Climate change will become a key cause of migration this century in Asia, where 42 million people were displaced by environmental disasters in 2010-2011, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) warned today.

“The reality is you have over 40 million people, since January of last year, displaced by extreme environmental events,” said Bart Edes, director of the bank’s sustainable development department. “This gives you a taste of what’s to come next.”

In 2010, some 30 million people were displaced, some permanently, primarily by devastating floods in Pakistan and China.

The bank today launched its report Addressing Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific, the first to study the link in Asia, which currently accounts for 30 percent of the world’s 200 million migrants.

The report provides policy recommendations to governments on how to mitigate the impact of climate change on migration flows through adaptation measures and climate-aware development strategies.

Six of the world’s 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change are in Asia: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Afghanistan  and Burma, the report said.

China, India and the Philippines are ranked as the world’s top three migrant-sending countries, with their diasporas estimated at 35 million, 20 million and 7 million, respectively.

The ADB called on governments to include the impact of climate change on migration in their future social development plans.

“The countries of Asia and the Pacific can choose to turn the threat of climate-induced migration into an opportunity to improve lives, advance the development process, and adopt long-term

environmental change by alternating development patterns, strengthen disaster risk management, investing in social protection and facilitating the movement of labour,” it said.

Better international cooperation over remittances would also bolster adaptation to deal with climate change in vulnerable countries such as Bangladesh, the report said.

Migrant labourers from East Asia and South Asia were expected to send home up to US$109 billion and US$97 billion, respectively, this year.

“One way communities can build up resilience, whether its putting your house on stilts or using stronger building materials, is if you have resources available to you, and remittance from Bangladeshis working abroad have contributed to that,” Edes said.

“But that inevitably requires sovereign states to work together to better manage labour migration,” he said.

- dpa