What special threat does Bangladesh face from global warming

• What special threat does Bangladesh face from global warming?

The 21st century is expected to see warming more quickly than at any time in the past 10,000 years due to many anthropogenic activities, which will affect the fundamentals of human life, including food, water, health, fodders and fuel. It seems that we cannot prevent climate change.

Important to recognize, however, is that climate change will adversely impact human, social and natural systems and sub-systems in different degrees. Due to their poor socio-economic development and lack of capacity to address impacts, developing and poor countries, including Bangladesh, will be the most vulnerable to the adversities of climate change. A recent example is cyclone SIDR, which hit the coast of BGD in November of 2007, not only killing over 8,000 people but also devastating the lives of over 30 million, reconfirming the IPCC assertion.

Bangladesh faces many of the impacts of climate change due to its geophysical location, hydrological influence from monsoon rains and regional water flow patterns. The country faces too much water during the monsoons and too little water in the dry season. This situation will be aggravated by a warmer climate, resulting in more severe droughts and increased flooding. Further adding to the problem is sea level rise from the south and enhanced Himalayan snow and glacial melt from the north, which will inundate additional large parts of Bangladesh over today’sflood affected areas.

Projections indicate that sea level rise will inundate large parts of the coastal regions of Bangladesh. Sea level rise of 45cm is predicted to result in the inundation of about 10 percent of the country. For sea level rise of 1m, 21 percent of the country will go under saltwater (IPCC, 2005). Such a rise is likely to inundate coastal wetlands and lowlands, accentuate coastal erosion, increase frequent and severe floods and create drainage and irrigation problems. Agriculture, mangroves (including the Sunderbans) and coastal ecosystems have already been affected. Additionally, problems with salinity, which is caused by low flow of fresh water from the Ganges and ingress of salt water from Bay of Bengal, have already increased in the coastal zones. Poor and marginal groups will be critically affected by further sea level rise and salinity intrusion in Bangladesh coastal zones, which will dislocate millions of people from their homes, occupations and livelihoods.

In several geographical areas multiple impacts will reinforce the overlapping impacts and the consequences will be compounded. For example, in the coastal areas livelihoods of communities will be impacted by sea level rise and water inundation, intrusion of salt water, increase in watersurges as well as consequent loss of biodiversity, communication and livelihood options. Similarly, drought prone areas will suffer from water scarcity, temperature increase, increase in dust content in the air, etc., leading to economic deprivation and increased respiratory diseases.

Climate change and its associated events will negatively affect both natural and common property resources such as fisheries, mangroves and forests, which provide livelihood support for common people and the poor. Furthermore, Bangladesh’s major crop rice is vulnerable to increased temperature. At the high ranges of temperature rice crops drop their yields. In some areas, particularly in the northwest, crop yields are likely to be reduced, contributing to overall food insecurity. Replacement of rice by wheat or maize will require a change in farmers’ perceptionsand practices, which is a long term phenomenon.

These effects will contribute to increased poverty. Climate change will also affect the sectoral as well as regional developments and current disaster preparedness, and its impacts may affect successful achievement of the MDGs, particularly goal one (i.e., eradicating poverty and hunger), because climate change is likely to directly impact the poor’s livelihoods in many ways, their assets and resources base including their employment and income, and their access to water and natural resources and health. The poor in Bangladesh will face more food insecurity, water stress and health problems due to the rapidly changing climate. The effort to reduce poverty under the Poverty Reduction Strategy Plan (PRSP) will be significantly undermined by the impact of climate changes in the country.

• How prepared is your country in facing the challenge of climate change?
  
  Compared to many other developing or least developed countries, Bangladesh is doing a lot of activities on climate change adaptation. Poor communities are at the front lines of this climate battle, and the people in Bangladesh are not sitting idle. They are already actively adapting to climate variability. They are building dams, changing agricultural practices and irrigating their soils to avoid drought. A number of the world’s leading experiments have been initiated in Bangladesh. An example of one adaptation activity taken at the community level in flood prone areas is ‘floating bed agriculture,’ where crops and vegetables are grown on floating platforms during inundation of land. Reducing Vulnerability to Climate Change (RVCC) was the first project of its kind on Community Based Adaptation (CBA) to climate change.
  
