ILO predicts climate disaster for Bangladesh

The Asia-Pacific chapter of the "World Social Protection Report 2024-26: Universal Social Protection for Climate Action and a Just Transition" released by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on Monday last apparently looks like a mix bag of socio-economic developments. Titled "The Regional Companion Report for Asia and the Pacific of the World", it can hardly make the peoples in the region particularly optimistic about their future---much less the people in Bangladesh. Of the ILO findings, two concern the unfolding of a special grim picture. One is that 17 per cent of this small country is likely to permanently go under water due to sea-level rise and 30 per cent of its agricultural land will be lost in the process by 2050. Compared to the earlier expert prediction of 25 per cent loss of coastal areas to the Bay of Bengal, this loss is less but for a land-scarce country, this is going to prove catastrophic.

The ILO report with two distinct parts has looked beyond the natural calamities countries in the Asia-Pacific region are expected to suffer. In that task, it has focused on mitigation of the climate-induced impacts and the peoples' adaptability to those with particular emphasis on the vulnerable groups among them. The ILO has duly praised the milestone of social protection covering 53.6 per cent of the population ---which incidentally is above the global average of 52.4 per cent --- in the region achieved in 2023. But these social benefits are unevenly distributed across the region as well as in a country like Bangladesh. An idea of the enormity of the problem can be drawn from the fact that 2.1 billion people in the region 'remain unprotected against various lifecycle and socio-economic risks'. In Bangladesh, the problem of uneven distribution of social-benefit funds is likely to be acuter.

Well, mitigation of adverse climate's impacts, resilience to and adaptability with those can be achieved at a huge cost. For example, a country of Bangladesh's size and resources, including its limited scientific knowledge and technology, can hardly have the capacity to deal with the mass displacement of people from the inundated areas. Rehabilitation of the climate migrants within its geographic boundary is an impossible proposition. Social chaos and anarchy stare in the face of this nation unless a reasonable arrangement can be made for its internal climate refugees. This is a huge challenge and without international help this cannot be met.

However, the country and the world have 25 years to take any measures for coping with the climate catastrophe. The ILO has made curative suggestions but the preventive measures which are a global responsibility to obviate the impact of the planet's warming due to carbon emission are perhaps more important in restoring the environmental health. Countries which are on top of the list of climate vulnerability with Bangladesh occupying the ninth slot from the summit certainly are the least polluters but worst victims. They must be given the climate adaptability fund promised by the rich and industrialist nations. It is no charity but the vulnerable nations' right to claim compensation from those who are primarily responsible for the planet's unmitigating climate crisis.