A recent statement to a UN council by Sheikh Hasina Wazed, the prime minister of Bangladesh,  declared that the predicted one meter sea-level rise would render 30 million people in coastal areas homeless and migrating to Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.

A staggering number, comprising the combined population of Belgium and the Netherlands, and one that has been much contested by studies and during international talks.

We asked Dr. Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and a world expert on climate change adaptation, how accurate his prime-minister’s statement is, and how Bangladesh is planning for the climate migrants to come.

The smokescreen of numbers

“The emphasis on numbers in the current debate is a very great distraction, generating more noise than coming up with any strategy on how to deal with the issue. This type of debate is creating a smoke curtain, without necessary having a fire behind it,” urges Dr. Huq. 

“The number of expected climate migrants in Bangladesh being 30 million is not what matters here. Thirty million is as right as any number. Nobody can be certain of the exact amount of climate migrants that our global society will have to deal with.”

“What we can say with absolute certainty,” states Huq, “is that ‘human-induced climate change is causing sea-levels to rise’ as well as ‘more than 30 million people living in coastal Bangladesh now will no longer be able to live where they are living today if the sea-level rises by 1 meter’.  When discussing the future, attributing migration to human induced climate change can be done with a lot of credibility and a strong scientific basis.

“It becomes more problematic when you are trying to determine the pace at which these processes are currently developing: most projections for a 1 meter sea-level rise for the coast of Bangladesh run well past 2100, by which time of the population itself will have doubled, if not tripled.

“Low-lying areas like the coast of Bangladesh and island states like Tuvalu and Kiribati will disappear into the ocean. And when these lands disappear, their inhabitants will become climate migrants and climate refugees, without any question. Whether climate migration is already happening TODAY, is still strongly disputed in the current debate, because migration always has multiple reasons: they can be political, sociological or environmental reasons. And attributing climate change as the main or only reason for moving, to any group of migrants, is a very difficult thing to do … for now.”

He adds: “Climate change is already a super-imposed factor in the web of push- and pull-factors that makes people decide to leave their homes. And more and more of these climate-related factors are going to contribute to push-factors for migrants making the decision to leave their homes. In the future, the existence of climate migrants will be undeniable.”

Terminology Counts

“When talking about climate migration, terminology counts: the media has adopted the terms ‘climate migrants’ or ‘climate refugees’ to describe this issue, although in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, these terms do not exist, because none of the parties can agree on what they mean. But to be able to deal with the issue, we have to find a way to name it first,” states Huq.

Although consensus is lacking regarding the definition of climate migration and whether it is a phenomenon that is already taking place or not, the issue itself did already find its way into the negotiations of the United Nations.

In the UNFCCC – which is a negotiated treaty within the United Nations for which a Conference of Parties (or COP) takes place every year – the discussion of climate migration falls under a category called ‘Loss & Damage’ (L&D).

L&D forms the last of three chapters making up the Paris Agreement, with the first two being ‘mitigation’, which regulates the scaling down of emissions, and ‘adaptation’, or building resilience against climate change. In some cases, it is too late for the first two strategies to protect communities from the effects of climate change, and the loss and damage that come with climate change-induced effects are inevitable.

Dr. Huq explains: “Loss refers to things that are lost for ever due to climate change, such as human lives or species loss, while damages refers to things that are damaged, but can be repaired or restored, such as roads or embankments.”

Although this third chapter in the Paris agreement opens up a discussion for climate migration, recognising that climate change can indeed cause the necessary harm for people to become displaced, the chapter itself is also very controversial and the product of a decade-long international debate. 

One of the most significant steps forward in this discussion, before the Paris Agreement, was made during COP19, which took place in Poland in2013, where the Warsaw International Mechanism or WIM was put in place.

The WIM is an integral part of the L&D chapter, and is the first formal international mechanism that addresses the effects of  irreversible damage due to human-induced climate change.

It includes an executive committee and a 9-item action plan, one of which is ‘forced migration due to climate change’. Together with an additional article in the Paris agreement (article 8), these 2013 and 2015 landmarks delineate the progress so far.

A country under water

In Bangladesh, however, the government is already several steps ahead of what little progress has been made in an international context. Dr. Huq states: “Our country already has a climate strategy and action plan in place, performing adaptation projects and building climate resilience. This plan now recognises, however, as the recent statement of our prime-minister confirmed, that we will be dealing with millions of people who will have to leave the coastal areas.”

The forced migration away from the Bangladeshi coasts, additional to the direct trauma it inflicts on people, also holds a greater sociological threat that can have enduring consequences for Bangladeshi society: the resettlement will mainly be a move from rural to urban communities.

Dhaka city is already the fastest growing mega city in the world, with a current population of 15 million people and predicted to absorb another 10 million in the coming two decades.

The high influx of people from rural areas into cities is likely to cause large bodies of people without the background or skill-set to make a living in an urbanised environment, causing enduring poverty, a strong class division and political unrest in a country where large areas of rural land are soon to become part of the seafloor.

“Our current revision of the national climate strategy and action plan will still keep helping coastal communities to adapt to their changing environment. Additionally, as a long-term strategy to deal with the predicted rural-to-urban migrations, education will be a key adaptation strategy: we are handing over the right skills and knowledge to the youth, so they don’t need to become farmers and fishers like their parents, and they are able to get jobs in towns elsewhere.”

By both educating the youth in rural areas, as well as creating new job opportunities in provincial towns, the Bangladesh government is hoping to stimulate so-called ‘facilitated or assisted migration’ to address both the projected loss of agricultural communities and the overpopulation in the capital. 

Saleemul Huq explains, “By helping people to become more resilient to climate change, and by educating them so they can utilise migration as a choice instead of a necessity, we are turning the rising sea-level around from a problem to an opportunity. Planned migration offers a solution by enabling people instead of forcing them to move.”

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a tropical biologist passionate about biodiversity and climate change action. He’s been involved in research teams all over the world, and recently joined the Climate Tracker team as a campaign manager. He Tweets at @ArthurWyns.

