Climate migration is no longer a distant phenomenon or a future concern; it is already reshaping communities, economies, and urban areas across the world.
Due to its unique geographic location, Bangladesh remains particularly vulnerable to adverse climate hazards. Every year, people affected by both slow and sudden events - including uneven precipitation, droughts, flash floods, cyclones, salinity intrusion, river erosion, and other environmental pressures -- leave their homes in search of livelihood opportunities elsewhere.
As these events continue to intensify, climate migration is increasingly becoming a development challenge. However, while considerable attention is being given to identifying climate migrants and estimating their numbers, far less attention is being paid to a more pressing question: How should Bangladesh prepare its towns and cities to manage increasing climate-linked mobility?
The lack of an agreed definition remains one of the most debated issues in climate migration discourse. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) defines climate migration as the movement of people who are compelled, or choose, to leave their habitual place of residence because of sudden or gradual environmental changes associated with climate change.
International frameworks have taken different approaches to understanding climate-related mobility. For example, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) refers to climate change-induced displacement, migration, and planned relocation rather than relying on a specific definition of “climate migrant.”
This reflects the complexity of migration decisions, which are often shaped by multiple and overlapping environmental, economic, social, and political factors, making it difficult to attribute mobility solely to climate change.
Despite the ongoing debate over definitions, the scale of climate-linked mobility continues to grow.
According to the World Bank’s latest Groundswell report, more than 216 million people could move within their own countries by 2050 due to climate change. Bangladesh alone could experience as many as 19.9 million internal climate migrants by mid-century.
A joint assessment conducted by the Bangladesh government and IOM in 2025 estimates that nearly five million people are currently living in situations of internal displacement linked to natural disasters.
Whatever the exact number of climate-linked displaced persons today or in the coming decades, people are already moving, and Bangladesh must prepare for the consequences.
Most climate-affected households, particularly displaced populations, relocate within the country, often to nearby secondary towns and urban centres. A significant number eventually move to major cities.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, approximately 400,000 people arrive in Dhaka every year. However, migration decisions are rarely driven by a single factor.
Climate and environmental pressures often interact with economic opportunities, social networks, access to services, and other considerations in shaping mobility decisions.
Migration does not necessarily end vulnerability. Many migrants or displaced households settle in informal settlements where housing conditions are poor and access to services remains limited.
Men who once relied on agriculture, fishing, or other rural occupations usually become day labourers because their existing skills do not match the demands of urban labour markets.
Women often enter low-paid domestic work or other informal sectors. Economic hardship pushes many children into labour, compromising their education and limiting their future opportunities.
The consequences of climate-linked displacement and migration are beyond livelihoods and often impacts kinship, neighbourhood feelings, weakens community support systems, and creates psychological stress.
Drawing on Arjun Appadurai’s concept “capacity to aspire,” climate displacement affects not only the people’s circumstances but limits their capacity to imagine a better future.
When households become trapped in daily wages for survival, their ability to pursue long-term aspirations is diminished. Yet mental health and psychosocial wellbeing remain largely overlooked in climate migration discussions.
At the same time, receiving cities and towns face increasing pressures in managing water supply, sanitation, healthcare, education, housing, transportation, waste management, and other essential services for growing populations, often with limited financial and institutional capacities.
Climate migration therefore is not only a humanitarian issue; it is equally an urban governance and development challenge.
Recognising these realities, the government of Bangladesh adopted the National Strategy on Internal Displacement Management in 2021. Development partners, international organizations, NGOs, and research institutions have also invested considerable effort in responding to climate-linked migration.
However, one aspect of the current discussion deserves closer attention.
Increasingly, municipal authorities, development partners, and researchers seek to identify climate migrants and estimate their numbers in specific towns and cities.
While understanding population movements is important for planning services, infrastructure, and future urban growth, it is important to distinguish between estimating population movements and categorizing individuals as climate migrants.
Estimating population movements supports planning; labelling individuals as climate migrants raises practical and policy concerns.
Migration and displacement are often shaped by a combination of environmental, economic, social, demographic, and personal considerations. A family displaced by river erosion, for example, may also move in search of livelihood opportunities or to join relatives already living in urban areas.
Likewise, even when displacement follows a cyclone, such movement may also reflect governance failure, including weak embankment management, poor water management, and inadequate investment in local adaptation.
This complexity makes identifying an individual as a climate migrant or climate-displaced person far from straightforward.
The question is not whether climate change contributes to displacement and migration, but whether mobility can be attributed to climate factors alone.
This is particularly important because the global debate on climate migration extends beyond human mobility to encompass issues of shared responsibility, national adaptation efforts, development financing, and differing positions among industrialised, developing and least developed countries regarding greenhouse gas emissions.
Furthermore, even if the UNFCCC were to adopt a universally accepted definition of climate migration tomorrow, practical challenges would remain unresolved at the domestic level.
How would authorities distinguish climate migration from movement driven by economic necessity, social networks, family-related factors, or governance failures?
More importantly, it is worth asking what practical benefit such categorization would bring. While identifying climate migrants may be necessary in certain circumstances to facilitate targeted support and protection, categorization alone does not improve livelihoods or guarantee access to services.
Even if climate migrants could be identified with complete accuracy, the more fundamental challenge would remain unchanged: Whether local economies, urban systems, and public institutions are capable of accommodating increasing population movements in an inclusive and sustainable manner.
The challenge is not merely identifying people on the move, but ensuring that towns and cities are prepared to absorb them through adequate jobs, housing, infrastructure, and public services.
Without such capacities, a label by itself offers little practical value.
This is not an argument against data. Reliable estimates of population movement remain essential for planning and policymaking.
The argument is simply that counting people and labelling people are not the same thing. For planning purposes, we need to estimate people. For governance purposes, we need to serve people.
The more relevant policy question is not whether an individual can be conclusively identified as a climate migrant. Rather, it is whether local institutions, urban systems, and public services are capable of responding to increasing population movements in an inclusive and sustainable manner.
The discussion therefore needs to move beyond identifying climate migrants and towards strengthening the capacity of towns and cities to manage increasing population movements.
Climate-related mobility is inherently a multi-sectoral issue. Housing, healthcare, livelihoods, water supply, sanitation, waste management, and education cannot be addressed in isolation.
Rather, they require coordinated planning, investment, and institutional readiness to ensure that growing populations can be accommodated in a sustainable manner.
Strengthening local economies and creating opportunities beyond a few major cities can also help secondary cities absorb additional populations more effectively.
Urban planning should therefore anticipate future population movements and consider the additional demand for services, infrastructure, housing, and employment that may emerge over time.
Such investments will not only support people who move but also benefit existing residents and the wider urban ecosystem.
In the longer term, strengthening the capacity of secondary towns may contribute to a more balanced economic opportunities, public services, and investments across the country.
As climate impacts intensify in the coming decades, human mobility will become an increasingly important feature of Bangladesh’s development landscape.
The debate over definitions and classifications will undoubtedly continue. The important question therefore is whether Bangladesh is adequately preparing its towns and cities to manage increasing climate migrants in a way that supports both people and places.
Md Abul Basar is an Anthropologist and Governance Expert, serving as Team Leader at Swisscontact Bangladesh, a Switzerland-based international organization. He can be reached at abul.basar@swisscontact.org.