“Fifty years from now, there would be around 150 million environmental refugees on earth triggered by the affects of climate change,” Dr Hefin Jones, senior lecturer in Cardiff University, UK, told a seminar here.

“Of this around 15 million will be in Bangladesh and around 30 million in China. This has posed some serious questions to neighbouring India, which itself will have around 30 million of such refugees,” Dr Jones, who has published over 150 articles on climate change and its impact, said.

“About 50 per cent of humanity inhabit the coastal zones. The sea level would increase by 12 cm in 2030 and by 5 cm in 2100. This would force the people to relocate themselves to escape their native places,” Jones said.

He said in Bangladesh, about 30 per cent of the land was already 2 metre below the contour sea level.

Dr Jones, quoting the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the UN, said in its 2007 report it had predicted that by 2050 the estimated rise in sea level in the Bangla coastal areas would be 1 metre, and by 2100 it would be around 2 metre.

As a result, Dr Jones said, the sea would submerge most of the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta, where there were around 120 million inhabitants. “Where will these people move? India, being a neighbour, has to cope with this flux of environmental refugees.”

Alluding to the impact of climate change on India, Jones said the average temperature in the country, would increase by 3-5 degree Celsius by 2100. The warming would be more pronounced in the northern parts, and lead to a 20 per cent rise in the summer monsoon rainfall.

“While the country would see extremities in the maximum and minimum temperatures, extreme precipitation would also increase, especially in the west and west-central coast,” the professor said.

Dr Jones was delivering a lecture on 'Climate Change: The Ethics and the Societal Issues', organized by Synod College and John Roberts Theological Seminary.