Adaptation to climate change is the only feasible strategy for Bangladesh

Bangladesh has been in the spotlight of its notorious and devastating natural calamities and other disasters like cyclones, flooding, desertification, salinisation, soil impoverishment and arsenic contamination in ground water for many years. Indisputably the impacts of global warming and climate change have severely imposed another disastrous phenomenon with existing one. Nonetheless, climate change sceptics may think otherwise. I don’t blame their doubts and above all denial as there has been turbulent year 2010 in which the climate change science has been undermined by leaked emails, which were shared by climate scientists from the University of East Anglia in the UK, failure of Copenhagen climate summit and mistakenly claimed in the IPPC’s 2007 report that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2030.

On the contrary, particularly on Bangladesh many climate change experts stated that the combination of rising seas, harsher storms and degradation of the Bengal delta may wreak so much damage that Bangladesh as we know it may virtually cease to exist (Jodi Jacobson, 1988 in Saunders, 2000, p.237). So many undeniable evidences are there and I believe that good sceptic arguments are always healthy when science gets very big. With carrying these new threats Bangladesh has been in the forefront of the debate, also has repeatedly reinforced the global arguments surrounding global warming and climate change.

Impacts of climate change are first felt in biophysically such as sea level rise inundates low-lying coastal areas, stronger cyclones results in increased coastal flooding, changing patterns in crops and vegetations, runoff changes and the risk of spread of infectious diseases. Long lists of biophysical consequences do not stop here; they impose a range of potential socio-economic impacts. Coping with these impacts depend on a society's technical, institutional, economic, and cultural ability. Therefore planned adaptation would determine how Bangladesh would cope against all odds of impacts of climate change (Klein and Nicholls, 1999).

In relation understanding regional and local environmental changes in Bengal delta is very important. Bengal delta has complex physical environment. The regional climate diversity, seasonal variation, geological characteristics, subsidence of low-lying coastal areas, local unpredictability and even variations of monsoon seasons from one year to another put Bangladesh in an unique situation to weaken the global discourse of global warming and climate change.

Bangladesh faces constant threats from floods, which are the usual scenario every year.  Large scale flooding during the rainy season and its force and length brings devastation on society and economy as a whole. Bangladesh is well known as one of the most flood-prone countries in the world. Fifty-four rivers flow into the country, which has the largest system of deltas and flat lands in the world (Symonds, 1998). Bangladesh captures only 7.5 per cent of the catchments area of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers with 1.5 million square kilometres (Brammer, 1990). Rest of the vast catchments area with headwaters of those mighty rivers lie outside of the Bangladesh and has a tropical monsoon climate. Monsoon climate brings heavy rainfall that ranges annually from 300mm to 11615mm outside (Valleys in Nepal, Tibet and Cherrapunji on the Meghalaya plateau) and 1250mm to 5000mm inside of Bangladesh (Brammer, 1990, p.13).

Subsidence; motion of the earth’s surface is an alternative threat to Bangladesh. Many experts have blamed on several factors which have contributed to Bengal delta subsidence (Milliman, 1992) including continuous loading of sediment from the rivers, excessive tapping for hydrocarbons or groundwater, and compaction or shrinkage with drying. Milliman et al (1989) make more explicit reference to Bangladesh and they suggest that some low-lying deltas have natural subsidence rates as great as 1 to 10cm/year, that is 10 to 100 times the rate of present sea-level rise (Bradnock and Saunders, 2000) and Bangladesh is shown as subsiding at 1cm/year which is greater than Nile (3.5mm/year) and less than Mississippi (1.5cm/year) and New Orleans (2cm/year).

Another unique dimension of Bangladesh’s environment is the role of plate tectonics (Bradnock and Saunders, 2002). This primal but recently understood tectonic origins of Bengal Delta have provided another new facet, its destructive nature and impacts of it has catastrophic ability to bring an end to existence of Bangladesh. Three geo-tectonic provinces such as the Stable Shelf, the Central Deep Basin (extending from the Sylhet trough in the northeast towards the Hatia trough in the south and finally the Chittagong-Tripura Fold Belt have been related to a regional plate tectonic scenario, especially the collision pattern of the Indian plate with the Burma and Tibetan (Eurasian) plates. Movement of these tectonic plates will create earthquakes which remain far greater threats than impacts of climate change in Bangladesh.

Human vulnerability in Bangladesh from environmental changes are immense including yearly flooding, cyclones, storm surges, mass deaths, droughts, displacement of human settlement, loss of fisheries and vegetation, loss of financial services, human health etc. Living in a world of such natural hazards most of the people in the region need to facilitate adaptation with these hazards (Ahmed et al, 1999). The economy of Bangladesh strongly depends on agriculture and natural resources that are sensitive to climate change and sea level rise. Target population’s coping capacity differs from one place to another. For example, cyclones in Bangladesh in 1970 and 1991 are estimated to have caused 300,000 and 139,000 deaths. In contrast, Hurricane Andrew struck the United States in 1992, causing 55 deaths (WHO, 2003).

