Regional water sharing crucial

With climate change looming as an ever-present threat, regional cooperation in water and resource-sharing is even more crucial, said speakers at a virtual discussion yesterday.

Titled "Water and Climate Change: Fostering Regional Cooperation and Sharing", the session was organised by The Daily Star, Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD) and Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA).

"The Green Climate Fund was supposed to raise USD 100 billion per year by 2020, but only USD 18 billion has been raised over the last 8 years. There is a gap between the commitment and the funding," said M Zakir Hossain Khan, senior programme manager (climate finance governance) at Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB).

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a fund established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to combat the effects of climate change.

"For Bangladesh, we need USD 40 billion up until 2030 for mitigation of climate change and adaptation. Private investment is nearly zero for adaptation projects, and adaptation projects receive the least funds. For climate vulnerable countries, the climate debt will be huge," he added.

"Only six percent of the overall budget of the Green Climate Fund has been disbursed. This is the reality of the fund. In terms of the rapid response to the disaster in countries like ours they are not at all effective," stated Zakir.

"The National Adaptation Plan is going on. The Green Climate Fund pledged USD 2.55 million for the formation of the plan. Compared to that, Bangladesh has allocated over USD 2 billion annually from its own resources for the implementation of climate change projects," said Dharitri Kumar Sarker, deputy secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, Bangladesh.

"Rich countries as a matter of principle do not behave. Climate change is the greatest transfer of the irresponsibility [of stronger nations] on the vulnerable ones," said Dr A Atiq Rahman,  executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS).

"Migration is nothing new, but this rapid, non-voluntary migration of millions of people has to be dealt with. Where are people migrating from and where are people going to? For the first time there is absolute urgent need for planning from source to destination," he added.

"We need to collectively come up with evidence and arguments about loss and damage. When there is river erosion or water level rise, people are moving, they are moving into uncertainty -- we need to understand that and plan accordingly," said Farah Kabir, country director, ActionAid International.

The speakers also talked about the lack of regional cooperation in water-sharing.

In recent history water sharing by two or more countries has always been hindered due to the unilateral decision of one country or the other, said Shamsul Huda, executive director, ALRD.

"When we talk about river-sharing we talk about water. But rivers need to be re-conceptualised as water, energy, biodiversity and sediment," said Dr Imtiaz Ahmed, professor of International Relations and director of Centre for Genocide Studies, University of Dhaka

"When you talk about the protection of any ecosystem, I would like to be more ecocentric rather than anthropocentric. The rights of a river as an ecosystem and a life system should in turn dictate the rights of people. I don't think states are willing to sit together to talk about the rights of rivers," said Syeda Rizwana Hasan, executive director of BELA.

She stated that river-related negotiations are devoid of any consultation with the people who depend on the rivers.

"If we put all the blame on India that is not correct. Within the national domain we have failed to respect rivers. We treat our rivers as cesspools, as dumping grounds, as mining zones or as irrigation sources," she added. 

"We need to develop sharing and learning across borders of different countries," said Professor Dr Liyan Zhang of Tianjin University, China

Former Minister of Water Resources of Nepal Dipak Gyawali;  Chakma Circle Chief and President of Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples Network on Climate Change and Biodiversity Barrister Raja Devasish Roy and Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies at Kyoto University Rohan D'Souza also spoke at the event.