A recent statement to a UN council by Sheikh Hasina Wazed, the prime minister of Bangladesh,  declared that the predicted one meter sea-level rise would render 30 million people in coastal areas homeless and migrating to Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.

A staggering number, comprising the combined population of Belgium and the Netherlands, and one that has been much contested by studies and during international talks.

We asked Dr. Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and a world expert on climate change adaptation, how accurate his prime-minister’s statement is, and how Bangladesh is planning for the climate migrants to come.

The smokescreen of numbers

“The emphasis on numbers in the current debate is a very great distraction, generating more noise than coming up with any strategy on how to deal with the issue. This type of debate is creating a smoke curtain, without necessary having a fire behind it,” urges Dr. Huq. 

“The number of expected climate migrants in Bangladesh being 30 million is not what matters here. Thirty million is as right as any number. Nobody can be certain of the exact amount of climate migrants that our global society will have to deal with.”

“What we can say with absolute certainty,” states Huq, “is that ‘human-induced climate change is causing sea-levels to rise’ as well as ‘more than 30 million people living in coastal Bangladesh now will no longer be able to live where they are living today if the sea-level rises by 1 meter’.  When discussing the future, attributing migration to human induced climate change can be done with a lot of credibility and a strong scientific basis.

“It becomes more problematic when you are trying to determine the pace at which these processes are currently developing: most projections for a 1 meter sea-level rise for the coast of Bangladesh run well past 2100, by which time of the population itself will have doubled, if not tripled.

“Low-lying areas like the coast of Bangladesh and island states like Tuvalu and Kiribati will disappear into the ocean. And when these lands disappear, their inhabitants will become climate migrants and climate refugees, without any question. Whether climate migration is already happening TODAY, is still strongly disputed in the current debate, because migration always has multiple reasons: they can be political, sociological or environmental reasons. And attributing climate change as the main or only reason for moving, to any group of migrants, is a very difficult thing to do … for now.”

He adds: “Climate change is already a super-imposed factor in the web of push- and pull-factors that makes people decide to leave their homes. And more and more of these climate-related factors are going to contribute to push-factors for migrants making the decision to leave their homes. In the future, the existence of climate migrants will be undeniable.”

Terminology Counts

“When talking about climate migration, terminology counts: the media has adopted the terms ‘climate migrants’ or ‘climate refugees’ to describe this issue, although in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, these terms do not exist, because none of the parties can agree on what they mean. But to be able to deal with the issue, we have to find a way to name it first,” states Huq.

Although consensus is lacking regarding the definition of climate migration and whether it is a phenomenon that is already taking place or not, the issue itself did already find its way into the negotiations of the United Nations.

In the UNFCCC – which is a negotiated treaty within the United Nations for which a Conference of Parties (or COP) takes place every year – the discussion of climate migration falls under a category called ‘Loss & Damage’ (L&D).

L&D forms the last of three chapters making up the Paris Agreement, with the first two being ‘mitigation’, which regulates the scaling down of emissions, and ‘adaptation’, or building resilience against climate change. In some cases, it is too late for the first two strategies to protect communities from the effects of climate change, and the loss and damage that come with climate change-induced effects are inevitable.

Dr. Huq explains: “Loss refers to things that are lost for ever due to climate change, such as human lives or species loss, while damages refers to things that are damaged, but can be repaired or restored, such as roads or embankments.”

Although this third chapter in the Paris agreement opens up a discussion for climate migration, recognising that climate change can indeed cause the necessary harm for people to become displaced, the chapter itself is also very controversial and the product of a decade-long international debate. 

One of the most significant steps forward in this discussion, before the Paris Agreement, was made during COP19, which took place in Poland in2013, where the Warsaw International Mechanism or WIM was put in place.

The WIM is an integral part of the L&D chapter, and is the first formal international mechanism that addresses the effects of  irreversible damage due to human-induced climate change.

It includes an executive committee and a 9-item action plan, one of which is ‘forced migration due to climate change’. Together with an additional article in the Paris agreement (article 8), these 2013 and 2015 landmarks delineate the progress so far.

A country under water

In Bangladesh, however, the government is already several steps ahead of what little progress has been made in an international context. Dr. Huq states: “Our country already has a climate strategy and action plan in place, performing adaptation projects and building climate resilience. This plan now recognises, however, as the recent statement of our prime-minister confirmed, that we will be dealing with millions of people who will have to leave the coastal areas.”

The forced migration away from the Bangladeshi coasts, additional to the direct trauma it inflicts on people, also holds a greater sociological threat that can have enduring consequences for Bangladeshi society: the resettlement will mainly be a move from rural to urban communities.

Dhaka city is already the fastest growing mega city in the world, with a current population of 15 million people and predicted to absorb another 10 million in the coming two decades.

The high influx of people from rural areas into cities is likely to cause large bodies of people without the background or skill-set to make a living in an urbanised environment, causing enduring poverty, a strong class division and political unrest in a country where large areas of rural land are soon to become part of the seafloor.

“Our current revision of the national climate strategy and action plan will still keep helping coastal communities to adapt to their changing environment. Additionally, as a long-term strategy to deal with the predicted rural-to-urban migrations, education will be a key adaptation strategy: we are handing over the right skills and knowledge to the youth, so they don’t need to become farmers and fishers like their parents, and they are able to get jobs in towns elsewhere.”

By both educating the youth in rural areas, as well as creating new job opportunities in provincial towns, the Bangladesh government is hoping to stimulate so-called ‘facilitated or assisted migration’ to address both the projected loss of agricultural communities and the overpopulation in the capital. 

Saleemul Huq explains, “By helping people to become more resilient to climate change, and by educating them so they can utilise migration as a choice instead of a necessity, we are turning the rising sea-level around from a problem to an opportunity. Planned migration offers a solution by enabling people instead of forcing them to move.”