In order to safeguard from the impacts, effective adaptive responses to climate change and sea level rise is very necessary. These measures include such as the creation support and extension services to improve or change agricultural practices, efficient mechanisms for disaster management with construction of safe shelter for emergency situation, construction of embankments where possible, development and introduction of desalinisation techniques, and the plantation of mangrove protection belts (Haq, 2002). We need to evaluate the effectiveness of our sea and river defences. One of the main focuses has to be how can we prevent big cities from flooding? However, the adaptation needs to be cross-cuttings of different disciplines and hence a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach needs to be taken up to reduce vulnerability. Coastal resources, Freshwater resources, Agriculture, Human health, Ecosystem and Biodiversity were identified as the most vulnerable to climate change in a study on Bangladesh: climate change and sustainable development 2000 by World Bank (Haq, 2002).

The question has always been raised whether adaptation or mitigation, which strategy is for Bangladesh? Lots of initiatives towards mitigating measures of climate change have taken into account both national and international levels namely signing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, to stabilising or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and enhancing carbon sinks. Even though how rigorous the mitigation levels are placed there in countries around the world the impacts of climate change are inevitable (Haq, 2002). And that is why country like Bangladesh needs to focus on strategic adaptation and implementation to the effects of climate change into the policy making under the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) and Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) for continuous adaptation and mitigation activities.

Building adaptive capacity (Klein and Nicholls, 1999) depends on a country’s plan, prepare, economic wealth, technology, infrastructure, knowledge that it processes, institutional arrangements, its commitment to equity, and its social capital. It is therefore not surprising that most industrialised countries have higher adaptive capacities than developing countries. Consideration of such issues question can be asked whether developing countries like Bangladesh do have the current level and sufficient adaptive capacity to cope with the impacts of climate change in the long run and what about funding for such strategies. Rajendra Pachauri; chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said before 2010 UN Climate Conference in Cancun that ‘financing is a prerequisite for a climate agreement’. He also stated that developing countries are very sensitive about the funding issue; talks will collapse in Mexico without strong and secure financing in place. The Poor have always been vulnerable to natural calamities. Therefore the best way to help the poor is to enable an environment that would provide the poor an opportunity to climb out of poverty and can afford a whole range of adaptation strategies to protect and insure themselves against climatic uncertainties (Haq and Klein, 2003).

Undoubtedly our planet is warming up, but we don’t know how far this will affect us in the future, also difficult tasks will still remain how to quantify the effects. More difficult when there are so many regional and local environmental variables exist. When we talk about global environmental issues like global warming and climate change it is important to understand the regional and local concept, more specifically Bangladeshi local environmental variability. How far is the global debate explains or taken into account the regional and local impacts of environmental changes? Many scientists argue that the impacts of climate change are inevitable and it appears that global warming already has increased the frequency of different unwanted scenarios in Bangladesh such as harsher storms and heavier rainfall, and because of that we experience further displacement of people from coastal areas and destruction of their livelihoods. As a result many people move to the cities where they will have limited or no access to basic utilities, or services and eventually settle down in the slums.

Even though how scrupulous the mitigation levels are placed, impacts of climate change are remarkably destructive for Bangladeshi livelihood. Therefore, it is necessary country like Bangladesh to focus on strategic adaptation and implementation to the effects of climate change into the policy making. And climate change issues should not be only the environmental concerns but also developmental problems where social concerns also need to be addressed.

Climate Change myths: Common misperceptions and sceptic's incorrect assertions

The science that supporting global warming and climate change are under endless scrutiny by sceptics who blatantly promoting incorrect assertions without checking the facts. Many of them continue to publicly challenge and claiming that human activities are not to be blamed. Countless recent statements and reports by many prestigious world leading scientific bodies have suggested that  warming of the Earth over last half-century has been caused largely by human activities such as usage of fossil fuels as the main sources of energy, changes in land use, agriculture and deforestation.

Positive and healthy debates are always welcome, which de facto keeps the science on its toes, but the combination of myths, common misconceptions and sceptic's incorrect assertions have created spheres of mistrust, ignorance and change of perception among general public who may or may not genuinely have the knowledge of Climate Change. Therefore, it’s not surprising when we hear that in the UK more than half the population does not believe climate change has been caused by humans (Daily Mail, 14th November 2009).

To some extend public should not be blamed as the roots of climate change science recently have been shaken by the leaked emails which were shared by climate scientists from the University of East Anglia in the UK and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report mistakenly claimed that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2030. Everyone thought that the leaked email was a part of conspiracy, which directly played into the hands of sceptics who always look for more ammunition to reload their guns of denial.

