Up to 40.5 million people in South Asia may be forced to move by 2050 as the climate heats up, IOM says

As many as 40.5 million people in South Asia may be forced to leave their homes by 2050 in a worst-case scenario as climate change bites, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN's migration agency. Its director general, Amy Pope, gave the figure on Friday during a visit to New Delhi, AFP reported in Dawn.

What is driving it

Pope said rising heat is speeding up the move to cities, as people leave rural areas to escape it. She pointed to Nepal, where IOM sent aid after a mountain and glacier collapse on 26 August set off deadly floods. She also said India's spending on early-warning systems, disaster response and technology gave grounds for optimism.

What the IOM wants

• Better data and AI forecasting to find the communities most at risk before a disaster, combining weather forecasts with local data on how people earn a living.
• Better farming methods and training people for other work.
• Planned relocation of communities that are hit by flood or drought again and again, where there is no other choice.
• More money. Pope called current funding inadequate: "The cost of a humanitarian disaster is in the billions," she said, while some resilience measures "can be far less."
• Safe, legal routes for migration abroad, since demand for workers is growing.

Why readers in Pakistan should care

The agency did not give a Pakistan figure, but the pattern it describes is familiar here: villages emptied by floods, families leaving drought-hit Thar with their livestock (our story), and heat pushing people towards Karachi and Lahore. The legal migration route matters too: 1.8 million Pakistanis left for jobs abroad in three years (details).

The same day, Action Against Hunger listed Pakistan among the world's ten largest food crises, citing floods, drought and heatwaves among the causes.