BD still ill-equipped to combat climate change

FE Report

Speakers at an international conference on Saturday said Bangladesh is not ready enough to cope with climate change and disasters mainly due to lack of institutional capacity.

They said Bangladesh is one of the most climate change vulnerable countries in the world.

Though the country has been gradually recouping the losses caused by climate change, they said, it is not ready to mitigate most adverse impacts.

"The country's rice production dropped last year due to flash floods in the northeastern region which also hit the rice price in the global market," said Prof Dr Ainun Nishat while presenting a keynote paper at the inaugural ceremony of a three-day international conference.

Bangladesh University of Engineering Technology (BUET), Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK) and Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence jointly organised the event titled "International Conference on Disaster Risk Management' at a city hotel.

Dr Ainun Nishat said climate and weather have been changing rapidly and it has become unpredictable and erratic now.

"Food production, especially rice output in Bangladesh is largely dependent on the weather pattern. The changing weather will impact food production if we fail to adapt ourselves to climate change," he said. He also apprehends that Bangladesh might lose two seasons out of six very soon. "Two seasons will disappear permanently from our life due to climate change," he added.

Japanese ambassador to Bangladesh Hiroyasu Izumi said Japan experienced a lot of disasters last year.

"Both Bangladesh and Japan are vulnerable to climate change. And we have a lot of things to share with each other," he said.

Hitoshi Hirata, Chief Representative, Bangladesh Office of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), said Bangladesh needs to put more efforts to overcome the loss caused by climate change. "We must continue to increase our capacity building and resilience to face the future," he added.

Director General of Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence Brigadier General Ali Ahmed Khan said Dhaka is the most venerable city due to mainly unplanned urbanisation.

He stressed the need for creating a national database to face an urgent situation.

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