Climate Change in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is one of the most disaster prone country in this world. With nearly two hundred major natural disasters since liberation 1971, the population is struggling to cope with the impact of climate change on their lives security.

In November 2007, the devastating Cyclone 'Sidr' struck and killed more than 3,000 lives and another cyclone AILA in 2009. Almost 1.4 million stoke of food grain was lost when severe flooding occurred an entire growing season to be hell.

Various N.G.O and co-operative projects are helping farmer's makeshift to the new challenges, with improved farming process and new technologies and with the innovative ‘Climate Field of School’ project. Developed framings are successfully using new types of drought resistant seeds identified. These new plant varieties and the practice of homestead farming ensure year round earning balance, more balanced diets and gender adjustment.

This country is a central point of example for the injustice of climate change. Its per capita strength consumption is the equivalent of about 1 liter of oil for per week, contributing a small fraction of 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Till now international climate change risk assessments blast in 2010 identify Bangladesh like the world’s most vulnerable country.

Rising sea levels is a biggest threat inundation and saline intrusion in the southern coastal region, the risk accentuated by prediction of greater climate disaster intensity. The locality of this area is projected to reach forty four million in recent future.

With forty percent of coastal area already affected by salinity, the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan expressed in 2009 anticipates permanent displacement of 6 or 8 million people in 2050.

In a climate change movement from the north, melting Himalayan (situated in India) glaciers may disrupt the flows of the three great rivers (Padma, Meghna and Jamuna), first with excess flooding and eventually with diminished level. Erratic season patterns and longer times of drought in the north complete the roll call of climate changes for Bangladesh.

Scientists disagree on the upper and lower levels of these effects and how much rice yields may fall. But there is no dispute that the underlying temperature will raise by about 1.5 degrees by 2050.

Moreover the eventual resolution of these debates, there is consensus that the relationship between people and the soil in Bangladesh is subject to increasing risk of destabilization. Anthropogenic global temperature will to a greater or lesser degree aggravate an area of environmental stresses that already expose the financial limitations of very economically week families.

The broad goal of adaptation in this country is to raising the country’s resilience to these environmental stresses. The country’s vulnerability of climate change is like that adaptation is closely allied with disaster system, an all too familiar discipline in this country.

Spending over the last thirty years is believed to have exceeded ten billion dollar. This has been invested in polder defenses along the coastline, emergency shelter construction, river dredging, early warning systems and local education. The shelters were credited with protecting 10 of 1,000 of lives from the cyclone Sidr.

In the context of food production, adaptation and disaster system embraces modern research into the development of seeds which can survive flooding for a longer time or whose yield is unaffected by salinity. There are programmers exploring the potential of micro-insurance for cover total figure of crop failure.

Future govt. intentions are articulated in the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Planning. A National Climate Change Committee coordinates ministries to ensure that there are no climate blind spots in govt. technique.

Bangladesh is therefore well positioned to play a vital role amongst developing countries on climate change adaptation and disaster system. The country is a forceful advocate for new international rules to protect the rights of climate refugees. And it is active in researching the change for international litigation to recover climate-related losses from the countries which are responsible for global warming.

Bangladesh decide that it have needs 5 billion dollar in the period of 2015 to kick start its adaptation programmers. The govt. has committed 100m per annum from its own budget and takes an assertive position in international negotiations, claiming as much as 15 percent of any climate funds earmarked for developing countries. The justification is that more people will be affected in this country than elsewhere.

In anticipation of donor help, the govt. approved a Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund during 2010 with initial capitalization of 110 million dollar. The fund is designed to be a road for international climate finance for adaptation and low carbon dioxide growth. Distribution will be under controlled by the Bangladesh govt.

Another stream of climate finance is governed by the World Bank under its Pilot Program on Climate change Resilience fund. An initial trance of grant and concessionary loan finance is designed to leverage multilateral funding of over 500 million dollar, largely for coastal protection programmers.

In Dhaka, the donors were briefed about Bangladesh government's stance on facing the changing climate saying that, Bangladesh had already taken different kinds of measures for control environmental action to mitigate the adverse impact of the climate change. But it is now apparent that the donors were not providing share to the projects requiring big scale investments. They are giving financial support for technical studies and planning only.

