Growing Populations, Climate Change Leave Cities On A Fast Track To Water Deficits

Daily Climate - Brian Bienkowski

By 2050 many of the world's major cities will face surface water shortages, spurring regional conflict and competition for scarce resources

More than a hundred cities—containing millions of people—will have water demands outstripping surface water supplies by 2050, according to a new analysis of climate change impacts on water.
The global study cited many cities in the U.S.—including Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Ana and Long Beach in California, and Phoenix, Arizona—as headed for worsening future water problems.
These water deficits—exacerbated by a changing climate, a growing population and urbanization— will spur conflict between cities and nearby farming areas and put pressure on already stressed groundwater supplies.
There are "two big climate change impacts relevant to drinking water quantity," said senior author of the study, Robert McDonald, lead scientist for the Global Cities program at The Nature Conservancy. "Timing of rainfall is changing … in general wet periods will get wetter, dry periods will get drier.
"The other is that, because it's hotter, evaporation from whole watersheds will go up a lot, even if there is the same amount of precipitation, cities will find reservoirs a lot lower."
Currently about 54 percent of the world's population lives in cities—which is "likely to grow to between 60 percent and 92 percent" over the next 80 years, according to the study published in Nature Sustainability journal.
  Currently about 54 percent of the world's population lives in cities—which is "likely to grow to between 60 percent and 92 percent" over the next 80 years, according to the study published in Nature Sustainability journal.

Population, Cities, Water
Infogram

"We're in the middle of the fastest urban growth in history, and it would be hard to build water supply systems for all those people anyway," McDonald said. "Climate change is making it harder."
Water demand in cities is estimated to increase by about 80 percent by 2050. Globally, surface water demand will surpass supply by about 366 billion gallons, leaving 233 million people in cities with potential shortages, meaning the cities would be reliant on storage to get people safe water.
"This clearly points out a very stressful challenge ahead for cities—for all water users," said Brian Richter, the president of Sustainable Waters, who was not involved in the current study.
Top 10 cities with a projected surface water deficit by 2050:

• Los Angeles, California
• Jaipur, India
• Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
• Dalian, China
• San Diego, California
• Karachi, Pakistan
• Harbin, China
• Phoenix, Arizona
• Porto Alegre, Brazil
• Monterrey, Mexico

The "United States shows a clear division between cities in the West that are vulnerable to a surface-water deficit and cities in the East that have little vulnerability," the authors wrote.
Researchers estimated future water demand and availability in 482 of the world's largest cities, which contain 736 million people.
Due largely to climate change impacts on water supplies and trends of turning natural areas to urban, they estimate 27 percent of the 416 cities that rely on surface water will have a water deficit three decades from now. In addition, 41 percent of all river basins are set to have conflict between urban water users and agricultural users.
"South Asia is a hotspot region where competition between urban and agricultural demand is generally highest," the authors wrote.
The study comes as the World Economic Forum released their 2018 Global Risks Report, which cited "water crises" as the fifth highest risk to the planet over the next decade. Failure to mitigate and adapt to climate change was fourth on the list.
The annual report points out that lack of water is strongly linked to other escalating challenges such as food insecurity, involuntary migration and struggling economies.
Water scarcity could cost some regions of the world—such as Central Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia— up to 6 percent of their GDP.

Changing the historical blueprint
Richter said historically cities have followed a similar pattern in water use—first, using whatever water is most available, whether it's tapping groundwater or rivers. Then, as populations grow, the common next step is to reach into other watersheds and import water.
"Some cities reach great distances," he said, pointing to China's South to North Water Diversion project—which will require more than 620 miles of pipeline to take water from the Yangtze River in South China to North China—as one of the more extreme examples.
Richter said after importing, many cities then turn to desalination, and, more commonly, water re-use, recycling and conservation efforts.



