Cities need to handle climate-displaced people with dignity

Many urban areas of the world have been in the news for the devastating impacts of climate change. City planners all across the world are concerned about these ever-increasing impacts. As the concern grows about rapid disasters such as floods and cyclones, another problem that keeps on haunting the cities usually is not factored into the decision-making. Displacement!

It has been estimated that sudden and slow-onset disasters have triggered the displacement of millions worldwide. In 2019 alone, the latest estimates available, 24.9 million new internal displacements were observed worldwide for both rapid and slow-onset disasters.
Almost 95 per cent of these were due to weather-related hazards such as storms, floods, wildfires, landslides, drought and extreme temperatures. Studies have already indicated that extreme events linked to climate change will amplify the risk of such displacement, particularly for vulnerable urban populations.
When villagers from rural areas cannot cope with such extreme events – due to their continuous exposure and failure of local natural resources and livelihood options to provide the necessary succour – they will migrate into the urban spaces putting further pressure on the already overcrowded cities of the world. Cities, no doubt, are aspirational, and most people want to move into them to upgrade their standard of living. However, many of these immigrants will be coming due to distressed conditions; hence, neither they nor the city authorities will be prepared to handle them. Cities that must aspire to give everyone a right to dignified life will fail unless they are prepared and have proper policies and plans in place.
A report by the International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) notes that most future disaster displacement is expected to occur in urban settings. This results from people’s increasing concentration in towns and cities driven by migration, urbanisation and natural growth. Developing countries, where cities are poorly planned to mitigate such hazards, have larger risks. “The challenge is not only to handle the immigrants but also to support the already existing urban poor. Displaced newcomers often live in marginalised settlements, where housing rarely complies with planning and building regulations, and overcrowded living conditions and lack of basic services heighten their risk. Shortfalls in urban service provision often combine with or are the result of infrastructure gaps, which may also contribute to segregation, tensions, conflict and disaster risk”, says this report.

Local examples

In November 2019, we visited the Pandakudia slum in Bhubaneswar city of Odisha, just a day after cyclone Bulbul crossed Odisha. The fear of the storm was still reflecting on the faces of people who were still struggling to rehabilitate themselves from the cyclonic storm Fani that had affected them badly just a few months before. Bulbul did not impact them much, but most of their damaged houses – due to Fani – were still not reconstructed, their toilets were not in shape, and they were facing severe hardships to restore their livelihoods.
Working as daily wage labourers is a challenge, especially because when you concentrate on rebuilding your destroyed homes and other infrastructure, you lose out on your everyday income. The cities still do not have a system where the poor people can be compensated for their lost livelihoods while the rebuilding process of their habitats is on. The schemes to compensate for their homes, sanitation infrastructure, and drinking water supply systems do not come in handy; the people have been telling us in visit after visit to many such locations in India. The situation is not different in other developing countries.
The Pandakudia people had migrated into Bhubaneswar in 2008 after a fierce communal riot broke out in the Kandhamal district – a faraway location – destroying their homes and peace.
In the case of dwellers of a slum in the Sambalpur district in the same state – the case was different. They were displaced by climate change in their city in 2018. On a single day during the monsoon that year, the city received a record 622 mm of rainfall, breaking a 36-year-old record of the district. Such an extreme precipitation event broke the homes of several inhabitants of a slum dwelling on a low-lying area adjacent to the Mahanadi River’s bank. Several families were forcefully displaced. No planning by urban authorities to rehabilitate such displaced people will only add to their existing vulnerabilities. The above report notes that many such internally displaced people (IDPs) end up in informal settlements where they are vulnerable to eviction and abuse from landlords. This may lead to secondary displacement and a downward spiral of poverty and vulnerability.
According to this report, there is an established body of evidence on the detrimental impact of disaster displacement on people’s immediate and long-term livelihoods, including the loss of income and assets and reduced productivity. Displaced people face several other challenges, including loss of livelihood, exposure to health risks and attack on their dignity. Our observations from the field have found out that they face attacks by local goons and other organised criminals because they have no resources and political backing of their own. Often the landlords, on whose lands these people stay on rent, are also not the legal owners of the lands. This leads to legal challenges and further vulnerability. “Disaster displacement all too often leads to unmet needs and human rights abuses. It may also aggravate gender-based violence and other pre-existing discrimination and inequalities. Women, children, youth, older people, those with disabilities and other vulnerable groups are particularly at risk,” says the report.

Local assessment of disaster displacement risk

Many such issues surely are not yet integrated into the urban planning process and climate adaptation models. There is an urgent need to integrate all these above risks into the urban planning process. While the conventional approach of mapping hazard intensity and spread is important, vulnerabilities of the urban poor – the people at risk of facing displacement due to disasters in an urban setting – have to be factored into the planning process.
The local municipalities already have several schemes to assess the urban poor and their vulnerabilities. Through these schemes, they provide the needed relief and other support based on existing schemes. What we now need is advanced planning that takes into consideration the climate change impacts considering all the above types of vulnerabilities. Geographies that are already prone to impacts will face more problems. People living in floodplains and other low-lying areas; and those already pegged up in congested locations near drains, dumping yards, and other such hazardous places must be resettled at better locations with all basic amenities. The urban poor have a right to a dignified life.
To do all this, to support the climate-impacted vulnerable urban population, a framework of action is needed for cities. Each city is different, and the local operational procedures for such a framework of action have to
be different.
The above report has some valid suggestions that also draw from some international best practices. City planners need to note this and consult with their own people to contextualise the same to their realities
and resources.

Working as daily wage labourers is a challenge, especially because when you concentrate on rebuilding your destroyed homes and other infrastructure, you lose out on your everyday income. The cities still do not have a system where the poor people can be compensated for their lost livelihoods while the rebuilding process of their habitats is on