'30 million Bangladeshis exposed to climate change'

A Bangladeshi rights group Saturday called for recognising environmental refugees with free economic migration rights under UN covenants as it estimated some 30 million people of the South Asian country are already exposed to climate change.
Making their demands public for recognition of the environmental refugees as "universal natural person" the Equity and Justice Working Group Bangladesh, said it was planning local and international campaigns in favour of the people under climate threat.
"We are now communicating with global civil society organisations and legendary figures like Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan and Al Gore to uphold the cause of the people vulnerable to climate change at the United Nations level," group head Rezaul Karim Chowdhury told a press conference. The group also planned to take up the issue to the landmark UN summit on climate change to be held in Copenhagen in December.
The global community must recognise Bangladesh's case as a serious issue and treat the vulnerable people as universal natural persons to ensure their rights and allow them to receive compensation, Chowdhury said. Bangladesh, one of the Least Developed Countries with more than 150 million people in a small land area, is predicted to be the most vulnerable place on the earth to the impact of global warming.
The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change had earlier predicted approximately 22 million in Bangladesh would be forced to become refugees under the impact of the climate change by 2050. But the rights group, which has been working in the coastal districts, claimed some 30 million people in 19 out of a total of 64 districts along the southern coastline have already been exposed to extreme weather, rising sea levels and river erosion.
The group leaders said two islands - Kutubdia and Bhola - on the Bay of Bengal have shrunk over the past years forcing their inhabitants to migrate to the elsewhere. They said Kutubdia has been reduced to 15-square-kilometre-area from its earlier size of 25 kilometres. As the developed countries are mostly responsible for accumulation of Green House gases and eventually climate change catastrophes, the rights defenders insisted, they must accept the responsibility of rehabilitating the displaced people.