THE World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surged at a record-breaking speed in 2016 to the highest level in eight hundred thousand years. The abrupt changes in the atmosphere witnessed in the past 70 years are without precedent. The organization’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin said globally averaged concentrations of CO2 reached 403.3 parts per million in 2016, up from 400ppm in 2015 because of a combination of human activities and a strong El Niño event that sends ocean water at certain regions at boiling point. Without rapid cuts in CO2 and other Greenhouse Gas emissions, the world is heading to face dangerous temperature increases by the end of this century.
As a low lying country, Bangladesh is on critical radar of climate change affect where the impact of climate change in the form of disrupting seasonal weather and untimely raindrop or drought are already visible. If all parties to Paris Climate Agreement don’t slash carbon emission to their commitment level, the world is going to face serious disaster and Bangladesh will be in the forefront of the countries to suffer the worst.
The Bulletin said rapidly increasing atmospheric levels of CO2 and other Greenhouse Gases have the potential to initiate unprecedented changes in climate systems, leading to severe ecological and economic disruptions. The factors mainly responsible for unprecedented rise in carbon emission have been identified as faster population growth, intensive agricultural practices, increases in land use and deforestation, industrialization and more energy use from fossil fuel sources. They are at work beginning in 1750. Concentrations of CO2 are now 145 percent of the pre-industrial era. Since 1990, there has been a 40 percent increase in total radioactive activities in the atmosphere warming the climate. The laws of physics tell us we will face a much hotter and more extreme climate in the future.
The developed countries – USA, China and developing like India and Brazil — are the highest carbon emitters in the world. While Bangladesh emitted only 70 tons of carbon in 2015 the impact of the Greenhouse Effect would hard hit the coastal people of Bangladesh without much contributing to Carbon Emission. The problem is that the USA is the biggest emitter of carbon in the air as an industrial nation but President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from Paris Climate Agreement to allow US to use unrestraint fossil fuel in industrial activities is the biggest threat to rein in the situation.
We must say the USA was the biggest victim of unprecedented flood and sea storm this year like in the previous years and we believe President Trump will agree now that climate change is the biggest threat not only to the USA but to all humanity. The world must work together before too late.
