Impact of climate change
Saturday, 1 December 2007
THE Human Development Report (HDR) 2007/08 that was released in Brasilia, Brazil, last Tuesday has alerted all concerned that there is less than a decade left to reverse the impact of climate change. The Financial Express (FE) carried a report last Wednesday on the HDR where it was noted that climate change "will cause harms for flood-prone Bangladesh in the near future, triggering displacement of up to 70 million people of the country's populace, mostly living in low-lying coastal areas". This message which the report served merits consideration of the near-term vulnerabilities that the flood-prone areas of Bangladesh, along with drought-prone parts of sub-Saharan Africa are exposed to.
The international community should take a more than business-as-usual note of the possible adverse impact of climate change on the less advantaged countries. The HDR report has mentioned that global flooding may induce flood and tropical storm in coastal and low-lying areas, displacing an estimated 332 million people, of whom over 700 million will be Bangladeshis. Thus, the poorest countries and most vulnerable citizens will suffer the earliest and most damaging setbacks, even though they have contributed least to the problem. This is the prime responsibility of the rich nations to pay a befitting attention to the problem -- climate change which has been termed by the HDR 2007/08 as the "defining human development challenge of the 21st century" -- and do the needful for addressing it. If inaction on their part continues, the world will be moving, as overwhelming scientific evidence shows, towards the point at which irreversible ecological catastrophe becomes unavoidable. Is the international community prepared to take pro-active measures to help reverse such a trend?
Kabir Ahmed
Banani,
Dhaka.
The international community should take a more than business-as-usual note of the possible adverse impact of climate change on the less advantaged countries. The HDR report has mentioned that global flooding may induce flood and tropical storm in coastal and low-lying areas, displacing an estimated 332 million people, of whom over 700 million will be Bangladeshis. Thus, the poorest countries and most vulnerable citizens will suffer the earliest and most damaging setbacks, even though they have contributed least to the problem. This is the prime responsibility of the rich nations to pay a befitting attention to the problem -- climate change which has been termed by the HDR 2007/08 as the "defining human development challenge of the 21st century" -- and do the needful for addressing it. If inaction on their part continues, the world will be moving, as overwhelming scientific evidence shows, towards the point at which irreversible ecological catastrophe becomes unavoidable. Is the international community prepared to take pro-active measures to help reverse such a trend?
Kabir Ahmed
Banani,
Dhaka.