  Activities have been mostly undertaken by small, isolated and dedicated groups of people and institutes in both the non-governmental and government sectors. National activities are confined to pilot scale projects by NGOs and private research organizations. The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of Bangladesh (MOEF, GoB) has prepared the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan 2008 as a living document and has allocated about US$ 43 million to its implementation. The document includes six thematic areas and 37 programmes. The thematic areas are a) food security, social protection and health, b) comprehensive disaster
  management, c) infrastructure, d) research and knowledge management, e) mitigation and low carbon management, and f) capacity building and institutional strengthening (GoB, 2008). The development partners in Bangladesh and the Government of Bangladesh has also agreed to setup a Multi-donor Trust Fund (MTF) to deal with Climate Change adaptation and mitigation. In 2005, the Ministry of Environment and Forests had formulated the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) (MOEF, 2005) to address immediate and urgent needs to deal with climate change. The Government of Bangladesh has established an inter-ministerial committee on climate change headed by the Minister for Environment and Forests and with representatives from relevant government ministries and departments as well as key Non Government Organizations (NGOs) and research institutions. The Department of Environment (DOE) under the MOEF had also set up a Climate Change Cell (CCC) in 2004 to act as Secretariat for climate change related work within the government. The Government of Bangladesh prepared the second PRSP for Bangladesh as well and adverse impacts of climate change is being considered as one of the key challenges in achieving different targets including Millennium Development Goals.
  
  The NGO community in Bangladesh is particularly thriving and plays a key role in the development process. The government and NGOs are working together and setting a good example.
  
  But much more needs to be done. The challenges are multi-sectorial, multi-dimensional and long term, and the causes are global in nature. Hence, despite the dynamic approaches, the climate challenge is too vast. Interesting early results and methodologies are emerging, but the challenge of integrating climate change or adaptation into mainstream development is an enormous task and is still a long way to go. The institutional capacity, including human resource quality in most government organizations are weak and poor and needs substantial improvement if the challenges of climate change are to be faced squarely.
  
  Another challenge is that there is very little skilled capacity development on climate change science, policy analysis and technology transfer in developing countries. Consequently, a high demand is placed in terms of negotiations, networking, and science and policy analysis on the
  few highly qualified individuals with international experience and capability. Much of their time is needed to address the global and urgent need for analytical work as well as to support governments and international organizations. A need exists to develop a larger number of
  qualified, capable people dedicated to the complex tasks of climate change related activities.
  
  Bangladesh also needs to develop clean energy where possible.
  
  The understanding of climate change is often limited to this small community of scientists, activists and planners. There is a serious lack of understanding of the issues and implications of climate change. Given the threats of sea level rise, a sense of helplessness pervades as little can be done in the face of this massive threat. Furthermore, if all the people of Bangladesh even stop breathing and cease all economic activities, it will have little impact on the reduction of global greenhouse gas emission as the per capita emission of Bangladesh is miniscule. So the general lack of understanding of the planners and policymakers is compounded by a sense of despair  and fatalism. Though government policies have been quite progressive, their implementation is poor in most sectors of Bangladesh.
  
  The experiences of farmers, fishermen, small businesses and communities have been confined to wide ranging climatic variability, which has equipped them somewhat to develop coping strategies for such variability and extreme scenarios. But climate change will result in an irreversible shift in the baseline at least over several decades. This will result in the shift of cropping patterns, some infrastructural changes and shifts in settlements due to sea level rise induced inundation. This experience of climate change has not been a part of the literature or the folklore and is new to the communities. Hence, there is need for scientific clarity, increasing awareness and an acceptance to change practices. When several village elders in coastal areas in focus-group discussions were asked, they concurred that there has been a continuous shift in climatic patterns, timing of the onset of monsoon and the highest level of tidal levels. But their experiences have not yet taken a shape which can be integrated into the development process. Thus, efforts are needed to assess and understand the nature and threat of climate change and then mainstream these experiences into the development process. These substantive experiences may then be utilized by incorporating them into general awareness, education and planning domains.
  
  The challenge of poverty reduction in meeting the basic needs of food security (adequate calorie and protein for all with access by all), water security (availability and access to safe drinking water and sanitation) and energy security (adequate and accessible energy for food preparation, making water safe, minimum adequate lighting and electricity for all families) remain a daunting challenge.
  