This, he said, should be flipped.
"It's very important for cities to push aggressively on water conservation, it's by far the least expensive way to manage an urban water budget," he said.
Richter said the good news is there is still "tremendous potential" in many U.S. cities to push water demands far below what they are today.
"Many 'smart water' cities are at 50 to 60 gallons per capita per day, but many cities, including some in the Southwest, have a per capita use 10 times that," he said.
Richter pointed to San Antonio, which boasts the largest recycled water delivery system in the U.S., and Tucson, Arizona, which stores about 15 million gallons of reclaimed surface water in reservoirs for use in irrigation, fire fighting and industries, as two examples of forward thinking cities.
McDonald said a San Diego initiative to purchase water rights from agricultural district, and help farmers install new, more efficient irrigation equipment, is an example of a city-rural water solution.

Links

• Water competition between cities and agriculture driven by climate change and urban growth
• The Global Risks Report 2018
• High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy
• Climate-Driven Water Scarcity Could Hit Economic Growth by Up to 6 Percent in Some Regions, Says World Bank
• Climate Change Increases Water Risks, Hampers Growth

New Climate Model Promises To Help Avoid Dangerous Global Warming

Climate Change Institute

A new international study involving ANU has designed a new and simpler climate model that gives authorities a more precise picture of how humanity is tracking to avoid dangerous global warming this century.
The Paris Climate Agreement set targets to restrict the rise in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius or less above pre-industrial levels by reducing carbon emissions.
Co-researcher Professor Eelco Rohling from ANU said the uncertainties in climate models used by scientists today were too large to develop future carbon budgets that meet specific warming targets.
"There is significant uncertainty in projecting the amount of carbon that can be emitted, in part due to the limited number of Earth system model simulations and their discrepancies with present-day observations," said Professor Rohling from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences.
"Our model narrows the uncertainty in global warming projections and reduces the range in equilibrium sensitivity of global temperatures to emissions."
Professor Rohling said a warming target of 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial level would require the total emitted carbon from the start of last year to be less than 195-205 petagrams of carbon. A petagram is one billion metric tonnes.
"The two degree target is only likely if the emitted carbon remains less than 395 to 455 petagrams of carbon," Professor Rohling said.
"At the current emission rates, the 1.5 degree target is reached in 17 or 18 years and the two degree target in 35 to 41 years, so there is a limited window to develop a low carbon future.
"Immediate action on climate change is essential, to develop strategies towards zero carbon emissions, options to take carbon out of the atmosphere and ways to adapt to the effects of a much warmer climate."
ANU conducted the study in collaboration with the University of Southampton and the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom.

Links

• Pathways to 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming based on observational and geological constraints
• Past climate change drove decline of Aussie tigers and rise of devils
• Climate scientists and policymakers need to trust each other (but not too much)
• It’s official: 2016’s Great Barrier Reef bleaching was unlike anything that went before
• Energy Change Institute
• Centre for Climate Economics & Policy 
• Climate and Environmental Governance Network
• Fenner School of Environment & Society

How Engineering Earth’s Climate Could Seriously Imperil Life

Wired - Matt Simon

Gary Davis/EyeEm/Getty Images

Travel with me to the year 2100. Despite our best efforts, climate change continues to threaten humanity. Drought, superstorms, flooded coastal cities. Desperate to stop the warming, scientists deploy planes to spray sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere, where it converts into a sulfate aerosol, which reflects sunlight. Thus the planet cools because, yes, chemtrails.
It’s called solar geoengineering, and while it’s not happening yet, it’s a real strategy that scientists are exploring to head off climate disaster. The upside is obvious. But so too are the potential perils—not just for humanity, but for the whole natural world.
A study out today in Nature Ecology & Evolution models what might happen if humans were to geoengineer the planet and then suddenly stop. The sudden spike in global temperature would send ecosystems into chaos, killing off species in droves. Not that we shouldn’t tackle climate change. It’s just that among the many theoretical problems with geoengineering, we can now add its potential to rip ecosystems to shreds.
The models in this study presented a scenario in which geoengineers add 5 million tons of sulfur dioxide to the stratosphere, every year, for 50 years. (A half century because it’s long enough to run a good climate simulation, but not too long that it’s computationally unwieldy. The group is planning another study that will look at 100 years of geoengineering.) Then, in this hypothetical scenario, the sulfur seeding just stops altogether—think if someone hacks or physically attacks the system.
“You'd get rapid warming because the aerosols have a lifetime of a year or two, and they would fall out pretty quickly,” says study co-author Alan Robock, a climate scientist at Rutgers University. “And then you'd get all this extra sunlight and you'd quickly go back up to what the climate might have been without the geoengineering.” We’re talking a rise in land surface temperatures of almost a degree per decade. “Even if you do it over five years, you're still going to get this rapid warming,” he says.

