Global Climate Change, Effect on Bangladesh
Introduction : In today’s world the most pronounced word is Climate change, everywhere we find the wired behavior of the 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 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 neighboring 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 German-watch’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 other developed countries deeds.
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 of the environmental agreements are legally binding for countries that have formally ratified them. Several hundred international environmental agreements exist but most links 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 on 2015.
Basics of Paris Agreement :
- to keep global warming below a 2°C increase by the end of the 21st Century.
- pursue efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C according to the recommendations of the IPCC.
- Each country should develop its own plan to reach sub- 2° climate change.
- All countries to report data. As a result, 195 countries will submit updated climate plans called Nationally Determined Contibutions (NDCs) every five years. NDCs are at the heart of the Paris Agreement in order to achieve its long-term goals.
- All must lead to a greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 70 to 80% by the second half of the century.
- The developed countries must financially assist developing countries both in terms of adaptation to global warming and mitigation to greenhouse gas emissions, which requires the expansion to renewable energies. The developed countries reaffirmed the commitment to mobilize 100 billion USD a year in climate finance by 2020 and 100 billion USD a year until 2025.
- Under the Paris Agreement, each country must determine, plan, and regularly report on the contribution that it undertakes to mitigate global warming.
- The green climate fund : The G7 countries’ announcement to provide USD 420 million as a Green Climate Fund for the first time for Climate Risk Insurance, and the launching of 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-laying 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 in Bangladesh. By now different weird diseases and irregular environmental behavior 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 labor capacity considerable under current emissions scenarios in Bangladesh. Climate change contributes harmful to our vegetations 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 and also in Bangladesh.
Displacement and migration : Climate change causes displacement of people in several ways, the most obvious is the severity of weather-related disasters which destroy homes and habitats causing people to seek shelter or livelihoods in new places. Now we have 15 million annual internal 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 a threat 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 to the effects of climate change.
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 low-laying part is almost now 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 the predicted climatic conditions of cities in 2050. 22% of the major cities are predicted to have climatic conditions. Our 2nd largest city Chittagong is now most of the time remains under water for this.
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 storm, cyclones, flooding and increases in sea level.
Nuclear Power Plant : Climate change, along with extreme weather and natural disasters can affect nuclear power plants. This plant is cooled by rivers water which again increase the water temperature again.
Hydroelectricity Project : Lower river flows because of drought, climate change or upstream dams and diversions, will reduce the amount of live storage in a reservoir; therefore, reduced amount of water will produce less hydroelectricity.
What we can do :
Maintain Food Security : To face any unwanted food crises we can plan to certain % of our food for food security, we can make food bank.
Reduce use 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 has paired with targeted policies to secure such land for farming use has the potential to partially mitigate the effects of land lost.
Use Foreign Aid and Funding : As per the direction of Paris Agreement in 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 responds to impacts of climate change.
More use of renewable energy : Instead of using fueled vehicles we can use electric vehicles and use of solar and wind power in large scale.
Conclusions : Effective policies which take into consideration predictive climate change models and measures are key to preparing for managing the climate change. Bangladesh is the few countries in the world who 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.