Climate Change in Bangladesh: Causes, Effects and Suggestions

Climate Change in Bangladesh: Causes, Effects and Suggestions
Bezon Kumar

Photo: Daily Asian Age and Internet

Climate change is now one of the biggest problems across the globe as its impacts on human beings and the environment is very terrible and prolonged. Almost all countries of the world are directly or indirectly affected by the adverse effects of climate change. Bangladesh is not immune to the adversities of climate change. Rather the country is at the high risk of natural disasters to its geographical location, low-lying landscape, the density of population, poverty, illiteracy, alternation in the pattern of seasons, poor infrastructures, and so on, according to researches.

In addition, the socio-economic condition of the country is very vulnerable than in some other countries in the world. Many studies and researches have revealed the adverse effects of climate change in Bangladesh. Although Bangladesh is a developing country with an area of 1,47,570 squares kilometers, it is burdened with a huge population and 80 percent of the country is plains. Global Climate Risk Index (GCRI) 2017 prepared by the German watch highlighted that Bangladesh is the sixth disaster-prone country in the world.

The report also highlighted that 0.48 people die from the adverse effects of climate change out of one lac inhabitants. In these circumstances, it is necessary to mention that Bangladesh faced 185 incidents related to climate change. For which the country had to face the losses of per unit GDP by 0.732 percent, another report says.  From the above scenario, it is observed that the effects of climate change are posing a serious problem for the country.

Before discussing climate change, it is necessary to know about the climate. Climate is generally called the average state of weather for 30 to 40 years. On the other hand, the weather is the average state of a day's heat, pressure, flow, rainfall, the humidity of wind. Therefore, the climate is the average state of heat, pressure, flow, rainfall, the humidity of wind for 30 to 40 years. From the early age of the formation of the earth, the condition of climate was not like what is existed now but far different.

Therefore, the climate is changing over the decades. Climate is not changed overnight. Rather it takes around 30 to 40 years. Now, a question may arise on how one can understand that climate is changing. The answer to the question can be found from the changes in the indicators of climate change. Although there are a number of indicators of climate change, some of these are mentioned here.

For example, greenhouse gas emissions, temperature, drought, flood, heat, and level of oceans, snowfall, ice melting, glaciers, heat, and cooling related diseases, and finally bird wintering. If these indicators are changed through 30 to 40 years, it can be said that climate has been changed. Many reports, statistics, surveys, and research papers have revealed that the condition of these indicators has changed quietly over the past 50 years. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that the air temperature of Antarctica has increased by 3 degrees Celsius which is five times the mean rate of global warming.

On the other hand, NASA has reported that the temperature of the earth's surface has increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius since the nineteenth century. Another report revealed that the current global average temperature is 0.85 degrees Celsius is higher than it was in the late 19th century. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment revealed that Antarctica lost 152 cubic kilometers of ice per year between 2002 and 2005 while Greenland lost 150 to 250 cubic kilometers of ice per year between 2002 and 2006. A report revealed that glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska, and Africa. Global sea level rose about 8 inches in the last century.

It is a matter of great alarming that the rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century, a report of IPCC said. Besides, Copenhagen diagnosis found that the acidity of surface ocean water increased by about 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Therefore, the scenario stated above highlighted that climate is getting changed gradually which is too harmful to the globe.

Climate is getting changed due to many reasons. They can be principally classified into two categories. Firstly, natural causes- the causes are created by the effects of nature including biotic processes and variations in solar radiation received by Earth plate tectonics, and volcanic eruptions. Secondly, manmade causes- the causes are made by human beings.

As for example, humans are increasingly influencing climate change by burning fossil fuels like, coal, diesel, petrol, kerosene, gases; by growing poultry and livestock and by cutting down trees and rain forests which cause the greenhouse effect. As a result, the level of global temperature is growing very high day by day.  In addition, many toxic gases like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, and so on are emitting on the atmosphere and polluting the environment.

These gases are trapping the sun's heat and stopping it from leaking back into space. As a result, the ozone layer is getting damaged and the atmosphere is getting imbalanced in a gradual manner causing deadly diseases like cancer, skin disease, and so on. Carbon dioxide is the most produced greenhouse gas by the human being and it is 64 percent responsible for global warming. On the other hand, Methane is responsible for 17 percent of man-made global warming, while nitrous oxide for 6 percent, a report says.

Apart from, increasing poultry and livestock farming produces a huge amount of methane gases from their wastage. Extreme and unplanned use of fertilizer in the agriculture sector produces nitrous oxide emissions. Besides, fluorinated gases produce very strong warming effects which are up to 2300 times greater than carbon dioxide. Due to the adverse effects of climate change most of the countries like Bangladesh have been suffering in many ways. Natural calamities like floods, drought, cyclones, river erosion, and so on have been increasing over time hampering human life and the overall economy.

To stop or to protect the country from the adverse effects of climate change, some policies can be taken such as green the community, be energy efficient, choose renewable power, eat wisely, trim wastage, fly less, let polluters pay, support and donate. Apart from, by deeply digging canals and rivers, by planting trees, by reducing fuel use, the degree of the negative impact of climate change can be reduced. In addition, everyone should be very sincere about this terrible issue and the government should be very much careful to take effective policies to combat this challenge.


The writer is a Teacher and Researcher in Economics of Rabindra University, Bangladesh. Email: bezon.kumar3@gmail.com


Published in The Daily Asian Age on 23 October 2017. (Edited Briefly)

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