In few places on earth is human life as fragile and the danger posed by climate change as great as in Bangladesh. The good news, as I saw when I visited Bangladesh last month with the development charity Christian Aid is that it is possible to adapt to a dangerous and changing climate.
Bangladesh is prone to flooding, especially at times of cyclones. Since 1991 a network of around 2,500 cyclone shelters has been built across the most flood-affected areas in southern Bangladesh – structures built on elevated platforms, doubling as schools and community centres in normal times, in which the population can seek refuge. When Cyclone Sidr struck in 2007, the alert was sounded and 600,000 people were lifted above the waters until the floods subsided – lives saved by a network of latter day Noah’s Arks.
Until recently, it was considered taboo even to discuss adapting to changing climatic conditions. “Don’t talk about adaptation,” went the argument, “because that will signal that we’ve given up on stopping global warming.” But what you can see in this video of my trip to Bangladesh is that adaptation can save lives and protect communities in some of the world’s most vulnerable areas.
With so much attention over the past few weeks focused on what was to happen, and then failed to happen, at the climate change conference in Copenhagen, the situation on the ground in Bangladesh is a powerful reminder of why a meaningful international climate change agreement is so vital, and the key role that adaptation financing for some of the poorest countries in the world must play in securing it.
I hope you will find the video interesting, and look forward to hearing your views on it.
Comment by Jack Hughes on December 27, 2009 at 11:48 am
Great video, Greg.
And a great policy on climate change – allowing charities to funnel money from donors to aid projects.
You need to emphasise that giving money to charities like Christian Aid is VOLUNTARY.
Otherwise a lot of people will misunderstand this new policy and think you plan to send taxpayers’ money offshore.
Comment by Chris D on December 28, 2009 at 11:51 am
“…because that will signal that we’ve given up on stopping global warming.”
I dont think anyone need worry about stopping something that doesn’t exist. Why not just focus the article on giving “large-scale flood assistance” to Bangla Desh people, rather than finding an excuse to drag global warming into it?
Comment by David Watson on December 28, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Rising sea levels is an increasing issue. We can make (in UK) new devices which absorb coastal sea energy and reduce erosion, the same devices can use the kinetic energy extracted to either produce electricity or high pressure sea water, which can in turn be Reverse Osmosised into drinking water. I know this because we have the prototypes but no funding to develop them. The UK marine renewables budgets seem to evaporate before they reach us smaller highly innovative developers.
Comment by Richard Saumarez on December 28, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Dear Dr Clark,
I am sure that you are now developing a very serious climate policy. The problem that I have is with the AGW hypothesis. While this is regarded as setlled science, it is now clear that the scientific basis for AGW, apart from a modest increase due to CO2 forcing, is becoming increasingly uncertain.
The CO2 reduction policies that are in place at the moment, produced by a climate epiphamy on the part of Gordon Brown, will have very serious and probably uncertain economic consequences. I would urge you to take a more open line on the subject and gather much better scientific evidence before embarking on a huge change in our economy. The Wegman report into the “hockey-stick” curve, produced on behalf of Congress was a model of objective analysis of the issue. Surely some investigations such as that, performed early in a Conservative Government (God Willng!) might be a prudent step.
Comment by Kieran Enright on January 7, 2010 at 7:50 am
Further to the comment by Richard Saumarez, Dec.28, 11:42pm
have you read the open letter written by Viscount Monckton to Kevin Rudd, the Australian PM, on the relative costs of climate change mitigation, as against adaptation? If I may quote from one paragraph:-
“One-fiftieth of a Celsius degree of warming forestalled is all that complete, global compliance with the Copenhagen Accord for an entire decade would achieve. Yet the cost of achieving this result – an outcome so small that our instruments would not be able to measure it – would run into trillions of dollars.”
Monckton includes the necessary mathematical formulae for his calculations in his letter. I would be interested to know your views on this letter – and even more interested to know why the Conservatives as a party appear to be totally ignoring the revelations of data corruption which emerged from the leaked e-mails and program code from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
Comment by Peter Norman on January 12, 2010 at 3:53 pm
I agree with the AGW sceptics here. Researchers have established that the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta region has increase in land area by accretion over the last 200 years. More importantly, would a “Copenhagen deal” affect in any way the tropical monsoon climate of Bangladesh? 160m people of Bangladesh live in area of shifting sand and silt formed in largest river delta in the world. That’s the problem here. I suggest, Dr. Clark, that you catch up on some history and geography of the region. Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_famine_of_1974