upheaval that will come from climate change. Yet, we, as humans, are still investing in coal plants.

It’s only 10 minutes, so I recommend watching the whole thing.