Now, species haven’t survived on Earth for 3.5 billion years by being wilting flowers; if the climate changes slowly, species can adapt to withstand extra heat or cold. But suddenly blast the planet with a massive amount of solar energy that quickly, and you’re liable to catch a species off-guard.

And it’s not just temperatures they’d have to adapt to. Dramatic shifts in precipitation would force species to quickly move to new climes or face destruction. Species like amphibians, which are sensitive to temperature and precipitation changes, would have a tough go of it. And of course, not all species have the option of fleeing. Populations of trees and clams and corals would be pretty much kaput.

How Climate Change Is Already Affecting Earth

Though the planet has only warmed by one-degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution, climate change's effect on earth has been anything but subtle. Here are some of the most astonishing developments over the past few years.

Even if a species is particularly resistant to these changes, the downfall of a keystone species could bring its whole ecosystem crashing down. Take coral, for instance. “If you lose the corals, you lose the species that live within those corals and you lose the species that rely on those species for food,” says John Fleming, a staff scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute who wasn’t involved in the study. “And so it really is an up-the-chain process.”
Knowing these risks, it might seem implausible that humans would just suddenly stop geoengineering efforts once they’ve started. Why not just keep pumping sulfur dioxide into the air ad infinitum to keep the planet on life support? Robock explains that the scenario they used isn't definitive—it's just a possible option. And there's a possibility that we might not willingly stop geoengineering.
Say the world came together and decided that solar geoengineering is our only hope for survival. Planes start flying over the equator, spraying millions of tons of gas. The planet cools—but alas, this doesn’t affect everyone equally. Some nations might find themselves the beneficiaries of extra precipitation, while others descend into drought.
In that situation, a massive country like China or India suffering ill effects could blame the geoengineers and demand they stop. “There is the potential for clubs of countries to wield a lot of power to make a global geoengineering deployment work more for their interests than for less powerful countries,” says lead author Chris Trisos of the University of Maryland.
Or maybe the Earth itself plays a wildcard. Volcanoes spew their own sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere all the time; get a big enough eruption and you can send the climate into disarray. That happened in 1815 with the eruption of Mount Tambora, which led to the Year Without a Summer. Or Laki in 1783, which caused famine in India and China because it weakened vital monsoons.
“If there was a series of volcanic eruptions that produce a cooling effect, then that might be the reason why people say, ‘Well, actually, we better stop doing the solar engineering,’” says University of East Anglia environmental scientist Phil Williamson, who was not an author of the paper but who penned a companion analysis of it. “And then you get the rebound effect as a result of that.”
To be fair, science’s exploration of solar geoengineering is still in its early days. Hell, the technology to do it doesn’t even exist yet. It may well be that scientists find that deploying aerosols is just too risky. Maybe a better idea is ₂CO₂ sequestration. Or marine cloud brightening, as another way to bounce light back into space.
But now is the time to start considering the ethical and regulatory pitfalls of pursuing such a strategy. Late last year, Congressman Jerry McNerney introduced a bill that would require the National Academies of Science to produce two reports—one that looks at research avenues and another that looks at oversight. “I hope that we can sooner rather than later figure out what the potential benefits and risks are of doing this geoengineering so society will know whether it's even a possibility,” says Robock. “If not, if it's too dangerous, then it'll put a lot more pressure on us to do mitigation soon rather than later.”
“The ultimate fear with geoengineering is that we're trying to alter a system that's much too complex for us to truly predict,” says Fleming. “So doing that can put us in a worse situation than we're in already.”
In the meantime, here’s an idea: Let’s dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The whole of life on Earth would certainly appreciate it.

