Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque and Z.R.M. Abdullah Kaiser :
A host of global warming skeptics in the political community debated ‘all or some of the global warming scientific consensus, questioning whether global warming is actually occurring, whether human activity has contributed significantly to the warming, and on the magnitude of the threat posed by global warming.
According to the latest UN Global Warming report underlining facts and predictions ‘the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivered a huge blow to global warming skeptics. Leading climate scientists are now 90 percent sure that human activity is heating up the planet. They present various scenarios that show where global warming could take us by the end of the century. The choice is ours’.
The concerns of the government of the small island states deserve mention. Maldives, for illustration, is a small island state vulnerable to changes in sea level. Due to climate change there are possibilities of being badly damaged by cyclone, floods, tidal surge, and tsunami. The Maldives and Bangladesh are among the SAARC countries with clean air having much less incidence of emission of greenhouse gas. Despite this reality these two countries are going to be the worst victims of global warming and ‘consequential sea-level rise’. Scientists apprehended Maldives would go under sea water and one third of Bangladesh would go under sea water.
The policy communities should avoid stoic indifference to the damages already taking place Unplanned urbanization with growing urban jungles and industries is polluting and suffocating air. The deluge of urbanization is beginning to adversely affect the countryside. Development under rural modernization experiment has by now shown many a contraindication. There has been wanton destruction of forest trees in costal belts that serve to absorb carbon and the scorching heat of sun. So think of green beckoning to prevent global warming. Environment economists advocate ‘carbon-neutral economic production system’. This is the need of the hour.
Policy makers have by now given a serious thought to the gravity of the crisis like environment degradation. Realizing that environment degradation stemming from climate change cannot be reversed they think to opt for mitigation of sufferings and dislocation and enhancement of coping capacities of the coastal inhabitants. Crisis management is a two-fold mechanism-mitigation and survival. As the finance minister said “We should aim to mitigate dislocation and build the capacity to adapt lives and livelihoods” A detailed action plan will be taken to combat ‘disasters due to climate change’. The government has the plan to complete the review of medium and long term strategies to be prepared to ‘prevent the disasters’
All the same they think to maintain ecological balance and bio-diversity in the Sundarbans. Production of environment friendly renewable energy technologies is under active consideration. There is a plan to ‘bring 20 per cent of total land under afforestation programmes by 2015 to attain self-sufficiency in forest resources’.
Our think tanks at numerous climate seminars home and abroad talked in terms of conserving land and water in Bangladesh taking lesson learned from super cyclones-ail and sidre for example. They stressed long term planning on sustainable basis to minimize cyclone devastation and its aftermath suggesting a special design of embankment and ‘planting deep-rooted tree species in the coastal belt and promoting salinity-resistant or tolerant crops’.
We are now familiar with a lot of slogans like cleaning air, clear suffocation, greening country, save river, protect bio-diversity -thanks to the campaign for ecology friendly sustainable development all over the world. The government guns for long term plan for river recovery, checking pollution, massive afforestation and promoting renewable energy.
It is heartening to note that action has been taken to recover river. There are reports that huge illegal structures built along the banks of Buriganga, Turag and Sitalakhya have been knocked down barring some stray incidence of resistance against river recovery operation. The DCs of Dhaka, Narayanganganj, Gazipur and Munshiganj have been asked by the High Court (HC) to ‘take measures to protect the rivers under their jurisdiction’ Some pieces of land created by encroachment on the river bank have been recovered; more to be done to demarcate the rivers.
The broad agreement among climate scientists that global temperatures will continue to increase has led some nations, states, corporations and individuals to implement responses. These responses to global warming can be divided into mitigation of the causes and effects of global warming, adaptation to the changing global environment, and geoengineering to reverse global warming
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an approach to mitigation. Emissions may be sequestered from fossil fuel power plants, or removed during processing in hydrogen production. When used on plants, it is known as bio-energy with carbon capture and storage
There are various manifestations of responses to global warming including mitigation, adaptation and geo-engineering. Mitigation of global warming is accomplished through reductions in the rate of anthropogenic greenhouse gas release. Models suggest that mitigation can quickly begin to slow global warming, but that temperatures will appreciably decrease only after several centuries. The world’s primary international agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the UNFCCC negotiated in 1997. The Protocol now covers more than 160 countries and over 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions As of June 2009, only the United States, historically the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has refused to ratify the treaty. The treaty expires in 2012. International talks began in May 2007 on a future treaty to succeed the current one
Many environmental groups encourage individual action against global warming, as well as community and regional actions. Others have suggested a quota on worldwide fossil fuel production, citing a direct link between fossil fuel production and CO2 emissions.
There has also been business intervention on the issue of climate change including efforts to improve energy efficiency and limited moves towards use of alternative fuels. In January 2005 the European Union introduced its European Union Emission Trading Scheme through which companies in conjunction with government agree to cap their emissions or to purchase credits from those below their allowances. Australia announced its Carbon Pollution Reduction Schem in 2008. United States President Barack Obama announced plans to introduce an economy-wide cap and trade scheme.
The IPCC’s Working Group III is responsible for crafting reports on mitigation of global warming and the costs and benefits of different approaches. The 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report concludes that no one technology or sector can be completely responsible for mitigating future warming. They find there are key practices and technologies in various sectors, such as energy supply, transportation, industry, and agriculture, that should be implemented to reduced global emissions. They estimate that stabilization of carbon dioxide equivalent between 445 and 710 ppm by 2030 will result in between a 0.6 percent increase and three percent decrease in global gross domestic product
Geoengineering is the deliberate modification of Earth’s natural environment on a large scale to suit human needsAn example is greenhouse gas remediation, which removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, usually through carbon sequestration techniques such as carbon dioxide air capture. Solar radiation management reduces absorbed solar radiation, such as by the addition of stratospheric sulfur aerosols or painting roofs of houses white . No large-scale geoengineering projects have yet been undertaken.
(Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque, is a Professor of Public Administration, Chittagong University and Z.R.M. Abdullah Kaiser,is a Lecturer, Public Administration, Chittagong University)
