Limiting greenhouse gas emission
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Shahiduzzaman Khan
NOTED author Robert Kaplan wrote that chaos would emerge as the main threat to global security in future decades. In an article titled 'The Atlantic', he said population growth and resource depletion would prompt mass migrations and incite group conflicts in Indian Sub-continent.
The author is not of Indian origin, but his prophecy about incoming disasters in Indian Sub-continent compels us to believe that bizarre threat looms large on the environmental horizon in Bangladesh. Things are really in a mess here.
Reports surrounding the world atmosphere suggested that environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources are often witnessed in Bangladesh due to poverty, over-population and lack of awareness about the subject. The environment relate problems are manifested by deforestation, destruction of wetlands, depletion of soil nutrients, etc. Frequent natural calamities like floods, cyclones and tidal-bores which are believed to be outcome of environmental degradation, do also cause severe socio-economic stresses and strains.
Indeed, Bangladesh is one of the few countries that face extreme hazards due to environmental degradation and resource depletion. The degradation of the environment has been highlighted in various fora because of its universal potential for creating chaos and disorder. It is high time that developing world especially the South Asian countries where destruction of their environment is fast leading to huge tracts of land becoming unproductive, took serious note of this vitally important issue. Lack of attention to galloping pollution is undermining the vitals of the citizens and the well-being of the future generations.
Environmental problems faced by Bangladesh are far too many and those are largely caused by factors, which are inter-related because of its geographical position. These include deforestation of the Himalayas, rise in the sea level due to global warming, sharing of river waters with India, floods, tornadoes, droughts, water and soil quality and waste dumping.
Seas and rivers have too often been used as free waste repositories, and refuse from firms; farms and houses have often been dumped in fresh and salt waters. This waste disposal has led to serious problems especially in Bangladesh. Such waste disposal has led to serious pollution. The Bay of Bengal has been used as a convenient dumping ground for industrial and toxic wastes. An American ship named "Felishia" entered the waters of the Bay of Bengal to dump some hazardous toxic wastes. Media awareness of the issue prevented the ship from dumping its cargo.
Bangladesh, like any other South Asian country, is cursed with monsoon floods and tornadoes. The country being close to the sea bears the brunt directly. Incalculable damage is being done to agriculture caused by recurrence of floods every year. In 1988, monsoon floods in Bangladesh killed several thousand people, levelled two million homes, devasted 4.0 million acres of cropland and cost the impoverished nation US $ 1.5 billion. Nature it seems had declared war on Bangladesh. There have been at least 14 devastating floods in the last 40 years. Droughts too have taken their toll. The longest was in 1979, which caused severe food grain shortage and sufferings to the poor and low income people.
The global warming will affect the major port of Mongla, some 85 cities and towns, more than 800 kilometres (kms) of roads and 4,200 kms of coastal embankment. It is destined to lead to the extinction of the Sunderbans, one of the world's largest mangrove forests, covering 5,770 square kms. To abate the crisis Bangladesh would need to embank 715 kms of coastal island perimeters, 370 kms of coastline and 7600 kms of riverbanks. This would cost $10 billion. But where from the money will come?
Sharing of river waters of the Ganges has always been a thorny issue in relations between Indian and Bangladesh since the beginning of the construction of the Farakka Barrage in 1951. Bangladesh felt that India was wilfully diverting waters and creating an ecological imbalance. An agreement was, however, reached between the two neighbouring countries on December 12, 1996 over the sharing of Ganges waters that pacified the grievances of Bangladesh people. It was hailed as a landmark treaty in resolving the dispute peacefully.
Bangladesh is now in the international spotlight on the adverse impacts of global warming. There is an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and enhance the country's capability to adapt to perilous impacts of climate change. Looking ahead to the new international climate change agreement, likely to be signed in Copenhagen in 2009, some countries including Bangladesh are trying to highlight the need for global participation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and support climate change adaptation.
Bangladesh is trapped between the Himalayas in the north and the encroaching Bay of Bengal to the south. The delta is most vulnerable to natural disaster due to the frequency of extreme climate events and its high population density. The predicted temperature increase will cause the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. Bangladesh may lose one-third of its landmass due to the rise of sea level, which is the direct outcome of climate change. The impacts of higher temperatures and sea-level rise are already felt. The hazardous climate change will affect water resources, agriculture and food security, ecosystems and biodiversity, human health and coastal zones in Bangladesh.
