When age-old border disputes become resolved, peacefully, there is cause for celebration. At the very least, you can count on some sense of relief. But the end of the wrangle between India and Bangladesh over a tiny island located in the Bay of Bengal actually spells cause for concern on a global scale.
Neither side was victorious because there is no island left to fight over. Instead it was claimed by a third contender: rising sea levels.
The small and uninhabited island, New Moore by India and South Talpatti by Bangladesh, has all-together dropped out of sight in the Bay of Bengal.
Scientists are ascribing the disappearance to climate change and erosion. For many years, the roughly two-square mile island was claimed by both India and Bangladesh, but perhaps more ironically than tragically, climate change has erased the dispute.
The submerged island is not the first to be swallowed by rising sea levels in the region, nor will it be the last. Another, larger island, Lohachara, disappeared from the Bay of Bengal around 1996, forcing thousands of residents to flee from their homes as “climate refugees”.
As concern accumulates for these and other islands and low-lying coastal regions around the globe, it is important that responses to climate change address not only future plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also practical approaches to immediate threats.
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