Infrastructure protectionBangladesh tops list of countries at risk from sea level rise
Scientists say that see levels may rise by up to the feet by 2100.The implications of this would have drastic consequences for nearly all coastal nations, but the consensus is that Bangladesh will be the hardest hit by the change. Leading Bangladeshis say that since Bangladesh produces less than 0.3 percent of the emissions driving climate change, it would unjust for Bangladesh to rely on its own meager resources to solve this problem. One solution they offer: fifty million Bangladeshis (out of a population of 163 million) should be allowed to move to and resettle in the countries which produce the bulk of greenhouse gasses.
Many of the world’s top scientists met in Yokohama, Japan last week to discuss the prediction that sea levels around the world could rise three feet by 2100. The implications of this would have drastic consequences for nearly all coastal nations, but the consensus is largely that Bangladesh will be the hardest hit by the change.
Coastal Bangladeshis, especially those within the Ganges Delta, live in such dire circumstances that they often face difficulty growing vegetables and maintaining drinking water due to salt water influx from flooding, and are forced to subsist in sub-quality housing on muddy, treeless plains.
As theNew York Times reports, that country has already been racked by the combination of heavy storms and poor infrastructure, with millions of citizens living in zones that could be seriously affected by the slightest sea level rise.
Rafael Reuveny, a professor at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University at Bloomington, told the paper, “There are a lot places in the world at risk from rising sea levels, but Bangladesh is at the top of everybody’s list…And the world is not ready to cope with the problems.”
Despite the threat to Bangladesh, the country only produces “0.3 percent of the emissions driving climate change” — leading to the idea that the problems facing the country are also becoming an issue of justice.
Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Advance Studies, said, “These migrants should have the right to move to countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. Millions should be able to go to the United States.”
More importantly, as Tariq A. Karim, the Bangladeshi ambassador to India, warns, “We need a regional, and, better yet, a global solution. And if we don’t get one soon, the Bangladeshi people will soon become the world’s problem, because we will not be able to keep them.”
Karim estimates that up to fifty million Bangladeshis would be forced to exit the country by 2050 if sea rise predictions turn out to be true.
