Yasmin Ara
At this time, we realized that COP26 aren't heroic - they're only flesh and blood. COP26: Bangladesh announces 37bn-dollar budget to tackle climate change damages.Since October 31, world leaders, top climate officials, and activists have gathered at the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow to renegotiate the pledges and commitments for the Paris Agreement. Bangladesh, as one of the worst sufferers of the destabilized climate, has already raised its claims to the world leaders, particularly to the industrialized top emitters. Four claims highlighted the national COP26 statement.
China will be most affected by rising sea levels caused by global warming, according to a new report from Climate Central. With a 2 degree rise in temperature, 64m people in China, based on the 2010 population, would be living in areas submerged by rising seas. However, with a 4 degree rise this jumps to 145m people. China is followed in second place by India, with 20m and 55m respectively. India's neighbor, Bangladesh, completes the top three most at risk.
Rising sea levels are making traditional ways of life impossible. Rural Bangladeshis are having to adapt to survive. Now, the country known as "ground zero for climate change" faces additional stress as nearly 75% of Bangladesh sits below sea level and faces annual floods. Bangladesh has been a vulnerable state for much of its short existence. People in this flood-prone country have coped with rising water levels with a combination of innovation, flexibility and resilience - but the extremes the environment is now throwing at them might be beyond anyone's endurance.
As climate change accelerates, the pressures on rural Bangladeshis mount. Where previously people might have been able to move away from the worst of seasonal flooding, the regularity of water logging is making it impossible to farm. Crop varieties cannot cope with the saltwater, and career alternatives are limited. Rising sea level to deprive 20 million in Bangladesh of homes by 2050Around 17% of Bangladesh will submerge in 30 years, the UN Human Rights Council was told on Monday.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has mentioned around 17% of Bangladesh will be submerged by rising sea-levels by 2050, depriving 20 million people of their homes. "The climate is becoming more volatile so we are seeing a higher frequency of migration," says Joyce Chen, an economist at The Ohio State University. "
Where in the past we see migration due to annual flooding, or river bank erosion, now we see saltwater intrusion more commonly which affects the environment long term. A pertinent component of Bangladesh's climate story is the striking disparity between the scale of the country's vulnerability to climate impacts and its relatively minimal culpability in creating the global crisis.
Here, climate change is a serious and present issue already - but a collective international failure to limit global warming to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius could lead to devastating and compounding ramifications, including widespread loss and damage of homes and assets, food and water insecurity, crop failure, biodiversity loss, intensified cyclones, and unlivable heat waves.Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has criticized wealthy countries for their "empty pledges" on fighting the impacts of climate change. Instead, Bangladesh has come up with its own zero-carbon-future plan.
Statistics of 2020 by the UN have revealed a sharp difference in population impacted in inundated area in Bangladesh with population impacted in temporary inundated area compared with inundated area and temporary inundated areas. The data also shows Dhaka as the population impacted in inundated area visas increased.
At the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, Bangladeshi Prime Minister called on wealthy nations to fulfill their pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions and provide the promised $100 billion annually in financial aid to less wealthy countries to help them adapt to climate change and mitigate further rises in temperature.Only a tiny fraction of global warming can be attributed to Bangladesh's carbon emissions, Hasina said.
Bangladesh currently emits around 0.3 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year, compared with about 20 tons per person in developed nations. These countries are at risk of displacement by rising sea levels and severe flooding, cyclones and heat waves.Hasina said Bangladesh was "committed to leading the path to a solution" to fight climate change "not only because we wish to avert the worst of climate change; it also makes economic sense."
"Investing in zero-carbon growth is the best way to create jobs across the economy and ensure that our nation becomes more prosperous," she wrote.
Under the plan, Bangladesh intends to obtain 30% of its energy from renewables by the end of the decade."We will enhance resilience, grow our economy, create jobs and expand opportunities for our citizens, using action on climate change as the catalyst," Hasina wrote of the plan.
Bangladesh's top officials believe the plan could grow the country's gross domestic product by as much as 6.8% and create 4.1 million new jobs, and generate one-third of the country's energy from renewables by 2030.Hasina said Bangladesh will develop wind farms along its coast to revitalize the mangrove forests that help stabilize shifting shores - also protecting the country against storms and flooding.
"We will empower banks to offer favorable terms to fossil fuel-free infrastructure projects, and pursue co-operation with developed nations in areas such as green hydrogen," she wrote.Bangladesh hopes that more developing nations will adopt such plans in coming years, led by members of the Climate Vulnerable Forum.
Diversification, transparency and accountability: Bangladesh currently spends about $2 billion (€1.7 billion) annually on climate change-related adaptation measures, with 75% of the money coming from domestic sources. The country would need almost three times that amount as adaptation finance by 2050 to achieve its climate goals.
Bangladesh has adopted a 37bn-dollar program for mitigation of climate change damages along the country's coastal areas. Thus, once the information was made public and the right to consent was referred back to the people, the COP26 project would end like a house of cards.
Yasmin Ara is a Freelance writer and Former Librarian, Asian University of Women (AUW)
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