APPENDIX 1
Memorandum submitted by the British Bangladeshi
Professional Association (BBPA)
"Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest nations,
is also one of the most vulnerable to sea-level rise caused by
climate change. A one metre rise in sea level could permanently
flood over 15 per cent of its surface area, displacing between
10-20 million people within what is already one of the world's
most densely populated countries"
Adaptation to Climate Change in the Coastal Resources
Sector of Bangladesh; Some Issues and Problems (Al-Farouq &
Huq 1996) in JB Smith et al Adaptation to Climate Change: An International
Perspective
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The British Bangladeshi Professional Association
(BBPA) welcomes the House of Commons International Development
Committee's inquiry into Global Climate Change and Sustainable
Development.
As representatives of the largest overseas Bangladeshi
community in the developed world, we have a particularly poignant
interest in the issue of climate change. This is because whilst
the man made factors contributing to global climate change have
historically largely come from developed countries, the adverse
effects of climate change are predicted to have a disproportionate
impact on poor countries such as Bangladesh, that are less well
equipped to cope with the consequences.
The BBPA believes that the British-Bangladeshi
community can provide a valuable insight into development issues,
in particular with respect to policies affecting Bangladesh and
its relations with the United Kingdom. We note that communities
of minority origin are often inadvertently excluded from policy
making debates and believe this is regrettable because it deprives
decision makers of the unique perspective that can be provided
by such groups. This submission sets out the BBPA's response to
the Inquiry. Amongst its main recommendations, the BBPA calls
for:
— Equitable share of the global atmosphere
in further extension of the Kyoto Protocol when including the
developing world (per capita emission rights).
— A new Geneva Convention to cover
the increasing numbers of Environmental Refugees.
— Country Strategy Papers for Bangladesh
and other developing countries at DFID with significant coastal
areas to pay substantially closer attention to the issue of climate
change.
— Policy commitments to strengthen
the developing world's capacity especially Bangladesh to participate
in international negotiations including using nationals and descendants
of those countries based in the UK.
— DFID to fund a capacity building
aid programme for academic and scientific research in threatened
countries like Bangladesh to be procured through their own academic
and NGO institutions.
— Transfer of technology in the energy
field to the developing world and in particular renewable energy,
permitting growth of indigenous energy sector.
If nothing else, many of us in the Bangladeshi
community in the UK, would like to continue to be able to visit
our relatives in our ancestral home during the rest of our life-time.
The BBPA hopes the Inquiry will help to ensure that climate change
concerns are not treated as an isolated environmental concern,
but are integrated into all aspects of Government policy.
"As the largest overseas Bangladeshi community
living in the West, the British Bangladeshi community is in a
unique position to contribute to the debate on this key global
issue, which has potentially devastating consequences for our
ancestral homes" Hasneen Choudhury, Chairman of BBPA
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The British Bangladeshi Professional
Association (BBPA) welcomes the House of Commons, International
Development Committee inquiry into Global Climate Change and Sustainable
Development. We take an unashamedly pro-Bangladesh stance on many
of the issues within the Inquiry making our contribution distinct
from others such as the predominantly International Development
NGO's and Academic responses. We see this as the best way to assist
our ancestral homeland, as an emerging democracy struggling with
raising its peoples from absolute and abject poverty and environmental
threats posed by climate change. Furthermore we also feel we have
particular responsibilities, as representatives of the largest
Bangladeshi community outside of Bangladesh, in the developed
world.
1.2 To this effect, we have set up an International
Development Group to co-ordinate our campaigns and policy work,
which to date has included a submission to the DFID White Paper
on Eliminating World Poverty, making globalisation work for the
Poor. Here we advocated debt reduction for emerging democracies;
honouring our trade commitments along with the rest of the developed
world; new UN convention for Environmental Refugees; and last
but not least calling for global environmental leadership from
the UK government. A copy of the submission can be found in Appendix
A. We have also held a one day conference on Climate Change &
Bangladesh at the very end of the Marrakech meeting of the Conference
of the Parties to the Convention on Global Warming on 10 November,
with a special focus on what the Bangladeshi community in the
UK can do to safeguard their ancestral home.