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a tropical biologist passionate about biodiversity and climate change action. He’s been involved in research teams all over the world, and recently joined the Climate Tracker team as a campaign manager. He Tweets at @ArthurWyns.

A recent statement to a UN council by Sheikh Hasina Wazed, the prime minister of Bangladesh,  declared that the predicted one meter sea-level rise would render 30 million people in coastal areas homeless and migrating to Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.

A staggering number, comprising the combined population of Belgium and the Netherlands, and one that has been much contested by studies and during international talks.

We asked Dr. Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and a world expert on climate change adaptation, how accurate his prime-minister’s statement is, and how Bangladesh is planning for the climate migrants to come.

The smokescreen of numbers

“The emphasis on numbers in the current debate is a very great distraction, generating more noise than coming up with any strategy on how to deal with the issue. This type of debate is creating a smoke curtain, without necessary having a fire behind it,” urges Dr. Huq. 

“The number of expected climate migrants in Bangladesh being 30 million is not what matters here. Thirty million is as right as any number. Nobody can be certain of the exact amount of climate migrants that our global society will have to deal with.”

“What we can say with absolute certainty,” states Huq, “is that ‘human-induced climate change is causing sea-levels to rise’ as well as ‘more than 30 million people living in coastal Bangladesh now will no longer be able to live where they are living today if the sea-level rises by 1 meter’.  When discussing the future, attributing migration to human induced climate change can be done with a lot of credibility and a strong scientific basis.

“It becomes more problematic when you are trying to determine the pace at which these processes are currently developing: most projections for a 1 meter sea-level rise for the coast of Bangladesh run well past 2100, by which time of the population itself will have doubled, if not tripled.

“Low-lying areas like the coast of Bangladesh and island states like Tuvalu and Kiribati will disappear into the ocean. And when these lands disappear, their inhabitants will become climate migrants and climate refugees, without any question. Whether climate migration is already happening TODAY, is still strongly disputed in the current debate, because migration always has multiple reasons: they can be political, sociological or environmental reasons. And attributing climate change as the main or only reason for moving, to any group of migrants, is a very difficult thing to do … for now.”

He adds: “Climate change is already a super-imposed factor in the web of push- and pull-factors that makes people decide to leave their homes. And more and more of these climate-related factors are going to contribute to push-factors for migrants making the decision to leave their homes. In the future, the existence of climate migrants will be undeniable.”

Terminology Counts

“When talking about climate migration, terminology counts: the media has adopted the terms ‘climate migrants’ or ‘climate refugees’ to describe this issue, although in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, these terms do not exist, because none of the parties can agree on what they mean. But to be able to deal with the issue, we have to find a way to name it first,” states Huq.

Although consensus is lacking regarding the definition of climate migration and whether it is a phenomenon that is already taking place or not, the issue itself did already find its way into the negotiations of the United Nations.

In the UNFCCC – which is a negotiated treaty within the United Nations for which a Conference of Parties (or COP) takes place every year – the discussion of climate migration falls under a category called ‘Loss & Damage’ (L&D).

L&D forms the last of three chapters making up the Paris Agreement, with the first two being ‘mitigation’, which regulates the scaling down of emissions, and ‘adaptation’, or building resilience against climate change. In some cases, it is too late for the first two strategies to protect communities from the effects of climate change, and the loss and damage that come with climate change-induced effects are inevitable.

Dr. Huq explains: “Loss refers to things that are lost for ever due to climate change, such as human lives or species loss, while damages refers to things that are damaged, but can be repaired or restored, such as roads or embankments.”

Although this third chapter in the Paris agreement opens up a discussion for climate migration, recognising that climate change can indeed cause the necessary harm for people to become displaced, the chapter itself is also very controversial and the product of a decade-long international debate. 

One of the most significant steps forward in this discussion, before the Paris Agreement, was made during COP19, which took place in Poland in2013, where the Warsaw International Mechanism or WIM was put in place.

The WIM is an integral part of the L&D chapter, and is the first formal international mechanism that addresses the effects of  irreversible damage due to human-induced climate change.

It includes an executive committee and a 9-item action plan, one of which is ‘forced migration due to climate change’. Together with an additional article in the Paris agreement (article 8), these 2013 and 2015 landmarks delineate the progress so far.

A country under water

In Bangladesh, however, the government is already several steps ahead of what little progress has been made in an international context. Dr. Huq states: “Our country already has a climate strategy and action plan in place, performing adaptation projects and building climate resilience. This plan now recognises, however, as the recent statement of our prime-minister confirmed, that we will be dealing with millions of people who will have to leave the coastal areas.”

The forced migration away from the Bangladeshi coasts, additional to the direct trauma it inflicts on people, also holds a greater sociological threat that can have enduring consequences for Bangladeshi society: the resettlement will mainly be a move from rural to urban communities.

Dhaka city is already the fastest growing mega city in the world, with a current population of 15 million people and predicted to absorb another 10 million in the coming two decades.

The high influx of people from rural areas into cities is likely to cause large bodies of people without the background or skill-set to make a living in an urbanised environment, causing enduring poverty, a strong class division and political unrest in a country where large areas of rural land are soon to become part of the seafloor.

“Our current revision of the national climate strategy and action plan will still keep helping coastal communities to adapt to their changing environment. Additionally, as a long-term strategy to deal with the predicted rural-to-urban migrations, education will be a key adaptation strategy: we are handing over the right skills and knowledge to the youth, so they don’t need to become farmers and fishers like their parents, and they are able to get jobs in towns elsewhere.”

By both educating the youth in rural areas, as well as creating new job opportunities in provincial towns, the Bangladesh government is hoping to stimulate so-called ‘facilitated or assisted migration’ to address both the projected loss of agricultural communities and the overpopulation in the capital. 

Saleemul Huq explains, “By helping people to become more resilient to climate change, and by educating them so they can utilise migration as a choice instead of a necessity, we are turning the rising sea-level around from a problem to an opportunity. Planned migration offers a solution by enabling people instead of forcing them to move.”

