Towards a strong adaptation strategy

Md. Asadullah Khan

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Although Bangladesh has had a share of just 0.2 percent of world carbon emission, still global warming as a result of the buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases generated by the industrialized countries has crossed the boundaries of those countries and now wreak havoc in the poorer countries like Bangladesh, Maldives, India, the Philippines and Indonesia. Like the evil genies that flew from Pandora's box, technological advances have provided the means of upsetting nature's equilibrium, that intricate set of biological, physical and chemical interactions that make up the web of life. Starting at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, smokestacks have disgorged noxious gases into the atmosphere, factories have dumped toxic wastes into rivers and streams, automobiles have guzzled irreplaceable fossil fuels and fouled the air with detritus. In the name of progress, forests have been denuded, lakes poisoned with pesticides and other chemicals, and underground aquifers pumped dry. Most worryingly, the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has driven the planet's average temperature by about one degree Celsius now and if things go like this global average temperature is likely to increase by about 2 to 5 degree Celsius by 2012 period. That will cause the oceans to rise by several feet, flooding coastal areas, and ruining huge tracts of farmland through salinization. Changing weather patterns caused by global warming have already made huge areas infertile or uninhabitable, touching off refugee movements unprecedented in history. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change predicts that during the next decades, billions of people, particularly those in the developing countries will face changes in the rainfall patterns that will contribute to water shortages or flooding and rising temperature that will cause shifts in crop growing seasons. This increased food shortages and distribution of disease vectors will put populations at greater health and life risk

A look into past centuries reveals that people have always adapted to variations in climate by making preparations based on their resources and their knowledge gained through experiences of past weather patterns. The majority of the world's scientists today agree that the earth's climate is changing. That underscores the fact that communities' past experience alone can no longer provide a reliable guide to the future. Accordingly, securing economic and social well-being of vulnerable people will require communities, scientists and policy-makers to work together to consider the implications of a changing climate. A historical perspective can help us, because ours is not the first generation of people to face environmental challenges. Many past societies collapsed partly from their failure to solve problems similar to those we face today.especially problems of deforestation, water management, topsoil loss, and climate change. The long list of victims include Anasazi in the U.S southwest, the Maya, Easter islanders, the Greenland Norse, Mycenaean Greeks, and inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent, the Indus Valley, Great Zimbabwe, and Angkor Wat. The outcomes ranged from “just” collapse of society to the deaths of most people. This happened in societies having far lower population densities than we have today.

Secondly, some environments are more fragile than others, making some societies more prone to collapse than others. On that consideration fragility varies even within the same country, for instance south western part of Bangladesh are especially at risk from sea level rise, salinization of soil for agriculture that at the present moment is dependent on irrigation -almost the same problems that overwhelmed the Anasazi.

Thirdly, otherwise robust societies can be dragged down by the environmental problems of their trade partners. About 500 years ago, two Polynesian societies, on Henderson Island and Pitcairn Island, vanished because they depended for vital imports on the Polynesian society or Mangareva Island, which collapsed from deforestation. We Bangladeshis can well understand how vulnerable we are firstly because of the oil price fluctuations in the oil-exporting countries and secondly because of the carbon emission problems that have plagued all the developed and developing countries alike.

Fourthly, sensible citizenry wonder why political leaders in our country who talk glibly about so many problems just either to remain in power or to capture power didn't see the problems developing around them and do something to avoid disaster ? One explanation is the conflicts between the short-term interests of those in power and the long-term interests of everybody : affluent sections were becoming richer from processes that ultimately undermined society. The stark reality is that wealthy people either in American or anywhere in the world including Bangladesh do things that enrich themselves in the short run and harm everyone in the long run. Despite what we often see and even preach, land grabbers are filling up wetlands to create housing land with business interest and encroaching on the rivers obstructing their natural flow and polluting the water dangerously with ominous consequences that we are now witnessing. Recalling the fact that the Anasazi chiefs harboured an illusion that they could get away with those policies for a while, but ultimately they bought themselves the privilege of being merely the last to starve.

Unquestionably, there are differences between our situation and those of the past societies. Our problems are more dangerous than those of Anasazi. Today there are more humans alive, packing far greater destructive power than ever before. Unlike the Anasazi, a society today can't collapse without affecting societies far away. Because of globalization, the risk we face today is of a worldwide collapse, not just a local tragedy.

Because of the significant increase in global warming resulting from explosive nature of carbon emission during the last few years, the magnitude of current variability and additional climate risk on development seems to be very large and pervasive and as such addressing the current variability and future climate vulnerabilities is now an urgent task.

The ability of communities to adapt to climate change is determined by their level of development, their access to resources and their scientific and technical capacity. Precisely true, the impacts of climate variability create challenges for the world's poorest communities like Bangladesh as their livelihoods are likely to be more sensitive to climate change. What aggravates their problems most are some frequent extreme events like hurricanes, floods, tidal surges and some more long term stresses such as water scarcity and increased recurrence of drought.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines adaptation as the adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. More correctly, adaptation, according to some environmentalists like Mitchell and Tanner is defined as an understanding of how individuals, groups and natural systems can prepare for and respond to changes in climate or their environment. While mitigation tackles the cause of climate change, adaptation tackles the effects of the phenomenon. A successful adaptation can reduce by building on and strengthening existing coping strategies.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change refers to adaptation in several of its articles : Article 4.1 (f) : all Parties shall “Take climate change considerations into account, to the extent feasible, in their relevant social, economic and environment policies and actions, and employ appropriate methods, for example, impact assessment, formulated and determined nationally, with a view to minimizing adverse effects on the economy, on public health and on quality of the environment, of projects and measures undertaken by them to mitigate or adapt to climate change.

