19 Jun 2016

30 million may lose homes to sea rise

4:33 pm on 19 June 2016

Melting polar ice may leave 30 million people in Bangladesh without homes by the end of the century as sea levels are expected to rise by about a metre around the world.

A climate march in Dhaka expressing solidarity ahead of the Paris Climate Summit.

A climate march in Dhaka expressing solidarity ahead of the Paris Climate Summit. Photo: AFP

A new documentary, called Thirty Million, looks at what will happen to those people in Bangladesh, where more than 17 percent of the land is expected to disappear by the end of the century.

The nation of 160 million people is feeling the effects of rising tides right now.

The documentary's co-director, Adrien Taylor, told Sunday Morningthat makes it the country most vulnerable to climate change.

"When you're living in Europe, one degree, two degrees, doesn't make a massive difference.

"But when you're living on the fringe, in the Bay of Bengal which is incredibly prone to cyclones and sea level rise and the soft sediment that you just see collapse into the Bay of Bengal - one degree, two degrees, you're talking about thousands and thousands of people at risk of dying."

Mr Taylor said the documentary was made with financial assistance from the United Nations.

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