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a tropical biologist passionate about biodiversity and climate change action. He’s been involved in research teams all over the world, and recently joined the Climate Tracker team as a campaign manager. He Tweets at @ArthurWyns.

A recent statement to a UN council by Sheikh Hasina Wazed, the prime minister of Bangladesh,  declared that the predicted one meter sea-level rise would render 30 million people in coastal areas homeless and migrating to Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.

A staggering number, comprising the combined population of Belgium and the Netherlands, and one that has been much contested by studies and during international talks.

We asked Dr. Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and a world expert on climate change adaptation, how accurate his prime-minister’s statement is, and how Bangladesh is planning for the climate migrants to come.

The smokescreen of numbers

“The emphasis on numbers in the current debate is a very great distraction, generating more noise than coming up with any strategy on how to deal with the issue. This type of debate is creating a smoke curtain, without necessary having a fire behind it,” urges Dr. Huq. 

“The number of expected climate migrants in Bangladesh being 30 million is not what matters here. Thirty million is as right as any number. Nobody can be certain of the exact amount of climate migrants that our global society will have to deal with.”

“What we can say with absolute certainty,” states Huq, “is that ‘human-induced climate change is causing sea-levels to rise’ as well as ‘more than 30 million people living in coastal Bangladesh now will no longer be able to live where they are living today if the sea-level rises by 1 meter’.  When discussing the future, attributing migration to human induced climate change can be done with a lot of credibility and a strong scientific basis.

“It becomes more problematic when you are trying to determine the pace at which these processes are currently developing: most projections for a 1 meter sea-level rise for the coast of Bangladesh run well past 2100, by which time of the population itself will have doubled, if not tripled.

“Low-lying areas like the coast of Bangladesh and island states like Tuvalu and Kiribati will disappear into the ocean. And when these lands disappear, their inhabitants will become climate migrants and climate refugees, without any question. Whether climate migration is already happening TODAY, is still strongly disputed in the current debate, because migration always has multiple reasons: they can be political, sociological or environmental reasons. And attributing climate change as the main or only reason for moving, to any group of migrants, is a very difficult thing to do … for now.”

He adds: “Climate change is already a super-imposed factor in the web of push- and pull-factors that makes people decide to leave their homes. And more and more of these climate-related factors are going to contribute to push-factors for migrants making the decision to leave their homes. In the future, the existence of climate migrants will be undeniable.”

Terminology Counts

“When talking about climate migration, terminology counts: the media has adopted the terms ‘climate migrants’ or ‘climate refugees’ to describe this issue, although in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, these terms do not exist, because none of the parties can agree on what they mean. But to be able to deal with the issue, we have to find a way to name it first,” states Huq.

Although consensus is lacking regarding the definition of climate migration and whether it is a phenomenon that is already taking place or not, the issue itself did already find its way into the negotiations of the United Nations.

In the UNFCCC – which is a negotiated treaty within the United Nations for which a Conference of Parties (or COP) takes place every year – the discussion of climate migration falls under a category called ‘Loss & Damage’ (L&D).

L&D forms the last of three chapters making up the Paris Agreement, with the first two being ‘mitigation’, which regulates the scaling down of emissions, and ‘adaptation’, or building resilience against climate change. In some cases, it is too late for the first two strategies to protect communities from the effects of climate change, and the loss and damage that come with climate change-induced effects are inevitable.

Dr. Huq explains: “Loss refers to things that are lost for ever due to climate change, such as human lives or species loss, while damages refers to things that are damaged, but can be repaired or restored, such as roads or embankments.”

Although this third chapter in the Paris agreement opens up a discussion for climate migration, recognising that climate change can indeed cause the necessary harm for people to become displaced, the chapter itself is also very controversial and the product of a decade-long international debate. 

One of the most significant steps forward in this discussion, before the Paris Agreement, was made during COP19, which took place in Poland in2013, where the Warsaw International Mechanism or WIM was put in place.

The WIM is an integral part of the L&D chapter, and is the first formal international mechanism that addresses the effects of  irreversible damage due to human-induced climate change.

It includes an executive committee and a 9-item action plan, one of which is ‘forced migration due to climate change’. Together with an additional article in the Paris agreement (article 8), these 2013 and 2015 landmarks delineate the progress so far.

A country under water

In Bangladesh, however, the government is already several steps ahead of what little progress has been made in an international context. Dr. Huq states: “Our country already has a climate strategy and action plan in place, performing adaptation projects and building climate resilience. This plan now recognises, however, as the recent statement of our prime-minister confirmed, that we will be dealing with millions of people who will have to leave the coastal areas.”

The forced migration away from the Bangladeshi coasts, additional to the direct trauma it inflicts on people, also holds a greater sociological threat that can have enduring consequences for Bangladeshi society: the resettlement will mainly be a move from rural to urban communities.

Dhaka city is already the fastest growing mega city in the world, with a current population of 15 million people and predicted to absorb another 10 million in the coming two decades.

The high influx of people from rural areas into cities is likely to cause large bodies of people without the background or skill-set to make a living in an urbanised environment, causing enduring poverty, a strong class division and political unrest in a country where large areas of rural land are soon to become part of the seafloor.

“Our current revision of the national climate strategy and action plan will still keep helping coastal communities to adapt to their changing environment. Additionally, as a long-term strategy to deal with the predicted rural-to-urban migrations, education will be a key adaptation strategy: we are handing over the right skills and knowledge to the youth, so they don’t need to become farmers and fishers like their parents, and they are able to get jobs in towns elsewhere.”

By both educating the youth in rural areas, as well as creating new job opportunities in provincial towns, the Bangladesh government is hoping to stimulate so-called ‘facilitated or assisted migration’ to address both the projected loss of agricultural communities and the overpopulation in the capital. 

Saleemul Huq explains, “By helping people to become more resilient to climate change, and by educating them so they can utilise migration as a choice instead of a necessity, we are turning the rising sea-level around from a problem to an opportunity. Planned migration offers a solution by enabling people instead of forcing them to move.”