What follows is only (among many) a main list of myths, misperceptions and some incorrect statements, in addition with some brief correct scientific clarifications. It is claimed that anthropogenic (man-made) sources of CO2 are so tiny that they can't change climate, on the contrary volcanoes and other natural sources are producing more. According to the U.S. Geological Survey man made CO2 amounts to about 30 billion tons annually, which is more than 130 times as much as all the volcanoes produce. 95% of CO2 releases to the atmosphere are natural but these CO2 draws back to the nature by plant growth and absorption process by the oceans which ultimately off set  the total amount but leaving behind the amount produced by humans. Many experimental measurements including carbon isotopes have shown that burning fossil-fuel and deforestation have been the primary reasons where atmospheric CO2 levels have risen 35% since 1832.

Ongoing sceptic arguments on whether CO2 levels are strongly related to global temperature rise have played upon people’s misunderstanding of the relationship between CO2 versus temperature. Of course there are cases when this up or down relationship hasn’t worked in perfect synchrony as CO2 is not the only factor that determines global temperature variation, hence sceptics quickly point to the period where CO2 went up but during the same period temperature remained unchanged or didn’t rise. Evidences from Antarctic ice cores have revealed the history of last 400000 years, where they show strong correlation between CO2 and temperature. Evidently they fall and rise together. Furthermore, when the ocean temperature rises it tends to release more CO2, which further help rising the temperature. Due to more temperature rise, consequently there would be further release of CO2; therefore CO2 appears to be both the cause and effect of further warming.

We can not expect scientists to invent miracles. It is virtually impracticable applying traditional science on the entire atmosphere where all the variables are unpredictable, keeping one variable constant to see the trends of other variables or even replicating the same experiment is not feasible. Critics always argue that scientific climate models are not reliable; they are not very good projecting the future climate change. Climate models are mathematically representation of interactions of processes that occur in the atmosphere, ocean, land, frozen surfaces of the earth and the sun. General Circulation Models or GCMs is the most advanced tool available so far which can simulate the global climatic changes in response to increased amount of green house gas concentration. Models have been verified with the past temperature variations and if they can predict past correctly then why it wouldn’t reasonably predict changes in the future.

No doubt those who has read ‘New Nasa Model: Doubled CO2 means just 1.64C warming’ – a piece written by Lewis Page on ‘The Register’ news site has perhaps been marvelled over not to fret about mere temperature rise. Lewis Page wrote ‘it now appears, however, that the previous/current state of climate science may simply have been wrong and that there’s really no need to get in an immediate flap. If Bounoua [Lahouari Bounoua of Nasa] and her colleagues are right, and CO2 levels keep on rising the way they have been  lately (about 2ppm each year), we can go a couple of centuries without any dangerous warming.’

But Nasa’s research conclusion never said so. Out of three models, Nasa’s first simple control model suggests that a doubling of CO2 would lead to warming of around 1.94C. Researchers also stated that their control result was at the low end of a range of other models from 2C to 4.5C. The purpose of controlled model was to include evapotranspiration data and find out if there were any differences and it showed that warming dropped to 1.68C, with the difference 1.9.4C – 1.68C = 0.26C, but researchers never suggested any absolute conclusion on temperature. Lewis Page most likely took the value of the control model and subtracted the dropped temperature 0.26C (rounded figure 0.3) and wrote that we don’t have any problems with the temperature rise as it would be just 1.64C (Hadley in Guardian, 2010).

Based on another Nasa model Lewis Page combined doubling of CO2 concentration of 780ppm (today’s accepted figure 390ppm multiplied by 2) and growth rate of 2ppm/yr, which would take 195 years. Later he quoted we can go a couple of centuries without any dangerous warming. But the Nasa researcher’s actual figure was 700ppm, not 390 ppm or Lewis’s imaginary figure 780ppm. Considering 700ppm is more than 310ppm of today’s accepted figure, therefore it will take 155 years not 195 years (Hadley in Guardian, 2010).

Lewis Page’s conclusion at best one classic example where a myth has intentionally been created, at worst it has spread like virus through the internet and it is rightly the winner when people have experienced extreme cold and big snowfalls particularly in the northern hemisphere during the last winters. No one dares talk about global warming when there is such extreme cold weather and certainly for many big freezes have been further indication that the notion of climate change is all empty and exaggerated talk.

Plethora of similar myths, ambiguous challenges by sceptics and misunderstanding of core scientific knowledge by general public have polarised the climate change debates. The challenges as well as the success for international climate science community lies in transparency, accuracy, honesty and knowledge sharing, otherwise perpetuators will continue push frontier to the wrong end.