Climate change: Pressure on urbanisation

Shammunul Islam and M. Mizanur Rahman in the Daily Star (Bangladesh): ...With 27% of the population living in the urban areas, why should one even bother about urban problems regarding climate change? Shouldn't we go for strategies and work plans that will make those living in the coastal areas adaptive to climate change? After all, this effect of climate change will have a severe blow by increasing the sea level from 0.18 to 0.79 metres (as forecasted by IPCC).

...When, due to the persistence of inclement condition, farmers don't get the chance to reap home the desired harvest, it creates a pressure on the supply side of the food situation. This results into an increase in food price. Again, as a net seller of food faces a greater loss than a net buyer of food, food price inflation thrusts people away from food production.

This will result into enticing people in urban city centres. This uncomfortable trend has already started to take place as many farmers have already been drawn into the pompous, promising life of metropolis. But with the fangs of capitalism ever searching for victims, these poor people fell prey to such a situation and normally find their place in urban slums.

Displacement from natural disasters such as Aila resulted into large exodus of rural people to urban people. This migration results into an unbearable pressure on urban utilities such as water and sanitation services.

...High urban densities pose both opportunity and threat in terms of the vulnerability of the people. It poses a threat to populations when proper infrastructural and institutional frameworks are not present. This is .the case with many southern urban areas of Bangladesh. Again, suitable infrastructural and institutional frameworks can provide a viable alternative -- particularly for the urban poor....

Bangladeshis on canoes in Dhaka, shot by Steve Evans, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license