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a tropical biologist passionate about biodiversity and climate change action. He’s been involved in research teams all over the world, and recently joined the Climate Tracker team as a campaign manager. He Tweets at @ArthurWyns.

Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman faces the prospect of selling a huge slice of the state owned Saudi Aramco for less than half his asking price if investors challenge the $2 trillion company valuation in light of international climate initiatives and low oil prices, according to a new report.

Greg Muttitt and Hannah McKinnon have authored a report for Oil Change International (OCI) titled Overheated Expectations in which they examine the potential impact of proposed climate mitigation measures – including the Paris agreement – on the initial public offering (IPO) of shares in the Saudi oil behemoth.

The authors state: “The world is rapidly approaching climate limits. There is an urgent need for rigorous scrutiny of any new investments in fossil fuels, not least of the partial listing of the world’s largest oil company.”

Investors are looking at the impact of climate policy on oil company valuations. Michael Bloomberg has helped launch the Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, which in turn has warned investors to consider risk within a range of climate mitigation scenarios.  

Dramatic impact on valuations

The sale of Saudi Aramco is set to be the world’s largest IPO. Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman valuation has been met with scepticism. The Financial Times believes the company is worth up to $1.1 trillion. However, the OCI research suggests it could be as low as $700 billion.

This is still a significant amount of money. If the company is valued at $1 trillion the Saudi state will still raise $50 billion from the IPO, according to the FT.

The OCI study examines three factors that would effect the company valuation. They claim prices could remain low due to a fall in global demand for oil, a result of many factors including the rise of the electric car and other alternatives to fossil fuels. This is the “new normal” that even the bosses of oil companies accept. 

Further, if governments around the world are serious about taking action to meet their commitments in the Paris agreement, and to keep the world average temperature below the 2 degrees Celsius target, this will also have a dramatic impact on the valuation.

Reductions in oil quotas

“Compared to the base-case estimate of around $1.5 trillion, the value of Aramco could be between 25 percent to 40 percent lower in the IEA’s [International Energy Agency] safer climate scenarios – which correspond to the absolute minimum ambition within the range of the Paris goals,” the authors state.

If the international community acts in the near future to seriously reduce the burning of fossil fuels, that could reduce the oil price and hence Aramco’s valuation. If action is left for later, a significant amount of Aramco’s reserves will remain unexploited and unsold. Reductions in oil quotas would then slash prices on a 15 to 25 year timescale, damaging all oil investments, public and private.

As noted in the report, Aramco “has a monopoly right to extract Saudi Arabia’s vast reserves” – which it does slowly. At the current rate, there is enough oil for a further 59 years of production.

The Saudi reserves would have a “profound impact on the climate” if fully extracted and burned. The emissions would amount to 112 Gt of carbon dioxide, fully one third of the carbon budget the world is estimated to have left if we are to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Scared off

The authors conclude that investors could be taking a significant risk if they buy stock at the Saudi valuation. “If the IPO realises a value at the higher end of the likely range (say, above $1 trillion), its investors could face significant risk from climate policy”.

However, the report also notes that if investors force down the price of the Saudi oil company this may have a knock on effect for the valuation of the other big five international oil companies, which have fewer oil reserves and also have a higher cost of production. 

If the Saudi crown prince gets his price, this will indicate that investors are not as yet scared off by the prospect of international government-led efforts to control carbon emissions. Aramco declined to comment on the CIO report when contacted by the The Ecologist.

This Author

Brendan Montague is the contributing editor to The Ecologist and a columnist for openDemocracy. He tweets at @EcoMontague. 

Wasted food equates to wasted resources required to grow, harvest and transport the produce from farm to plate – though a large proportion of it gets wasted before ever reaching the latter.

While all wasted food is a tragedy, it gets even worse when we consider that the industry is highly resource intensive – indeed the food industry is one of the most energy intensive, with large industrial scale farming and mono-cropping being largely responsible.

Tonnes of CO2 are emitted, countless liters of water are wasted and hectares of land are destroyed to grow food that never ends up being consumed.

Worse, most food waste ends up in landfill where it will, in turn, contribute to emitting greenhouses gases. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated in 2013 that food waste is the “largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions after the US and China”. 

The food value chain

Along with the environmental impacts of food waste, there is of course the social side too. Food is wasted at the same time hundreds of millions of people in the world go hungry every day – most in developing countries.

But food poverty, defined as the “inability of individuals and households to obtain an adequate and nutritious diet” is not only a developing country issue.

It’s estimated that eight million people in the UK are affected by food poverty and the number has risen in recent years. In reality, we already grow enough food to feed everyone in the planet – we just have an inefficient system that doesn’t distribute it equally and that wastes a third of everything produced. 

Food is wasted for all sorts of reasons – and those will vary depending on where in the food value chain the food waste occurs.

Perfectly yellow

On the farm level, produce may be discarded for aesthetic specifications such as being too big, too small, too wonky, too “ugly”, too abundant or damaged by unpredictable weather events.

Further down the supply chain, food is also be discarded for aesthetic reasons or for being too ripe for that stage of the chain – produce needs to have a certain shelf-life to keep going down the steps that will lead it to end up in your household.

A banana that is spotty at the warehouse will not be able to survive long enough on a supermarket shelf where the expectation is that it should be perfectly yellow.

At home, we waste food because we’ve bought too much of it, because it’s gone off or because simply because we’ve changed our mind. 

Conscious of our impact

All of these reasons are underpinned by the fact that we’ve stopped valuing food for what it really is as a society. Just two generations ago, our grand-parents were rationing food and using every last bit.

Today, the price of food has become so low and the perceived abundance of it means there is no real reason to treat it as something precious or worth saving. The culture we live in has made it easy to throw food away, without so much of an after-thought. 

However, in this ever expanding ‘throw away’ culture there are people who are becoming increasingly conscious of our impact on the environment and what simple changes can be done harmoniously to create the greatest change.

