Global Climate Change, Effect on Bangladesh

Introduction : In today’s world the most pronounced word is climate change, everywhere we find the weird behaviour of mother nature. In different parts of the world, the face of the change is different but the common people and the scientists are sure that all these unwanted changes are the immediate result of climate change. No denial that the human species has contributed to these disasters and is still doing the most. Bangladesh is the innocent victim of the worsening situation.

Geographical Position : Bangladesh lies at the bottom of the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna river system. Bangladesh is watered by a total of 57 trans-boundary rivers flowing to it: 54 from neighbouring India and three from Myanmar. The country, which has no control of water flows and volume, drains to the Bay of Bengal. In the 2017 edition of Germanwatch’s Climate Risk Index, Bangladesh was judged to be the sixth hardest hit by climate calamities of 180 nations during the period 1996–2015. It is also known that most of the country, like Bangladesh, is the innocent victim of the deeds of other developed countries.

Concept of Climate Change : Climate change occurs when changes in Earth’s climate system result in new weather patterns that last for at least a few decades and maybe for millions of years. As natural energy moves through Earth’s climate system, it creates Earth’s weather and long-term averages of weather are called “climate”. Changes in the long-term average are called “climate change”.

History of Global Climate Change : Human societies have experienced climate change since the development of agriculture some 10,000 years ago. These climate changes have often had profound effects on human cultures and societies. They include annual and decadal climate fluctuations as well as large-magnitude changes that occur over centennial to multimillennial timescales. Such changes are believed to have influenced and even stimulated the initial cultivation and domestication of crop plants and animals.

Major Agreements on Global Climate Change : Most environmental agreements are legally binding for countries that have formally ratified them. Several hundred international environmental agreements exist but most link only a limited number of countries. Including the major conventions, more than 3,000 international environmental instruments have been identified by the IEA Database Project.

The Most Active Agreement :

Paris Agreement : Adopted in 2015 at the end of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21), the Paris Agreement is the first universal and legally binding agreement on climate change. The Paris Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016, after being ratified by 55 countries – representing at least 55% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Bangladesh ratified it in 2015.

Basics of Paris Agreement :

1. To keep global warming below a 2°C increase by the end of the 21st century.
2. Pursue efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C according to the recommendations of the IPCC.
3. Each country should develop its own plan to reach sub‑2°C climate change.
4. All countries must report data. As a result, 195 countries will submit updated climate plans called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every five years.
5. All must lead to a greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 70 to 80% by the second half of the century.
6. Developed countries must financially assist developing countries both in terms of adaptation and mitigation, including expansion of renewable energies. They reaffirmed the commitment to mobilise 100 billion USD a year in climate finance by 2020 and 100 billion USD a year until 2025.
7. Under the Paris Agreement, each country must determine, plan, and regularly report on its contribution to mitigate global warming.
8. The Green Climate Fund : The G7 countries announced USD 420 million as a Green Climate Fund for Climate Risk Insurance and launched a Climate Risk and Early Warning System (CREWS) Initiative.

Present Scenario in Bangladesh : It is projected that, by 2020, from 500 to 750 million people will be affected by water stress caused by climate change around the world. Low‑lying coastal regions, such as Bangladesh, are vulnerable to sea-level rise and the increased occurrence of intense, extreme weather conditions such as the cyclones of 2007–2009, as well as the melting of polar ice. In most countries like Bangladesh, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced to 50 percent by 2020. For a country with increasing population and hunger, this will have an adverse effect on food security. By now different weird diseases and irregular environmental behaviour are being visible day by day. The following are some critical areas:

Effect of Climate Change in Bangladesh :

Health : Climate change poses a wide range of risks to population health – risks of un‑resistant diseases that will increase in future decades, often to critical levels, if global climate change continues on its current trajectory.

Temperature variations : A sustained wet‑bulb temperature exceeding 35°C is a threshold at which the resilience of human systems is no longer able to adequately cool the skin. A study by NOAA from 2013 concluded that heat stress will reduce labour capacity considerably under current emissions scenarios in Bangladesh. Climate change contributes harmfully to our vegetation and fauna.

Water Quality : The freshwater resources that humans rely on are highly sensitive to variations in weather and climate. In 2017, the IPCC reported with high confidence that climate change has a net negative impact on water resources and freshwater ecosystems in all regions, including Bangladesh.

Displacement and migration : Climate change causes displacement of people in several ways, the most obvious being severe weather-related disasters which destroy homes and habitats, causing people to seek shelter or livelihoods in new places. Now we have 15 million annual internally displaced people in Bangladesh.

Security Threat : Climate change has the potential to exacerbate existing tensions or create new ones – serving as a threat multiplier. It can be a catalyst for violent conflict and can lead to threats to national security.

Social Impacts : The consequences of climate change, wealth and poverty are not distributed uniformly within communities. Individual and social factors such as gender, age, education, ethnicity, geography, and language lead to differential vulnerability and capacity to adapt.

Inundation of Coastal Areas : For historical reasons to do with trade, many of our largest and most prosperous cities are on the coast. In Bangladesh, the poorest often live on floodplains because it is the only available space or fertile agricultural land. Most of the low‑lying part is now almost under water.

Projections for Cities in 2050 : In 2019 the Crowther Lab from ETH Zurich paired the climatic conditions of 520 major cities worldwide with predicted climatic conditions of cities in 2050. 22% of major cities are predicted to have climatic conditions similar to tropical regions. Our second largest city, Chittagong, now remains under water most of the time for this reason.

Oil, Coal and Natural Gas : Oil and natural gas infrastructure is vulnerable to the effects of climate change and the increased risk of disasters such as storms, cyclones, flooding and sea-level rise.

Nuclear Power Plant : Climate change, along with extreme weather and natural disasters, can affect nuclear power plants. These plants are cooled by river water which again increases in temperature.

Hydroelectricity Project : Lower river flows because of drought, climate change or upstream dams and diversions reduce the amount of live storage in a reservoir; therefore, reduced water produces less hydroelectricity.

What we can do :

Maintain Food Security : To face any unwanted food crises we can plan to store a certain percentage of our food for food security; we can make food banks.

Reduce use of bio‑fuel : In an effort to achieve middle‑income country status by 2021, by policy we should use less bio‑fuel.

Use of Chor : Bangladesh loses land to rising sea levels but gains land from sediment deposits called Chor. Bangladesh, paired with targeted policies to secure such land for farming use, has the potential to partially mitigate the effects of land loss.

Use Foreign Aid and Funding : As per the direction of the Paris Agreement (2015), developed countries are committed up to USD 30 billion of immediate short‑term funding to developing nations to build their capacity to reduce emissions and respond to climate impacts.

More use of renewable energy : Instead of using fuelled vehicles we can use electric vehicles and use solar and wind power on a large scale.

Conclusions : Effective policies which take into consideration predictive climate change models and measures are key to preparing for and managing climate change. Bangladesh is one of the few countries in the world that will be first to be affected, so we should think first also. Using the Green Climate Fund in our own way of life and policies is essential.