  In spite of these challenges, a systematic albeit small beginning of progress is being made in terms of mainstreaming climate change into development. There have been development gains. These gains, however, are likely to be significantly undermined by the impacts of climate change. Climate change comes as an additional and huge burden on an already stressed economy and ecosystem. Bangladesh needs to continue developing its adaptation techniques and plan for future weather changes, and, at the same time share its knowledge with other vulnerable countries to put forth a strong negotiation team for efforts in international negotiations in order to bring more attention to the plight of developing countries in relation to climate change and adaptation.
• How do you see as a citizen of Bangladesh the progress in the international climate negotiations and what do you expect from Copenhagen (COP 15)?

  Copenhagen offers tremendous opportunities. For the first time after Kyoto, the US is likely to be engaged but it is critical that US engagement is full-hearted and enthusiastic. The progress of the negotiations is extremely slow compared to the emerging challenge, particularly the new science indicating higher Sea Level Rise (SLR).
  
  Copenhagen should come out with a deal which will ensure the GHG reduction level is significant, i.e. minimum of 20 percent by 2015-2020.

• Attempts should be made to keep within a 2° temperature limit and the industrialized countries must undertake this requisite reduction immediately.

• The rapidly industrializing developing countries, such as China, India, Brazil, should not have commitment under the regime but should have enough incentives and pressure to develop a climate-sensitive economic process.

• There should be a major fund to support the LDCs in urgent adaptation measures. This fund should be a minimum of tens of billions of dollars.
  
  The above three will form a compact and initiate a process of rapid reduction in GHG and risks to communities.

• How do you think the problem of climate refugees migrating from Bangladesh to India will impact on the India-Bangladesh relations?

  It is true that there will be major migration from countries, particularly countries with low-lying coastal areas and small island states. Both Bangladesh and India are countries with low-lying coastal areas. Both are vulnerable to climate change induced SLR.

  Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable and studies show that for 1 meter SLR, about 35 million people will be threatened with displacement. Out of these, most people will like to adapt for the initial period living within their own present geographical areas. Another group may migrate to nearby cities in Bangladesh. As the stress increases they are more likely to migrate to major cities, such as Dhaka and Chittagong. As the problem intensifies there will be pressure for people to migrate to the outer world. Organization such as BCAS is developing proposals for planned migration. Since the Bangladeshi people and many Indian people will have the same fate, there will be competition amongst the two groups to find displaced position in India, where obviously, the Indians will have a greater advantage. So the Bangladeshi citizens would prefer to move to industrialized countries.

  One of the elements of planned migration is to develop the skills of the potential migrants to suit the requirements of the industrialized countries. Since the potential is higher in industrialized countries, attempts would be made to convert the potential migrants to a skilled workforce and turn them into economic migrants with high income potential. Given that Europe is having a depopulation and the US will need special skills in the health, energy and service sectors, the future migrants with these special skills will have comparative advantage in that market. Hence, it is least likely that there will be any population transfer from Bangladesh to India.

• How do you think the impasse in the climate negotiations between the North and the South can be solved?
  
  The world has become far more complex. Simply packaging the world in terms of North and South is an inadequate approach to the problem. For example, OPEC has more in common with energy producing industrialized countries and their economies are more dependent on industrialized countries’ economies. Likewise, the emerging rapidly industrializing countries are also becoming major emitters. However, the UNFCCC is essentially based on a North-South negotiation process. As such the North must lead in rapid carbon reduction. Most of this reduction must be done domestically. This has to be demonstrated by serious reduction commitment in Copenhagen at COP 15. The developing countries should also indicate ways of sustainable development with a low carbon foot print. The LDCs must be enabled to reduce their risks. Hence, there has to be serious fund transfer from the North to the LDCs. For the South, to move to a low carbon economy will need the best low carbon technologies possible. Hence a North- South deal on technology will also be required. Thus N-S transfer of resources for mitigation, adaptation and technologies are a must.

• What are your views on ‘Blue Alert’ Report from Greenpeace India in which they have predicted that by 2100 in BAY scenario, the migration from Bangladesh could be 75 million people?
  
  The predicted scenario for 75 million people being displaced in Bangladesh by 2100 is highly plausible. But the world of 2100 will probably make Bangladesh a very rich country. The whole concept of global market, international borders, national sovereignty will significantly change their meanings and implementation regime. There will be demographic transition too. Hence, despite the eco-systemic changes of low-lying coastal areas going under water, there will be global redistribution of population. Some of these will be induced by climate change related stresses. Others will be motivated by the economics and technologies. So, there could be much more mixed world of population and a true global village is most likely to emerge. 
  
  Interview with Dr. Atiq Rahman ,Director, BCAS