Addressing a recent meeting of Bangladesh gvot. finance minister explain the development partners for meager disbursement of Global Environment Facility funds. He said Bangladesh needs substantial investment to adequately take care of the effluents and solid waste. These are all environment-friendly projects and the govt. sought funds from development joiners for setting up effluent treatment plants. Unfortunately, for big effluent disposal plants and waste dumps, the govt. could not garner any support from any development partners. In fact, loss of biodiversity and the scourge of poor people adversely affect the environmental balance, requiring attention and fund for amelioration. Since the reason of climate change has taken precedence in the global environmental discourse, other issues like rapid urbanization and industrialization are not getting adequate attention.

Bangladesh has sought funds for twelve different projects including reopening of jute mills shut down earlier. A Multi-donor trust fund, finances govt. environmental projects having trans-boundary environmental impacts. It funds projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international land degradation, the ozone layer, waters and persistent organic pollutants through World Bank, Asian Development Bank and different United Nations organs such as UNDP, UNEP and FAO.

British Minister Douglas Alexander said that, recently that Britain and other developed countries had a moral duty to help Bangladesh and other poor countries adapt their infrastructure, farming and economies to climate change. The world has now a duty to rise to the challenge and ensure that we support the poverty of the world at least which are responsible for climate change to prevent and prepare for its cruel consequences, he added.
Bangladesh is now in the international spotlight on the adverse impacts of global warming. It is so essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions world-wide and enhance the country's capability to adapt to perilous impacts of climate change. The adversities stemming from the changing climate under the impact of heavy carbon dioxide emission by rich countries are threatening to set back the impoverished nation's efforts to achieve Millennium Development Goals by 2015, particularly through its devastating consequences for farming and food security.

This country (Bangladesh) is trapped between the Himalayas (India) in the north and the encroaching the Bay of Bengal to the south. The delta is most vulnerable of natural disaster due to the frequency of extreme climate change events and its big population density. The predicted warming increase will cause the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. Bangladesh may lost one-third of its land area due to the rise of sea level, which is the direct outcome of climate change. The impacts of higher warming and sea-level rise are already felt. The hazardous climate can be change will affect water resources, ecosystems, agriculture, food security, biodiversity, human health and coastal zones in Bangladesh.

These climate changes are already having major impacts on the financial performance of Bangladesh and on the livelihoods of millions of poor people. It was predicted by experts that a one-meter rise in sea level would inundate seventeen percent of this country; frequency of natural disaster is likely to increase during the running century. Two successive floods and deadly cyclone (Sidr, AILA) that caused heavy damaged to lives, wealth and crops worth about $2.8 billion in 2007 are indications of the climate change.
According to Inter-governmental board on Climate Change the sea-level rise will be in the range of 15 cm to 90 cm by the year 2100. Even a 10-cm sea-level rise will damage about 2,500 square kms land area of Bangladesh. A 30-45cm sea-level rise is likely to inundate about 35 million people from local districts by 2050. Last year, two rounds of flooding and a devastating cyclone (Sidr) attacked Bangladesh, destroy thousands of lives and causing huge financial losses. The climate change has been occurred as the reason behind the disasters. Crop lands are predicted to fall by up to 30%, creating a huge high risk of hunger due to climate change.

A research by the World Bank, leading donors and the Bangladeshi government had search that the country quickly needed huge amounts of property to ensure its survival. It needs at least $4.0 billion by 2020 to build cyclone shelters, dams and plant trees along the coast and build infrastructure and capacities to adapt to increasing number of natural disasters in Bangladesh.

Till now, environmental scientists believes money is not sufficient and developed countries should feel obliged to offer assistance to Bangladesh which is facing devastating natural disasters, occurring for no fault of its own. The rich countries should not stay indifferent when the effected country goes under the sea, they said. Bangladeshi government had launched an aggressive battle to fight with climate challenges, but it should have begun many years earlier. Now it is not too late but the country needs a lot of support including funding and technical expertise from the global community. The country especially needs help from those developed nations whose carbon emissions have created the problems and they should also be prepared to open their doors to the millions of Bangladeshi people who will become climate refugees.

Given these realities, the donors should spontaneously come forward for help Bangladesh's efforts to come back the fallout of man-made climate change. It is so important to remind them that climate funding was largely seen as a compensation for the industrial excesses of the west world over the last century and the traditional donor's recipient formula was not acceptable below these circumstances.