There are various initiatives working on the supply chain to reduce the level of waste.  One of these campaigns has been launched by Snact, an ethical snack company I co-founded. 

Cutting edge home-compostable packaging

Following the success of our fruit jerky; last month we launched a #deliciousprotest crowdfunding campaign aimed at saving some of the 1.4 million bananas thrown away each day in the UK.

Having raised more than £11,000, we will now be working with producers and retailers to collect their unwanted, wonky or slightly imperfect produce and produce a range delicious fruit bars.

We hope to improve these supply chain by creating a business model which can grow and see the amount of food waste reduced. 

For Snact, helping to save the environment isn’t just about what’s in the food we create but also in the packing we use, so just like our fruit jerky, our new range of banana bars will be wrapped in cutting edge home-compostable packaging, helping to ensure less packaging goes to land fill too.

This Author

Ilana Taub is one of the two co-founders of Snact, a sustainable snack brand tackling food and packaging waste. She was named London Leader by the Mayor of London Sustainable Development Commission. She previously worked in several sustainability related roles, notably in finance. To learn more about Snact and its #deliciousprotest, visit www.snact.co.uk. 

Farmers in the tropical southern region of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta today continue to build dams around their fields to protect the land from severe weather.

Fearing a major drought or flood – both of which have destroyed swathes of crops in recent years across provinces such as Bến Tre and Sóc Trăng – they are hoping these new barriers will stop saltwater from seeping into the soil, rendering it infertile.

Rising sea levels and global temperature increases are causing dramatic droughts and floods in the Mekong region, which are hitting families hard.

Local people cannot cook

“In my hometown, local people don’t use the national water source,” explains Tan Hung, who is from the coastal province of Bến Tre.

Like many people in the Mekong Delta, Tan’s family use underground pumps to source fresh water for day-to-day use. But when a severe drought hits, it reduces river levels and allows salty seawater to push inland.

“When this happens the local people lack the ability to take a shower or even cook because the river water they usually use has reduced,” Tan explains.

The saline intrusion not only reduces the amount of fresh water available to the local people but it penetrates their soil and eventually cripples their crops.

Grandmother’s coconut and grapefruit trees

Famed for its coconut groves, fruit orchards and rice paddy fields, Bến Tre is an area with acres of fertile land but when a serious drought hit in April last year these lush lands turned into a dried-out, salt-covered plots.

Tan’s grandparents own a farm in the area and sell the likes of lemons and coconuts to small markets nearby but in 2016 they were left emptyhanded.

“The fruits on my grandmother’s coconut and grapefruit trees didn’t grow at all and their lemons were very small,” he explains.

For families in the region that rely on farming as a source of food and income this is a big concern. Statistics by global research group the CGIAR show that the total amount of agricultural land in the Mekong Delta stretches over 2.6 million hectares. 

Rice bowl of Vietnam

From this land, it produces an incredible 50 percent of Vietnam’s overall food, through rice, fruits, fish and shrimp – making up the bulk of the region’s products. This part of Vietnam also accounts for a staggering 70 percent of the Mekong population’s income and food security.

Known as the “rice bowl of Vietnam”, rice production in the Mekong Delta is particularly crucial. Not only does it produce 57 percent of the country’s total rice production but it also provides 90 per cent of the country’s overall exported rice, according the CGIAR. 

Provinces in the Mekong with the largest rice areas include An Giang, Kien Giang and Dong Thap – all of which are have fallen victim to extreme weather patterns over recent years.

Swathes of rice crops, which need water at specific points in their growing cycle, can be completed wiped out from drought and flooding.

Climate change worsens

As Thi Mai, who is from Bến Tre, explains, “Floods used to come in August and last until November but this is no longer true.” She says that the flooding season is becoming increasingly unpredictable.

“Floods come in a very unexpected way so farmers cannot grow rice and if the flood water comes sooner than expected, they suffer a lot of damage,” she adds.

Entomology professor Michael Hoffman of Cornell University in the US says droughts and flooding can be exacerbated by external factors like farmers having no crop insurance.

He went on an exploratory trip in March 2016 along with a group of Cornell University students to assess the country’s future as climate change worsens. “This is a real danger because it’s their source of food and income,” he says. “It has a huge impact.”

A lower wage

This can be seen within rice cultivating provinces like Tra Vinh, which has also suffered from severe droughts and floods. 

Sua Saday, who is from the province, says his family and many others lost their crops to the 2016 droughts and estimates that rice production has dropped by around 50 per cent as a result.

Professor Hoffman says that these stressful farming conditions are having a hand in driving the youth away from the region to seek alternative work.

Le Tuan Tai, a 22-year-old from Tien Giang Province says this has started to happen in his hometown. “Many of the youth are deciding to flee to the cities to find jobs, even with a lower wage, because this is one of the stable things they can do,” he explains.

Due to melting glaciers

“They just cannot rely on farming anymore. Maybe you can be a millionaire this year but next year you could be a loser.” And the effects are set to worsen still, with sea levels rising at an increasing rate due to melting glaciers.

Research by the National Ocean Services shows global sea levels rose to a record high in 2016, measuring around 3.25 inches higher than the 1993 average (when sea-level satellite records began).

This is why companies like the International Union for Conversation of Nature are helping Vietnamese communities better prepare for the effects of climate change.

IUCN programme manager Andrew Wyatt says one of the major issues that the region is dealing with today is maladaptation.

We have to act now

He says that by understanding and implementing solutions like controlled flooding and reduction in underground water pumping (typically used for intensive shrimp farming) the impacts of climate change could be reduced.

“We have to act now before it’s too late,” Mr Wyatt says, whilst highlighting the latest figures by the NOAA showing that sea levels could rise by as much as 2.6 meters by 2100. 

Compare this to conservative sea level rise estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of 40 cm by 2100 – the result of which could flood coastal populations from 13 million to 94 million people – and the need to act sooner rather than later becomes all the more imperative.

