Bangladesh urges world leaders to share responsibility of climate migrants
South Asian nation carrying load of 6M climatically displaced people, says Bangladeshi premier
DHAKA, Bangladesh
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday called on the world leaders to share responsibility of climate migrants.
"The world has to share the responsibilities of the climate migrants who have been displaced due to the impacts of climate change like sea-level rise, river erosion, increasing salinity, floods and droughts," Hasina said during a keynote address at the Scottish Parliament on the sidelines of COP26 climate change summit.
She is joined at the summit in Glasgow by 120 world leaders and 25,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries.
She added that Bangladesh is already carrying the load of 6 million climatically displaced people, along with 1.1 million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine State in August 2017.
According to a report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released in April this year, there are approximately 21.5 million climate refugees across the world.
Hasina said that the global pandemic has posed an additional challenge to address the forced migration crisis amid the adverse impacts of climate change.
The conference will continue until Nov. 12 with numerous panels, meetings and side events, all looking for remedies to reduce the levels of global warming by keeping it to 1.5 Celsius.