1.3 We will also be organising another conference
in the late summer of 2002 on Bangladesh and Climate Change, campaigning
for the world community to have an obligation to pay serious attention
to the views of developing countries critically threatened by
climate change and any extension of the Kyoto Protocol to the
developing world to be done so on the basis of equitable share
of the global atmosphere (per capita share to emissions). It will
be undertaken in London in the lead up to the World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002.
1.4 If nothing else, many of us in the Bangladeshi
community in the UK, would like to continue to be able to visit
our relatives in our ancestral home during the rest of our life-time.
Please find below our responses to all five
key areas of the inquiry;
2. POTENTIAL
IMPACT OF
GLOBAL CLIMATE
CHANGE ON
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES,
ESPECIALLY ON
POOR PEOPLE
IN THE
COUNTRY
2.1 Bangladesh is one of the countries most
likely to suffer adverse impacts from anthropogenic climate change.
Threats include sea level rise, droughts, floods and cyclones.
Approximately a fifth of the country consists of low lying coastal
zones within 1 meter of the high water mark and almost 130,000
people were killed in the cyclones of April 1990. With a population
of 130 million, most of whom earn less than US $1 a day, it has
some of the poorest people in the world. The impacts of climate
change will only exacerbate the problems already facing the population.
2.2 Thus when discussing the threat of global
warming to Bangladesh, it is worth remembering the following;
(i) Bangladesh is one of the world's most
densely populated countries with over 130 million people living
in an area roughly the size of England and Wales.
(ii) As a poor country, ($350 per capita
GNP) Bangladesh is more vulnerable to the effects of climate change
(primarily increased storms and flooding) than most. Over 80 per
cent of the country's 130 million people depend on the land for
a living.
(iii) Located to the east of India above
the Bay of Bengal on the delta where the mighty Brahmaputra and
Ganges rivers meet, Bangladesh is traditionally highly fertile
thanks to the silt deposits brought about by the regular monsoon
flooding of two of Asia's largest rivers.
(iv) However, this fertility which is the
reason for the land being so densely populated in the first place,
is now threatened by climate change which amongst other things
is increasing salinity in the soil as it causes more flooding
from the sea, damaging the land as well as destroying homes.
(v) Bangladesh has one of the most densely
populated, low-lying, coastal zones in the world, with 20-25 million
people living within a 1-metre elevation from the high tide level.
The coastline in Bangladesh totals about 735km, of which 125km
are covered by the Sunderbans—the world's largest coastal
mangrove forest, and home to the endangered Royal Bengal Tiger.
Experts fear that sea level rise will permanently harm this unique
habitat.
3. BANGLADESH
EFFORTS TO
MEET MILLENNIUM
DEVELOPMENT GOALS
3.1 The country needs to develop a concerted
plan of action to face problems of climate change and the development
challenges they will present. This will require a well co-ordinated
policy for scientific research and development, focusing particularly
on building adaptive capacity. In particular, such capacity needs
to be developed in the fields of disaster management, agriculture,
water resource management, and coastal zone management. For example,
Bangladesh and the Netherlands are both low-lying deltaic countries,
but the Netherlands has the financial, scientific, and technological
capacity to build higher sea walls, whereas Bangladesh does not.
The elements of the strategy specific to climate change also needs
to be incorporated into national and sectoral planning to ensure
that they are compatible with national sustainable development
objectives.
3.2 The most important step will be for
the government of Bangladesh to appreciate the importance of climate
change as a development issue in the short and medium term—not
just an environmental issue for the long term—and to develop
appropriate scientific and strategic planning initiatives keeping
this in view. Some of the problems will also need to be tackled
on a regional scale. For example, the watershed problems of the
Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers, which flow through Nepal and India
before they reach Bangladesh which will require co-operation across
the countries in the region.