Links

• Potentially dangerous consequences for biodiversity of solar geoengineering implementation and termination
• So You Want to Geoengineer the Planet? Beware the Hurricanes
• Keystone species
• What Is CO2 Sequestration?
• Could spraying particles into marine clouds help cool the planet?
• If We Start Geoengineering, There's No Going Back
• Dimming the Sun to cool Earth could ravage wildlife: Study
• Scientists warn of 'devastating' halt to geo-engineering
• We're about to kill a massive, accidental experiment in reducing global warming
• Here's the reason we'd never halt a geoengineering project midway through
• Geoengineering could cause more harm than climate change

As NASA Reveals Stunning Images, Antarctica Had Record Low Sea-Ice Coverage In 2017

Fairfax - Charles Goodsir

NASA has released stunning photos of the Antarctic ice caps after its most recent expeditions last year.
However, Antarctica had a record-low sea ice coverage of 6.61 million square kilometres in 2017, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its latest report.

Snow and ice on the Creswick Peaks. The light blue areas on the cliff face indicate melting.  Photo: Nathan Kurtz / NASA / Earth Observatory

In November last year, NASA conducted two missions as part of its Operation IceBridge, which is in its ninth year of flights to map the snow and ice of Antarctica.
On November 4, the IceBridge team flew its "Endurance West" mission, which specifically targets sea ice.
Then, on November 12, a high-priority mission was conducted over the Larsen C Ice Shelf, as it had been significantly reshaped a few months earlier after it shed an iceberg that measured 5060 square kilometres.

During each flight, nearly 8000 photographs were taken, which revealed several large fractures in the ice.
The largest crevice, which measured 21 kilometres long and 11 kilometres wide, was sighted in between the Dyer Plateau and George VI Sound ice caps.
The Dyer Plateau was among the worst affected areas. Several fractures were seen with navy blue coloured areas, which is seawater.

Sheets of ice breaking up and melting in the George VI Sound Ice Shelf.  Photo: NASA / Earth Observatory

Further, the ice caps indicated signs of having thin levels of ice around the edges, which is shown as a grey colour in the photographs.
These images were released days before NOAA declared that 2017 was the third warmest year on record for the globe in the 138 years of recording. 2016 and 2015 were the warmest and second warmest years on record respectively.

A heavily crevassed glacier flows west from the Dyer Plateau.  Photo: NASA / Earth Observatory

The global average temperature for last year was about 15 degrees Celsius, whereas the global average temperature in the 20th century was 1 degree lower at 14 degrees.
NASA, through different methods, said that 2017 was the second warmest year on record. NASA calculates the surface temperature whereas NOAA monitors the air and soil temperature.

A map of the featured Antarctic Peninsula. Points 4 and 5 are the Larsen C Ice Shelf. Points 10 and 11 are the area covering the Dyer Plateau and George VI Sound. Points 6 to 9 are the Cresswick Peaks.  Illustration: NASA Earth Observatory map by Joshua Stevens.

Both agencies concluded that the six warmest years on record have been in the 2010s.
NASA has scheduled another ice-mapping satellite mission for late this year.

Links

• The Great Crack-Up
• New Image from NASA Shows Antarctica's Melting Iceberg Broken Into Pieces
• Assessing the Global Climate in 2017
• 2017 was the planet's second or third hottest years on record, scientists report 
• 2017 was among the planet's hottest years on record
• Concern over climate change linked to depression, anxiety

Australia's Climate Change Policies Won't Do Enough

The Age - Editorial

Federal ministers are fond of trumpeting how Australia "punches above its weight", such as in our military commitment to Middle Eastern wars.
But when it comes to tackling climate change, this country's record is nothing to brag about.