This Author

Robyn Wilson is a freelance journalist currently writing and travelling across Asia. She is a former news editor at Construction News. She blogs at Weird Fishes and tweets at @RobynFWilson.

The UK’s geology is likely to be unsuitable for hydraulic fracturing, research by a Scottish university has discovered. Professor John Underhill, the chief scientist at Heriot-Watt University, revealed that while opponents of fracking continue to focus on the environmental impact of this method of oil and gas extraction, the geology of the UK doesn’t support it.

Professor Underhill said: “Both sides of the hydraulic fracturing debate assume that the geology is a ‘slam dunk’ and it will work if exploration drilling goes ahead.

“Public support for fracking is at an all-time low of 17 percent based, in the main, on environmental concerns but the science shows that our country’s geology is simply unsuitable for shale oil and gas production. The implication that because fracking works in the US, it must also work here is wrong.

“For hydraulic fracturing to be successful, a number of geological criteria must be met. The source rock should have a high organic content, a good thickness, be sufficiently porous, and have the right mineralogy.

The opportunity has been overhyped

“The organic matter must have been buried to a sufficient depth and heated to the degree that the source rock produces substantial amounts of gas or oil.

“However, in locations where fulfilment of some of the criteria have led to large potential deposits, uplift and the faulted structure of the basins are detrimental to its ultimate recovery.

“Yet, the only question that has been addressed to date is how large the shale resource is in the UK. The inherent complexity of the sedimentary basins has not been fully appreciated or articulated and, as a result, the opportunity has been overhyped.”

The UK uses over 65 billion cubic metres of gas to heat 80 percent of its 25 million homes and generate around a quarter of its electricity every year. While efforts to move towards renewable energy sources like wind and solar continue, the demand for gas is likely to remain high for the foreseeable future.

Few fractures or major faults

While the UK’s gas supply was self-sufficient until 2004, indigenous production has declined to just 45 percent, leaving a precarious shortfall, topped up with European pipelines and LNG deliveries, primarily from Qatar Seismic data and geological map of UK record the tilt.

Conventional gas exploration in the North Sea is unlikely to reverse the current situation, which is why many argue that the UK should consider all options, including onshore shale gas, citing success in the US and Centrica’s impending decommissioning of the UK’s main gas storage site in the southern North Sea likely to make the country more reliant on imports to meet demand.

The most successful US shale areas, like the Marcellus, Barnett and Haynesville plays all lie at present day depths and temperatures that mean they are ready to expel their oil and gas when fracked. They occur in relatively stable, undeformed intracratonic areas away from the edges of active tectonic plates.

These primarily consist of foreland basins, which form adjacent to mountain belts, or extensional sag basins, both of which have continuous layers of rock with only gentle dips and few fractures or major faults. Their gentle dip and relatively undeformed state aids subsurface imaging, gas and oil detection and the directional drilling needed for shale exploration.

Oil and gas escape

Professor Underhill added: “The seismic data and geological map of the UK shows a very different picture. A significant tilt affects the UK, which was initiated by active plate margin forces over 55 million years ago due to an upward surge of magma under Iceland and the subsequent formation of the Atlantic Ocean. The latter led to buckling of precursor sedimentary basins against the stable tectonic interior of continental Europe, including those considered to contain large shale resources.

“Areas that were once buried sufficiently deeply with temperatures at which oil and gas maturation occurs, lifted to levels where they are no longer actively generating petroleum. They have also been highly deformed by folds and faults that cause the shales to be offset and broken up into compartments. This has created pathways that have allowed some of the oil and gas to escape.”

Professor Underhill cites three potential fracking sites to illustrate the issue – the Weald basin in southern England, the Bowland Shale in Lancashire and the West Lothian Oil Shale in Scotland.

The Weald basin of southern England was a major area of sedimentary deposits in the Cretaceous, (the period between 65m and 135m years ago) but was subsequently deformed into a major anticlinal arch – a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core.  

Extremely unwise to rely on shale

The margins of this tectonic fold are particularly well defined since they are marked by the steeply dipping chalk ridges that form the North and South Downs in south-east England. 

Other basins believed to contain commercial shale gas, like the Bowland Shale in Lancashire and West Lothian Oil Shale in Scotland, went through an additional period of deformation about 290m years ago. This has further compounded their structural complexity.

Professor Underhill concluded: “There is a need to factor this considerable and fundamental geological uncertainty into the economic equation. It would be extremely unwise to rely on shale gas to ride to the rescue of the UK’s gas needs only to discover that we’re 55 million years too late.”

This Author

Brendan Montague is the contributing editor to The Ecologist and a regular columnist for openDemocracy. He Tweets at @EcoMontague. 

The now enacted Budget 2017 for the United States government zeroes out funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) –

in stark contrast to the leadership role America has historically contributed to the process.

The IPCC also appears as “zero request” for the fiscal year 2018 in both the State Department’s Congressional Budget Justification and the House’s State and Foreign Operations Bill – whose summary includes the IPCC on a list that “does not include funding for controversial or unnecessary programs”).

This is a remarkable departure considering the previous high regard for the IPCC, including the fact it was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about  man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

John Holdren, the longest serving science advisor to a US President since World War II, recently opined about the critical role of the IPCC: “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change itself…can be regarded as a ‘red team-blue team’ operation, in which every conclusion must pass muster with a huge team of expert authors and reviewers from a wide variety of disciplines and nations, including from Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers inclined to be skeptical.”

National security implications

I remember distinctly Vice Admiral Walter E Carter, Jr., USN, Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy, testifying before a U.S. Congress field hearing in July 2015.

He told of seawater inlet temperatures for the aircraft carrier that approached almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit, far above normal temperature for that time of year in the region they were operating (listen 1:19:19 into to this video).  “That is a very difficult place for anybody to operate regardless of what type of equipment you are working with,” declared Vice Admiral Carter.

