Editorial
Climatic change poses severe threats
Focus on long term mitigation
THE scientific report unveiled by World Bank this week paints a grim picture for Bangladesh in terms of climate-induced changes that pose a serious threat to poverty alleviation. Were we to take the findings at face value, a 2-degree increase in global temperature over the coming decades would result in severe heat waves that would cut food production and pose serious threat to infrastructure and adversely affect livelihoods of millions across the land.
Extreme floods, tropical cyclones, rising sea levels would mean that the impact of disasters would increase manifold for a country like ours. In a resource-constrained and over-populated country any reduction in agriculture production, fall in water resources, depletion of ecosystems would spell disaster, unless mitigation efforts are taken into consideration now. Poor harvests will propel a large number of rural and traditionally agriculture-based communities to migrate to the cities – that are already under stretched to the limit in terms of providing bare minimum services.
Since the forces of nature cannot be controlled, it falls upon policymakers to make preparations to meet challenges head on. In many respects, a lot of major work has already been undertaken, particularly in terms of early warning systems for flood and embankments. However, these will not be enough unless the global community wakes up to the necessity of putting a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Countries like Bangladesh which will inevitably face the full brunt of these climatic changes need to be aided to prepare for the worst.
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