India: Mumbai slum-dwellers by the sea live at the mercy of climate change
By Shilpa Jamkhandikar
Already at risk from rains, flooding and open sewers, slum-dwellers who live by the ocean in the Indian financial capital Mumbai are vulnerable to rising seas caused by global warming and say the government should help them move to safer locations.
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A research paper here last month by Climate Central, a U.S.-based non-profit climate science and news organization, found that climate change will put an estimated 300 million people globally at risk of coastal flooding by 2050.
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“Mumbai is going to be under water, we need to plan for that eventuality and what is required is to plan a new city to replace Mumbai as and when it gets submerged. And ideally, to my mind, it should be somewhere inland – at a pretty substantial elevation,” Debi Goenka, an environmental activist, told Reuters.
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Mumbai has been hit this year by incessant rains and flooding, causing loss of life and property and halting essential services like local transport. The city received 66% more rainfall than average during the June to September monsoon season, breaking a record set in 1954.
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