Photo: Jessica Shapiro 

That's probably why the Turnbull government left it until just before Christmas to release the latest national greenhouse gas emissions figures and review of its climate policies.
This past week, Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg had to be pressed repeatedly to concede emissions rose in the year to last June by 0.7 per cent to 550 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
But the broader picture is even more concerning.

Buried near the back of the emissions report was a table revealing the nation's carbon pollution has risen in each of the past five years.
What will confuse many is that Australia will probably meet its pledge to cut emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 even though pollution is rising.
Thank the special treatment Australia got during the Kyoto protocol period. We were permitted to increase emissions by 8 per cent during the 2008-12 period, even as other rich nations agreed to cuts.
As actual emissions fell 128 million tonnes short of that bloated goal, Australia generated a "surplus" it is now using to count towards the 2020 goal. Five nations, including Germany and Britain, cancelled similar surpluses.
A rising pollution trajectory, though, will eventually catch up with Australia. As part of the 2015 Paris climate deal, the Turnbull government pledged to slice 2005-levels emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by 2030, and the surplus will be long used up by then.
As Fairfax Media's Eryk Bagshaw highlighted last week, separate data released on the quiet late last year revealed Australia would overshoot the 2030 goal by at least 140 million tonnes of carbon dioxide on current growth rates.
The sole area of significant improvement has been the electricity industry, accounting for about a third of total emissions.
The 2.2 per cent year-on-year drop, though, owes much to the abrupt closure last March of Victoria's dirtiest power plant, Hazelwood, an event met with dismay by the Turnbull government.
The government's proposed national energy guarantee – still far from a shoo-in as several states and territories are wary if not publicly opposed – would lock in just a par performance for emissions reductions from the one sector almost every other country expects to lead carbon-cutting efforts.
The review of climate policies did not offer much indication how other sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, will come near any 26 to 28 per cent reduction goal.
Take residential housing, for instance. The climate review is silent despite massive potential savings for occupants who happen usually to be voters.
Phil Harrington, an energy consultant with Strategy Policy Research, notes minimum energy codes for new houses were last changed in 2009 and are weak by rich-nation standards. They are unlikely to be strengthened before 2022, locking in poor performance – and higher energy bills – for decades to come.
Dodging these issues isn't a strategy.
Later this year, Australia will be pressured, along with all the other signatories to the Paris accord, to lift its climate action to give the Earth a fair chance of avoiding 2 degrees of warming.
The arc of emissions must start bending lower soon, and certainly more sharply than current policies would point it.

Links

• Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2017 (pdf)
• Review of Australia’s climate change policies
• Cooking the books on climate change policy
• Turnbull Has Politicked Himself Into Irrelevance On Energy And Climate In 2018
• Why Snowy 2.0 Is A Write-Off From The Start
• Ipsos Poll: Only 18 Per Cent Think Turnbull Government Is Doing A Good Job On Climate Change
• Experts Speak Out About Australia’s Emissions Projections And Climate Policy Review

Lloyd's Of London To Divest From Coal Over Climate Change

The Guardian - Julia Kollewe

Firm follows other big UK and European insurers by excluding coal companies from 1 April

Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance market, has become the latest financial firm to announce that it plans to stop investing in coal companies.
Lloyd’s will start to exclude coal from its investment strategy from 1 April. The definition of what is a coal company and the criteria for divestment will be set over the coming months.
The firm has long been vocal about the need to battle climate change, with insurance one of the worst affected industries by hurricanes, wildfires and flooding in recent years.
The insurance market decided last month to implement a coal exclusion policy as part of a responsible investment strategy for the central mutual fund that sits behind every insurance policy written by the Lloyd’s market.
Inga Beale, Lloyd’s of London chief executive, said: “That means that in the areas of our portfolio where we can directly influence investment decisions we will avoid investing in companies that are involved mainly in coal.