These changes are already having major impacts on the economic performance of Bangladesh and on the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor people. It has been predicted by experts that a one-metre rise in sea level would inundate 17 per cent of Bangladesh, frequency of natural disaster is likely to increase during the present century. Two successive floods and deadly cyclone Sidr that caused heavy damage to life, property and crops worth about $2.8 billion in 2007 do indicate to the climate change.
According to Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the sea-level rise will be in the range of 15 cm to 90 cm by the year 2100. Even 10-cm sea-level rise will inundate about 2500 square kms of land area of Bangladesh. A 30-45cm sea-level rise is likely to dislocate about 35 million people from coastal districts by 2050. Last year, two rounds of flooding and a devastating cyclone attacked Bangladesh, claiming thousands of lives and causing huge economic losses. The climate change has been blamed as the reason behind the disasters. Crop yields are predicted to fall by up to 30 per cent, creating a very high risk of hunger due to climate change.
A study by the World Bank, leading donors and the Bangladeshi government found that the country urgently needed huge amounts of money to ensure its survival. It needs at least $4.0 billion by 2020 to build dams, cyclone shelters, plant trees along the coast and build infrastructure and capacities to adapt to increasing number of natural disasters.
The ecological hazards of pollution and resource depletion pose a potentially catastrophic threat to Bangladesh. The present Bangladesh government should take the environmental threats seriously, and create public awareness and action-oriented programmes. In fact, 'green' ideas should be taken to the polls and efforts should be made to create a 'green' political ideology.
What is very badly needed at the moment is a comprehensive environment policy and more significant would be its execution in the backdrop of pollution threats from various sources getting worse and worse. A set of legislations would be required to support such a policy and institutional capacities put in place to enforce it.
The greenhouse effect resulting in sea level rise could obliterate the existence of Bangladesh in the physical sense. Many countries are likely to be affected from such developments but prophecies are that Bangladesh could be one of the worst affected. Thus, it is in the core interest of this country that it should duly demand of the international community to take measures to limit greenhouse gas emission that causes global warming, and help reverse the process.
szkhan@thefinancialexpress-bd.com
NOTED author Robert Kaplan wrote that chaos would emerge as the main threat to global security in future decades. In an article titled 'The Atlantic', he said population growth and resource depletion would prompt mass migrations and incite group conflicts in Indian Sub-continent.
The author is not of Indian origin, but his prophecy about incoming disasters in Indian Sub-continent compels us to believe that bizarre threat looms large on the environmental horizon in Bangladesh. Things are really in a mess here.
Reports surrounding the world atmosphere suggested that environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources are often witnessed in Bangladesh due to poverty, over-population and lack of awareness about the subject. The environment relate problems are manifested by deforestation, destruction of wetlands, depletion of soil nutrients, etc. Frequent natural calamities like floods, cyclones and tidal-bores which are believed to be outcome of environmental degradation, do also cause severe socio-economic stresses and strains.
Indeed, Bangladesh is one of the few countries that face extreme hazards due to environmental degradation and resource depletion. The degradation of the environment has been highlighted in various fora because of its universal potential for creating chaos and disorder. It is high time that developing world especially the South Asian countries where destruction of their environment is fast leading to huge tracts of land becoming unproductive, took serious note of this vitally important issue. Lack of attention to galloping pollution is undermining the vitals of the citizens and the well-being of the future generations.
Environmental problems faced by Bangladesh are far too many and those are largely caused by factors, which are inter-related because of its geographical position. These include deforestation of the Himalayas, rise in the sea level due to global warming, sharing of river waters with India, floods, tornadoes, droughts, water and soil quality and waste dumping.
Seas and rivers have too often been used as free waste repositories, and refuse from firms; farms and houses have often been dumped in fresh and salt waters. This waste disposal has led to serious problems especially in Bangladesh. Such waste disposal has led to serious pollution. The Bay of Bengal has been used as a convenient dumping ground for industrial and toxic wastes. An American ship named "Felishia" entered the waters of the Bay of Bengal to dump some hazardous toxic wastes. Media awareness of the issue prevented the ship from dumping its cargo.
