| Analyst | Bahauddin Foizee |

Climate change is causing serious health issues and is making many places around the world, especially coastal areas in the Asia-Pacific region, less livable. It’s expected that a lot of these coastal regions, including countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, will gradually disappear.

An assessment from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that by the middle of the century, around two million people out of 250 million living in low-lying river deltas in these countries will be directly affected by rising sea levels.

Small island nations like the Solomon Islands, the Carteret Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Maldives are at even greater risk. Many of these islands are only 1 to 2 meters above sea level, and even a rise of just one meter could almost completely submerge them, leaving millions of people as climate refugees.

In India, around 20 million people living in coastal areas could be underwater with just a 2 degrees Celsius increase in temperature. Bangladesh might lose 6-8% of its land to the Bay of Bengal by 2030, and the areas prone to flooding could rise from 25% to 40% by 2050. Parts of Pakistan, like Sindh and Balochistan, are also at risk. People in these regions might face poorer drinking water quality and a decline in fish and shrimp populations.

Rising sea levels are causing salty seawater to mix with freshwater sources in coastal areas of Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Thailand, and Pakistan, making drinking water undrinkable. As glaciers in the Himalayas and the polar regions continue to melt, sea levels will keep rising, worsening the situation for freshwater sources.

Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is sinking by about 10 centimeters a year and could be underwater in a few decades. Similarly, many coastal areas in Myanmar could be submerged by 2050, according to the IPCC report.

Immediate action is needed. Governments and organizations are trying to create plans and find funding to address climate change, but many business and political leaders are ignoring the urgent need to act against climate change and its impacts. World leaders, especially from the most affected countries, must realize that if effective measures aren’t taken soon, millions of people living in coastal areas worldwide, including in the Asia-Pacific, could face serious threats to their survival.