TO mitigate the vulnerability of climatic chaos, the most likely victim countries of the world have been preparing themselves with the necessary initiatives. But Bangladesh, believed to be the worst possible victim; still lags behind in its defense – the reduction of the possible fallouts of climate risk. A report carried in this newspaper on Monday said around 4 crore people of Bangladesh may become homeless and lose their livelihoods due to climatic consequences of the melting of the ice in Antarctica. Scientists predict extreme changes to the global environment are inevitable due to a collapse in the large portion of ice that lies on top of Antarctica. Consequently, the danger for Bangladesh and its people is more imminent than ever before.
The combined risk of rising sea levels, droughts, and chaotic storms places Bangladesh at number one in the global Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI). The other major three climate victim countries are the Maldives, Netherlands and Philippines. Members of this trio have already taken some pragmatic steps to reduce the risk factor. The Netherlands erected a massive wall along the ocean shore, while Maldives started filling sands on its atolls to raise the land mass by three meters by 2020. The Philippines has brought about massive changes in construction engineering so that it could absorb the climatic hit. But Bangladesh has done nothing significant to this way. Therefore, it is imperative for the government to show more efficiency in offsetting the impacts of climate change aiming to check the gradual increase of climate refugees.
In this context, the concern of the climate experts about the transparency in climate fund spending and mismanagement of the money is to be weighed seriously. The current budget (FY 2014-15) has an allocation of $320 million over five years to the domestic climate adaptation fund. Bangladesh has so far received $187 million for its climate resilience fund from international donors, with some of the money going to adaptation projects. The Finance Minister proposed no new funding from the next fiscal (FY 2015-16) for the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF), country’s own adaptation funding initiative. Though a significant amount of money had been allocated for the BCCTF in the last five years but the spending was poor. The way the fund was managed has raised questions for many. Transparency International, however, smelt political influence, nepotism and corruption in the way funds were allocated.
Experts view that the government’s decision to cut its own spending on climate adaptation is the wrong one. To encourage donors to pay more to the resilience fund, we ask the government to keep the BCCTF well funded and replenished. Govt must assure transparency in spending climate funds to ensure that the money goes to support the climate victims and is not manipulated by any individual, government or non-government organization. Bangladesh still has a lot to do to adapt to climate change as one-fourth of our population are already lacking sufficient food, safe drinking water and sanitation systems. The threat of a possible 4 crore climate refugees is no small matter that it should go unnoticed so casually. The issue should be dealt with seriously.
