CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT
The World Bank on Wednesday said that more than three-fourths of the population of Bangladesh were at risk of declining living standards because of rising temperature and erratic rainfall caused by climate change.
A report titled ‘South Asia’s Hotspots: the Impact of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards’ the bank released in Dhaka projected the catastrophic impacts on poorest region of the world.
It said the climate change could cost Bangladesh 6.7 per cent of gross domestic product besides affecting the living standards of 13.4 crore population by 2050.
The report, prepared based on analysis of rising temperature in this region in the past 60 years, also projected that nearly half of the South Asia’s population would be affected because of adverse climate change impact on agriculture, health and productivity.
Presenting the report, its author Muthukumara Mani, also lead World Bank economist in South Asia, said that Bangladesh’s average annual temperature was expected to rise by 1-1.5 degrees Celsius despite preventive measure in line with the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
The report identified that Chattogram division would be most vulnerable to climate change having seven of the 10 most affected hotspots, districts most vulnerable to climate change.
Top two climate hotspots will likely be Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban that according to the report might see more than 18 per cent decline in living standards followed by Chattogram, Rangamati and Noakhali.
Other hotspots are Barguna, Bagerhat and Satkhira.
Finance minister AMA Muhith, visiting World Bank vice-president for South Asia region Hartwidf Schafer and its country director Qimiao Fan were present at the report lunching.
Muhith said that income inequality was not improving although poverty was decreasing very fast with the high economic growth crossing 7 per cent in past couple of years.
He noted that despite adversities like threat of climate change, lower than expected foreign direct investment and poor infrastructure farmers and workers helped Bangladesh to overcome its status of least developed country.
He also noted that the ‘cheap money’ from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank was not available with the country’s transition to the developing country.
Schafer said that for Bangladesh, climate change was an acute threat to development and efforts to end poverty.
In addition to the coastal zone, the warming weather would severely affect the country’s inland areas in the next decades that needed to be addressed by creation of jobs outside the agriculture sector and improve capacity of the government institutions, he said.
The report suggested that good development outcomes were the best adaption investing in skills, health, knowledge, better infrastructure and a more diversified economy should reduce climate hotspots.
It projected that the national decrease in living standards as a result of climate change might cost Bangladesh $59 billion in the hotspot districts and $171 billion throughout the country.
- NewAge/Sep 27,2018
No comments:
Post a Comment