Bangladesh, like any other South Asian country, is cursed with monsoon floods and tornadoes. The country being close to the sea bears the brunt directly. Incalculable damage is being done to agriculture caused by recurrence of floods every year. In 1988, monsoon floods in Bangladesh killed several thousand people, levelled two million homes, devasted 4.0 million acres of cropland and cost the impoverished nation US $ 1.5 billion. Nature it seems had declared war on Bangladesh. There have been at least 14 devastating floods in the last 40 years. Droughts too have taken their toll. The longest was in 1979, which caused severe food grain shortage and sufferings to the poor and low income people.
The global warming will affect the major port of Mongla, some 85 cities and towns, more than 800 kilometres (kms) of roads and 4,200 kms of coastal embankment. It is destined to lead to the extinction of the Sunderbans, one of the world's largest mangrove forests, covering 5,770 square kms. To abate the crisis Bangladesh would need to embank 715 kms of coastal island perimeters, 370 kms of coastline and 7600 kms of riverbanks. This would cost $10 billion. But where from the money will come?
Sharing of river waters of the Ganges has always been a thorny issue in relations between Indian and Bangladesh since the beginning of the construction of the Farakka Barrage in 1951. Bangladesh felt that India was wilfully diverting waters and creating an ecological imbalance. An agreement was, however, reached between the two neighbouring countries on December 12, 1996 over the sharing of Ganges waters that pacified the grievances of Bangladesh people. It was hailed as a landmark treaty in resolving the dispute peacefully.
Bangladesh is now in the international spotlight on the adverse impacts of global warming. There is an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and enhance the country's capability to adapt to perilous impacts of climate change. Looking ahead to the new international climate change agreement, likely to be signed in Copenhagen in 2009, some countries including Bangladesh are trying to highlight the need for global participation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and support climate change adaptation.
Bangladesh is trapped between the Himalayas in the north and the encroaching Bay of Bengal to the south. The delta is most vulnerable to natural disaster due to the frequency of extreme climate events and its high population density. The predicted temperature increase will cause the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. Bangladesh may lose one-third of its landmass due to the rise of sea level, which is the direct outcome of climate change. The impacts of higher temperatures and sea-level rise are already felt. The hazardous climate change will affect water resources, agriculture and food security, ecosystems and biodiversity, human health and coastal zones in Bangladesh.
These changes are already having major impacts on the economic performance of Bangladesh and on the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor people. It has been predicted by experts that a one-metre rise in sea level would inundate 17 per cent of Bangladesh, frequency of natural disaster is likely to increase during the present century. Two successive floods and deadly cyclone Sidr that caused heavy damage to life, property and crops worth about $2.8 billion in 2007 do indicate to the climate change.
According to Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the sea-level rise will be in the range of 15 cm to 90 cm by the year 2100. Even 10-cm sea-level rise will inundate about 2500 square kms of land area of Bangladesh. A 30-45cm sea-level rise is likely to dislocate about 35 million people from coastal districts by 2050. Last year, two rounds of flooding and a devastating cyclone attacked Bangladesh, claiming thousands of lives and causing huge economic losses. The climate change has been blamed as the reason behind the disasters. Crop yields are predicted to fall by up to 30 per cent, creating a very high risk of hunger due to climate change.
A study by the World Bank, leading donors and the Bangladeshi government found that the country urgently needed huge amounts of money to ensure its survival. It needs at least $4.0 billion by 2020 to build dams, cyclone shelters, plant trees along the coast and build infrastructure and capacities to adapt to increasing number of natural disasters.
The ecological hazards of pollution and resource depletion pose a potentially catastrophic threat to Bangladesh. The present Bangladesh government should take the environmental threats seriously, and create public awareness and action-oriented programmes. In fact, 'green' ideas should be taken to the polls and efforts should be made to create a 'green' political ideology.
What is very badly needed at the moment is a comprehensive environment policy and more significant would be its execution in the backdrop of pollution threats from various sources getting worse and worse. A set of legislations would be required to support such a policy and institutional capacities put in place to enforce it.
The greenhouse effect resulting in sea level rise could obliterate the existence of Bangladesh in the physical sense. Many countries are likely to be affected from such developments but prophecies are that Bangladesh could be one of the worst affected. Thus, it is in the core interest of this country that it should duly demand of the international community to take measures to limit greenhouse gas emission that causes global warming, and help reverse the process.
szkhan@thefinancialexpress-bd.com