“Is there more the insurance sector could be doing to help the world transition to a low-carbon economy by choosing sustainable or low-carbon stocks?”
Lloyd’s does not underwrite operations directly, but offers a marketplace to almost 90 syndicates of other insurers.
Lloyd’s has been slower to take action than others. Other big UK and European insurance companies, including Aviva, Allianz, Axa, Legal & General, SCOR, Swiss Re and Zurich, have been shifting away from coal and other fossil fuels due to concerns about climate risks. About £15bn has been divested by insurers in the past two years, according to a recent report from Unfriend Coal Network, a global coalition of NGOs and campaigners including 350.org and Greenpeace. It said 15 companies – almost all in Europe – have fully or partially cut financial ties by selling holdings in coal companies and refusing to insure their operations.
France’s Axa was one of the first financial firms to reduce investments in coal in May 2015 and is still leading the way. It said last month it was ditching investments and ending insurance for controversial US oil pipelines. After being criticised by campaigners for applying a threshold of 50% of revenues to define coal companies, it lowered the threshold to 30%.
The Church of England has gone further, pulling out of investing in companies that make more than 10% of their revenues from thermal coal or oil from tar sands.
Analysis by the ClimateWise coalition of the world’s biggest insurers published in December 2016 found that more frequent extreme weather events were driving up uninsured losses and making some assets uninsurable. The report concluded that the “protection gap” – the difference between the costs of natural disasters and the amount insured – had quadrupled to $100bn (£79bn) a year since the 1980s.
Insurance companies are perhaps also mindful of the danger that they could suffer a huge loss if their investments in fossil fuel companies were rendered worthless by action on climate change, as the Bank of England warned in 2015. However, some banks are still investing in coal plants, according to research from campaign groups.
Beale told the Guardian that she would be discussing the group’s new investment strategy at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos this week.
Climate change and what investors can do will feature prominently at the meeting of political and business leaders. Beale said: “It goes beyond climate change. The broader issue is how we clean up the planet.”

Investment companies and organisations divesting from coal

• Allianz
• Axa
• Aviva
• BMO Global Asset Management
• Church of England
• Generali
• Legal & General
• Munich Re
• Natixis
• SCOR
• Storebrand
• Swiss Re
• Zurich

Links

• World Bank says Paris climate goals at risk from new coal schemes
• Opencast coal mine application 'called in' over climate change concerns
• Coal crash: how pension funds face huge risk from climate change
• Axa to divest from high-risk coal funds due to threat of climate change
• Lloyd's calls on insurers to take into account climate-change risk

Swallowed By The Sea

New York Times - Nicholas Kristof

You doubt climate change? Come to this island — but hurry, before it disappears.

Zainal Abedin stands near the spot where remnants of his family home on the Bangladeshi island of Kutubdia sit underwater. Credit Thomas Nybo/Redux, for Unicef

KUTUBDIA, Bangladesh — Anyone who doubts climate change should come to this lovely low-lying island, lapped by gentle waves and home to about 100,000 people.
But come quickly, while it’s still here.
“My house was over there,” said Zainal Abedin, a farmer, pointing to the waves about 100 feet from the shore. “At low tide, we can still see signs of our house.”
Already much of Kutubdia has been swallowed by rising seas, leaving countless families with nothing. Nurul Haque, a farmer who lost all his land to the ocean, told me that he may have to pull his daughter, Munni Akter, 13, out of eighth grade and marry her off to an older man looking for a second or third wife, because he has few financial options left to support her.
“I don’t really want to marry her off, because it’s not good for girls,” he said glumly. “But I’m considering it.” He insisted that if it weren’t for the rising waters and his resulting impoverishment, he wouldn’t think of finding a husband for her.