In a perverse irony despite Bangladesh having almost no role (0.2 percent ) in greenhouse gas emission, the country suffers most because of global warming resulting from green house gas emissions by the developed countries. Unhappily, Bangladesh has been increasingly undergoing recurrent fury of floods, cyclones, unusual and unseasonal rains, drought, tidal surges along its south western coast while absence of monsoon rain in the northern part has caused desertification putting almost 40 million people in the country as a whole almost homeless and without any living and livelihood.

Adaptation can go on in a variety of forms, such as better education, training and awareness of climate change and more technical measures, such as drought- resistant seeds and better coastal protection. With uncertainties looming and climatic upheaval hitting the country with alarming frequency, there is need to put efforts on increasing our adaptive capacity in relation to key sectors, such as agriculture and health.

Efforts are under way to build a world without waste, a world without poisons, a world in which all materials are continuously recycled. William McDonough, an architect by profession in Virginia, USA has achieved commendable success in creating such sustainable world through his visionary work. Bill Ford, the great grand son of Henry Ford and chairman of the Ford Motor Co. decided to rebuild the company's historic River Rouge complex, destroyed by an explosion in 1999 in a new site outside Detroit and he hired McDonough as a sustainability expert to help make the plant as environmentally friendly as possible. McDonough did it and it has been the greenest car factory ever built. Only thirty five sky lights illuminate the 1.85 millionsq-m area to save money on lighting. Sedum, an ivy-like plant, covers the roof and help insulate the building while absorbing storm water, providing a natural habitat and saving the company an estimated $35 million in construction costs and much more from lower energy use. Without having any directive from either the state or Federal government, many enterprising industrialists and entrepreneurs are now attracted to the idea of a world with less carbon that would not affect development and profit but lead to the creation of a sustainable world.

We might recall it once again that Nature is the most efficient system with no waste leaving only food for decomposers.The same materials have been recycled billions of years As for example, BASF's Corp's carpet fiber unit has developed a recyclable nylon that makes it possible to reconstitute old carpets into new .

For Bangladesh, especially the main adaptation strategy to climate change will be achieved through shore protection that must be designed to prevent sea level rise from inundating low lying coastal property eroding beaches or worsen flooding. Even if the costs of such protection for a poor economy like Bangladesh may be prohibitively high, still the country can ill-afford to ignore it because like many other countries and regions outside Bangladesh, the vast populace in the coastal region of the country does not have any option to retreat anywhere else. Adaptation strategies in the present day climate fluctuations include farmers planting different crops for different seasons and wildlife migrating to more suitable habitats as the seasons change. It has now been recognized that the primary task to address climate change adaptation is mainly about better water management as water is the primary medium through which climate change influences the Earth's ecosystems and therefore people's livelihoods and well-being. Bangladesh has undertaken a 52 crore taka adaptation plan that includes sapling breeding for country-wide massive afforestation, and coastal afforestation along the embankments and char areas. Moreover the government has embarked upon a project for dredging the rivers to keep them on their natural course through removing silt from the bed of the rivers in a bid to contain flooding and reduce flood induced damages

A major concern in Bangladesh now is land and water degradation due to drought, and the growing scarcity of arable land surface, groundwater and rangeland. As growing populations turn to wooded lands for cooking fuel, timber, and expanded agricultural activity, the resulting depletion of forests or tree cover is compounding the problem. The present situation calls for sustainable approaches to agricultural intensification by promoting appropriate technologies, community empowerment, informed decision- making and policies that support National Resource Management.

One of the important lessons learned is that technologies built on local practices result in a less negative impact on the environment than those of standardized, high-input technologies. In an innovative project in Niger, irrigation work has been turned to termites. The technique involves digging holes some 15-20 cm deep and then using the unearthed soil to build protective ridges around the hole. The hole bottoms are covered with manure, which becomes a breeding ground for termites. The termites bore through the hard baked soil, producing a delicate network of tunnels. When the rains come, the holes and tunnels fill with water, and farmers plant the seeds without having to overexert themselves.

Natural resource degradation is a serious problem in eastern and southern Africa, a region that suffers from deforestation, loss of soil fertility, soil compaction, water scarcity and overgrazing. The major areas of concern are halting and reversing deforestation and degradation of land, controlling erosion, and managing soil, soil moisture, and water, recovering and conserving marine resources and conserving biodiversity.

The Zambia Forest Resource Management Project, for example, has embarked on a series of community- based activities to raise incomes and enhance the sustainable use of forest resources. One major initiative is woodlot planting, which is carried out by communities for their own use and sale, and should reduce cutting in natural forests. In Lesotho, the Machobane farming system, named after its local inventor, was used in the Soil and Water Conservation and Agro-forestry Programme. The system replaces traditional mono-cropping with intensive relay- cropping along contours in order to control erosion and conserve moisture. It enhances soil fertility by using wood ash and farmland manure. The system also emphasizes intensive farmer training (mostly farmer to farmer), a high level of participation and empowerment of small land holders.

The main environmental problems facing Bangladesh now due to climate change are land and water degradation, sedimentation of water courses, loss of forest resources and biodiversity, and degradation of fisheries . Special attention has to be given to vulnerable areas, especially vast coastal areas from Barisal to Patuakhali to Bhola to Satkhira which were hardest hit by tidal surges, salinization and prolonged inundation because of climate change upheavals.
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The author an education administrator, is a columnist.

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