Are we prepared for looming catastrophe?

A report prepared by the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCAD) in collaboration with the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and published this year (2024) says that Bangladesh's geography and low-lying delta topography make it particularly vulnerable to climate change, ranking it highly on the list of countries most prone to climate devastation. The CAAD's report needs no further explanation as recent years have been marked by extreme heat waves, droughts, floods and downpours.  Between 2000 and 2019, the country experienced 185 extreme weather events, the report adds. Small wonder that Bangladesh is the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change in the world. In tandem with extreme weather, the country has also been experiencing rise in the sea level at the rate of 3.8 to 5.8 mm per year which is faster than global average. This irreversible trend in sea level rise poses the worst climate change-induced threat to one of the world's largest and most densely populated delta called Bangladesh.

And this stark reality facing Bangladesh was again brought into focus at an event held at the Jatiya Press Club on Saturday (March 30) in the city where Professor emeritus of the Brac University, AinunNishat said that within 100 years the southern parts of the present-day Jashore, Gopalganj, Chandpur and Feni will become part of the sea. Professor Nishat fears, it may happen even earlier, within the next fifty years! And salinity will creep into the soils of the districts situated in the middle part of the country including Rajshahi, Sirajganj and Bhairab of Kishoreganj. Though Dhaka is positioned rather comfortably   at a higher level of 25 feet from the sea, its adjoining areas like Kamrangir Char, Jinjira, etc., won't be so lucky as they are situated at heights ranging from five to six feet from the sea level, the renowned water resources and climate change expert, Prof. Nishat further noted. Such depressing predictions about the country's future was based on a report of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body that advances the public's knowledge about the science of climate change. Some 195 members of the UN concurred with the said IPCC report before it was made public. However, the gloomy prospect for Bangladesh as portrayed by the report under consideration is also not something new or revealing to the public. Even the people of the country's coastal belt already know this if only from the encroachment of salinity on their geohydrology, surface water system and crop fields. Alongside this devastating impact of rising level of salinity in their sources of livelihood, frequent visitations by sea-borne calamities like storm surges caused by cyclones, etc., have already been forcing people to migrate to northern parts of the country. In this connection, a World Bank (WB) report published in September 2021, warned that by 2050,  13.3 million inhabitants of the country's coastal districts are at risk of being displaced from their homes due to adverse impacts of climate change. The timeline of 2050 is only two decades and a half from now. Is Bangladesh or for that matter, the rest of the world community prepared for this inevitably dark prospect for the island nations and the regions close to the sea across the globe?

It is not only the low-lying districts of Bangladesh, which are at risk of being engulfed by the sea in the not-too-distant future. In fact, all low-lowing areas of the world are. Since all the seas and oceans are connected, the grim prognostication applies for scores of nations including the most economically advanced ones. So, the responsibility of being prepared against this unavoidable future for Bangladesh and the rest of the world should be also be equally shared by all. But from the mad race to keep major global reserves of fossil fuels in control, especially in the wake of the Ukraine-Russia war, it appears, the world has again returned to the days of old when people were not aware of climate change and its cause. But can the rich and technologically advanced world afford to ignore this all-important issue at the moment? It simply defies common sense that the world powers are allocating big chunks of their national budget worth hundreds of billions of dollars to finance wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, when climate change-induced extreme weather events are wreaking havoc everywhere. Given the climate change-driven gloomy future of the world, time is indeed short to take some damage control measures if not entirely avert the impending catastrophe from which no country will be immune. The advanced nations should be serious about reducing their dependence on use of fossil fuel to run their industries. Unfortunately, though, at the UN-sponsored climate change conferences held every year, the world's leading economies, despite the promises their leaders make, remain shy when it comes to committing funds for adaptation and mitigation measures for the worst-affected countries of the global south. In the last UN conference on climate change held in Dubai of the UAE, the COP 28, between November 30 and December 13, for instance, the first-ever consensus deal on the need to shift away from every type of fossil fuel was made. Even so, the declaration lacked any clear-cut commitment to either phase out or phase down fossil fuel use. So, as usual the expensive event of climate conference, COP 28, remained the same old talking shop, when the world will be witnessing the ever-worsening effects of global warming. Like last year, when world temperature broke all previous record, 2024 may not be any exception.

Prolonged heat waves have been causing droughts, forest fires and deaths. It is still hoped that sanity will prevail, the world's richest nations would concentrate on averting the imminent catastrophe originating from global warming.

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