Confronting these and other climate trends, the Department of Defense (DOD) and security organizations cite the IPCC findings and incorporate these into national security risk assessments. For example, the National Intelligence Council uses IPCC climate projections as the basis for their assessment of the risk of extreme weather events for national security.

IPCC sea level rise projections also formed part of the basis of the Department of Defense’s 2016 assessment of the risk of sea level rise for DOD coastal installations. Take a look at examples of US military bases confronting rising seas.

Cost of preparing for climate risks

The information generated by the IPCC (e.g. special reports and comprehensive climate assessments) is incorporated into the US National Climate Assessment and similar activities in nations around the world.

The US has historically contributed around $2 million a year to the IPCC Secretariat to facilitate gatherings of hundreds of world experts to assess the latest developments in climate science published in peer-reviewed journals.

Through these assessments, IPCC scientists produce highly vetted climate projections for governments, and identify key risks and sources of exposure and vulnerability to climate change.

To put this annual historic contribution of around $2 million to the IPCC in perspective, New York City, in 2013 embarked upon a $20 billion climate resiliency plan. In one year, the climate resiliency portion of the New York 2017 Executive Budget included $170 million in City funds for storm water management infrastructure to complement the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project from Montgomery Street to East 23rd Street and $27.5 million in City funds for the Two Bridges section of Lower Manhattan Protect and Connect flood protection.  

The design for these investments must incorporate the latest climate projections. New York City and other communities around the US benefit from a sustained IPCC that continually draws upon experts worldwide, including many from the U.S. Without the U.S.’ contribution in FY 2017, the IPCC was short in contributions. As a result, the institution was forced to draw from its financial reserves.

This may not be sustainable in the long run and risks the institution’s ability to provide governments with the best available information on changes ahead. Accordingly, in June 2017, the Netherlands announced it would double its IPCC contribution in light of U.S. actions and is urging other nations to increase their contributions.

There is a large return on investment in the IPCC for the United States.  Annual U.S. contributions to the IPCC trust fund could help ensure the IPCC Secretariat can sustain convening functions that leverages largely voluntary contributions of experts that produce robust IPCC assessments. Highly vetted information from the IPCC is key for our nation’s risk assessments.

This Author

Brenda Ekwurzel is a senior climate scientist and the director of climate science at Union of Concerned Scientists. She has expertise on many aspects of climate variability, including the Arctic Ocean and sea ice, wildfires, groundwater, and coastal erosion.

The now enacted Budget 2017 for the United States government zeroes out funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) –

in stark contrast to the leadership role America has historically contributed to the process.

The IPCC also appears as “zero request” for the fiscal year 2018 in both the State Department’s Congressional Budget Justification and the House’s State and Foreign Operations Bill – whose summary includes the IPCC on a list that “does not include funding for controversial or unnecessary programs”).

This is a remarkable departure considering the previous high regard for the IPCC, including the fact it was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about  man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

John Holdren, the longest serving science advisor to a US President since World War II, recently opined about the critical role of the IPCC: “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change itself…can be regarded as a ‘red team-blue team’ operation, in which every conclusion must pass muster with a huge team of expert authors and reviewers from a wide variety of disciplines and nations, including from Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers inclined to be skeptical.”

National security implications

I remember distinctly Vice Admiral Walter E Carter, Jr., USN, Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy, testifying before a U.S. Congress field hearing in July 2015.

He told of seawater inlet temperatures for the aircraft carrier that approached almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit, far above normal temperature for that time of year in the region they were operating (listen 1:19:19 into to this video).  “That is a very difficult place for anybody to operate regardless of what type of equipment you are working with,” declared Vice Admiral Carter.

Confronting these and other climate trends, the Department of Defense (DOD) and security organizations cite the IPCC findings and incorporate these into national security risk assessments. For example, the National Intelligence Council uses IPCC climate projections as the basis for their assessment of the risk of extreme weather events for national security.

IPCC sea level rise projections also formed part of the basis of the Department of Defense’s 2016 assessment of the risk of sea level rise for DOD coastal installations. Take a look at examples of US military bases confronting rising seas.

Cost of preparing for climate risks

The information generated by the IPCC (e.g. special reports and comprehensive climate assessments) is incorporated into the US National Climate Assessment and similar activities in nations around the world.

The US has historically contributed around $2 million a year to the IPCC Secretariat to facilitate gatherings of hundreds of world experts to assess the latest developments in climate science published in peer-reviewed journals.

Through these assessments, IPCC scientists produce highly vetted climate projections for governments, and identify key risks and sources of exposure and vulnerability to climate change.

To put this annual historic contribution of around $2 million to the IPCC in perspective, New York City, in 2013 embarked upon a $20 billion climate resiliency plan. In one year, the climate resiliency portion of the New York 2017 Executive Budget included $170 million in City funds for storm water management infrastructure to complement the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project from Montgomery Street to East 23rd Street and $27.5 million in City funds for the Two Bridges section of Lower Manhattan Protect and Connect flood protection.  

The design for these investments must incorporate the latest climate projections. New York City and other communities around the US benefit from a sustained IPCC that continually draws upon experts worldwide, including many from the U.S. Without the U.S.’ contribution in FY 2017, the IPCC was short in contributions. As a result, the institution was forced to draw from its financial reserves.

This may not be sustainable in the long run and risks the institution’s ability to provide governments with the best available information on changes ahead. Accordingly, in June 2017, the Netherlands announced it would double its IPCC contribution in light of U.S. actions and is urging other nations to increase their contributions.

There is a large return on investment in the IPCC for the United States.  Annual U.S. contributions to the IPCC trust fund could help ensure the IPCC Secretariat can sustain convening functions that leverages largely voluntary contributions of experts that produce robust IPCC assessments. Highly vetted information from the IPCC is key for our nation’s risk assessments.

This Author

Brenda Ekwurzel is a senior climate scientist and the director of climate science at Union of Concerned Scientists. She has expertise on many aspects of climate variability, including the Arctic Ocean and sea ice, wildfires, groundwater, and coastal erosion.