Nurul Haque, a farmer whose land was consumed by the ocean, is considering marrying off his 13-year-old daughter, Munni Akter, because he’s running out of ways to support her. Credit Thomas Nybo/Redux, for Unicef

 One of the paradoxes of climate change is that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people — who contribute almost nothing to warming the planet — end up being most harmed by it.
Bangladesh is expected to be particularly badly hit by rising oceans because much of the country is only a few feet above sea level.
“Climate change is destroying children’s futures,” noted Justin Forsyth, the deputy executive director of Unicef. “In Bangladesh, tens of millions of children and families are at risk of losing their homes, their land and their livelihoods from rising sea levels, flooding and increased cyclone intensity.”
Forsyth said the average Bangladeshi produces just one-tenth of the global average in annual per-capita carbon emissions. In contrast, the United States accounts for more than one-quarter of cumulative carbon emissions since 1850, more than twice as much as any other country.
If Munni is pulled out of school and married off, she’ll have plenty of company. Unicef data suggest that 22 percent of girls in Bangladesh marry by the age of 15, one of the highest rates in the world.
“Climate changes appear to be increasing the numbers of girls who are forced to marry,” a three-year academic study in Bangladesh concluded.

On the mainland, gravel is carried to cement mixers, to be used in concrete blocks that will be placed along the coast to hold back the rising sea. Credit Thomas Nybo/Redux, for Unicef 

 A year ago in Madagascar I met a family ready to marry off a 10-year-old girl, Fombasoa, because of a drought linked to climate change. And there are increasing reports that poverty linked to climate change is leading to child marriage in Malawi, Mozambique and other countries.
In Kutubdia, climate change is not the only issue. The seas are rising, but in addition, Kutubdia itself seems to be sinking.
The upshot is that the island’s shoreline has retreated by about a kilometer since the 1960s, farmers say. Even when land is mostly dry, occasional high tides or storm surges bring in saltwater that poisons the rice paddies. Thousands of climate refugees have already fled Kutubdia and formed their own neighborhood in the mainland Bangladeshi city of Cox’s Bazaar.
A similar injustice is apparent in many poor countries. “Climate change contributes to conflict,” noted Neal Keny-Guyer, the C.E.O. of Mercy Corps, the aid group. He observed that a drier climate is widely believed to have caused agricultural failures, tensions and migrations that played a role in the Syrian civil war, the Darfur genocide and the civil war in northeastern Nigeria.

Mokbul Ahmed, standing on a Kutubdia beach fortified by concrete blocks, points to where he had lived and farmed. Credit Thomas Nybo/Redux, for Unicef

 Aside from reducing carbon emissions, Keny-Guyer said, Western countries can do much more to build resilience in poor countries. That can include supporting drought-resistant or saltwater-resistant crops, and offering microinsurance to farmers and herdsmen so that a drought does not devastate them. Mercy Corps is now developing such microinsurance.
The evidence of climate change is increasingly sobering, with the last four years also the hottest four years on record since modern record-keeping began in the 1880s.
We’re also coming to understand that climate change may wreak havoc, changing ocean currents, killing coral reefs and nurturing feedback loops that accelerate the warming. It turns out that 99 percent of green sea turtles hatched in the northern Great Barrier Reef are now female because their sex is determined by temperature.
Most of the villagers I spoke to both in Madagascar and in Bangladesh had never heard of President Trump. But the outlook for their descendants may depend on the actions he takes — and his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord is an unhelpful surrender of American leadership.
Americans were recently horrified by a viral video of a starving polar bear, whose condition may or may not be linked to climate change. Let’s hope we can be just as indignant about the impact of climate change on children like Munni.

Structures were recently added along the island’s coastline in an attempt to prevent the further encroachment of the ocean. Credit Thomas Nybo/Redux, for Unicef

Links

• 6 Graphs Explain the World’s Top 10 Emitters
• Child marriage is a violation of human rights, but is all too common
• Are climate challenges reinforcing child and forced marriage and dowry as adaptation strategies in the context of Bangladesh? (pdf)
• How Climate Change Drives Child Marriage
• 2017 Was One of the Hottest Years on Record. And That Was Without El Niño