By Nonima Aman Oni
Climate justice is a concept that puts equity and human rights at the core of every measures on climate change. This concept has been widely used to refer to the responsibilities that countries hold to the climate crisis. Mainly its goal is to seek justice for those countries, particularly the most vulnerable countries who have the least contribution to the crisis. It refers that the countries who have become affluent by emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases have a responsibility to help those vulnerable countries who have been affected the most by this climate change. The developing countries like Bangladesh are the most sufferers while contributing little to the issue.
Bangladesh, a small South Asian country, is one of the most vulnerable nations in the world regarding climate change. Despite contributing minimally to global greenhouse gas emissions, it bears a disproportionate burden of the adverse effects caused by climate change. This burden makes the concept of climate justice not only important but also essential for a developing country like Bangladesh. Climate justice wants to achieve an equitable distribution of both the burdens of climate change and the efforts to mitigate climate change for the vulnerable population like Bangladesh. Bangladesh has the greatest vulnerability due to its geographical conditions. It is low-lying land barely above sea level, making it highly susceptible to rising sea levels, storm surges, and flooding. As well as, the country has a tropical monsoon climate, which brings intense cyclones, heavy rains, and subsequent riverine and flash floods. It could submerge vast areas of coastal Bangladesh. It is also estimated that by 2050, one in every seven Bangladeshis could become a climate migrant. Rising sea caused salinity intrusions damaging the agricultural lands and freshwater supplies, sabotaging food and water security for millions. Bangladesh with 170 million populations has limited land and resources forcing the country to struggle to accommodate the displaced and to manage the growing burden of climate-induced hardships. This huge vulnerable population including women and children bears the brunt of climate impacts, exacerbating poverty and inequality, injustice, and depriving of human rights. Bangladesh faces some of the severe consequences of global warming yet contributes a tiny portion to the emission of greenhouse gases. These rising sea levels and weather events will displace millions of people in Bangladesh and will create “climate refugees”.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), it is predicted that Bangladesh will lose 11% of its land if the sea level rises by 2025. Due to climate change, many coteries of Bangladesh will lose not only their homeland but also their cultural heritage. Bangladesh will face erosion of riverbanks, particularly in the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna River basins. Bangladesh’s unique ecosystem is under threat, including the Sundarban mangrove forest due to climate change. This will decline in wildlife species like the Bengal Tiger and disrupt ecological balance.
Climate change is a burning issue of human rights. Every human has the right to live with dignity. But due to climate change people are losing lives, livelihood, language, culture, facing shortage of foods and safe waters and so on. As a developing country, Bangladesh took many initiatives to face this issue. But nothing has happened to be effective at a great way. But we can hope a cooperative efforts towards this issue can bring some light to our general people and also to our environment. Here are some examples of climate justice enterprises in Bangladesh:
- National Determined Contributions (NDC)
On 26 August 2021, Bangladesh revised and submitted an updated NDC, intensifying both conditional and unconditional contributions with ambitious quantifiable mitigation targets. Our updated, enhanced NDC has expanded its emission reduction coverage from only the energy sector to the whole economy of Bangladesh.
- Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100
The Government of Bangladesh has recently adopted the “Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100”. It is a comprehensive 100-year strategic plan aiming at gradual sustainable progress through an adaptive delta management process, targeting to achieve a safe, climate-resilient and prosperous delta with a mission to ensure long-term water and food security, economic growth and environmental sustainability and effectively mitigating fragility to natural disasters and building elasticity to climate change.
- National Communication Reports to UNFCCC
Bangladesh submitted First (Initial), Second and Third National Communication in 2002, 2012, and 2018 respectively. According to the Third National Communication of Bangladesh, submitted in 2018, per capita emission from all sectors was 0.98 tons CO2 eq for the year 2012. Bangladesh has started off to prepare its First Biennial Update Report (BUR1) to the UNFCCC considering GHG emission inventory for 2013-2019 and updating mitigation options.
- Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF)
The government of Bangladesh established the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF) in FY 2009-10 from its resources becoming a pioneer among the developing countries. The BCCT has undertaken about 800 projects so far with an investment of around 480 million US dollars to implement strategic actions of the BCCSAP which mainly focus on adaptation, mitigation, and climate change research.
- Adaptation Measures in Agriculture
The government of Bangladesh has researched the development of drought, cold, waterlog, diseases, pest and salt tolerant crop varieties to cope with the changing climate. For example: Early harvest short-duration rice varieties, drought tolerant early varieties, salt tolerant rice varieties, flooding tolerant varieties.
Climate justice is a survival strategy for a fragile country like Bangladesh. It is not only a concept but a burning situation for Bangladesh. Bangladesh’s extreme vulnerability, minimal contribution to global emissions, and limited resources make it a prime example of why climate justice is important. Bangladesh doesn’t have enough resources to fight back with climate change and as a result, the country is facing several challenges in securing climate justice. There is also lacking of coordination among the government bodies and policymakers reflecting the indifferent attitude of local people to various disaster management programs. Ensuring climate justice for Bangladesh requires a concerted effort from the international community, particularly developed nations, to provide financial, technical, and political support.
Climate Justice mainly seeks justice for countries like Bangladesh who contributes minimum amount to green house gas emission but suffers at a large scale. This injustice needs to be addressed and solved soon. Bangladesh can lose its natural and social balance if this continues like now. We as a citizens of Bangladesh needs to be more aware of the injustice that are happening to us and also about our nature. Bangladesh due to its insufficiency can’t fight back alone with this injustice so the developed countries should come forward and set an example of global village and brotherhood by ensuring climate justice for countries like Bangladesh and government along with local people should work together effectively towards this burning issue.
The writer is a member of the Social Research Group (SRG) and an undergraduate student of Public Administration at Comilla University, Bangladesh. The article is a work in progress.