3.3 Bangladesh has been able to develop
some skills and capabilities in its scientific community to address
the problems of assessing vulnerability to climate change and
developing appropriate strategic responses. Bangladeshi scientists
have played important roles as lead authors of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. For example, the Bangladesh Centre for
Advanced Studies has been a pioneer in preparing assessments of
vulnerability to climate change, and the Bangladesh University
of Engineering and Technology has been analysing greenhouse gas
emissions from different sectors and devising policies and measures
to reduce emissions in the future. However, Bangladesh has very
few financial resources of its own to support that required scientific
research. For example, almost the entire budget for the universities
and research institutes is spent on salaries and running costs,
leaving little if any research work to be supported by international
donors. In this respect, it would be useful for DFID to fund a
capacity building aid programme for such academic and scientific
research in threatened countries like Bangladesh through their
own academic and NGO set ups, so the countries develop appropriate
strategic responses. This will obviously aid their ability to
participate in international negotiations and it is raised as
an issue again below.
4. INTERNATIONAL
MECHANISMS FOR
ACHIEVING SD, MITIGATING
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION
AND LOWER
GREENHOUSE GAS
EMISSIONS
4.1 Bangladesh emits less than 0.1 per cent
of global greenhouse gas emissions compared to 24 per cent by
the United States with less then 3 per cent of the world's population,
raising major global equity questions. Future rounds of the Kyoto
Protocol extending its coverage to the developing world need to
acknowledge this as the US and the rest of the developed world
has had the benefit of free riding on the earth's carbon sinks
for more than the past century. For such an agreement to be seen
as fair by the majority of world's people and thus the agreement
to last for a century or more, an equitable share of the global
atmosphere is required. As the amount of CO2 that can
be safely emitted is finite, there has to be a long term framework
to share out available emissions. The most equitable and logical
way to share finite emissions is based on equal per capita emissions
rights. We trust in the meantime, the UK government will continue
to provide global environmental leadership on these important
details and through its special relationship with the US convince
it of the importance of it ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.
4.2 Together with other severely threatened
nations Bangladesh needs to play a still more important role in
international negotiations on climate change. The cause of the
problem is being addressed in the international negotiations around
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but
Bangladesh has been able to participate nominally so far. The
countries such as Bangladesh, stand to be most adversely affected
by the continued emissions of greenhouse gases have an especially
powerful interest in global actions to mitigate them. The world
community has an obligation to pay serious attention to their
views on the establishment of developing country emission targets,
which as argued above should be based on equitable share of global
atmosphere, for example per capita right to emissions.
4.3 Thus we welcome policy commitments to
strengthen the developing world's capacity to participate in international
negotiations and hope you would consider extending this to also
using nationals and descendants of those countries based in the
UK. For example, using British Bangladeshis with relevant background
and talents in assisting in better representation of the developing
world. This would be a good case of using the human capital available
from the wider Bangladeshi diaspora, particularly those in the
UK.
4.4 In the UK, we are now about to establish
the world's first economy-wide means of reducing greenhouse gases
through the introduction of emission trading. It was the UK who
gave us this concept, now being embraced in the UK, Europe and
elsewhere. The government must seek the active involvement of
representatives of the developing world in this new market being
created particularly by those representing countries most affected
by the consequences of the greenhouse gases, like Bangladesh.
Doing so would give more credibility to the extending out of the
Kyoto Protocol to cover developing countries greenhouse emissions,
as the developing world get actively involved as agents, sellers
and buyers of the permits between countries and companies.
4.5 Environmental degradation also leaves
the poor more vulnerable to natural disasters. Indeed, moving
with your feet has been one of the major responses of human kind
to poverty, hunger and environmental disasters. The Red Cross
Report of 1998, estimated for the first time that the number of
refugees from natural disasters exceeded those displaced as a
result of war. Such environmental refugees should be acknowledged
and be assisted by a similar 1951 Geneva Convention for political
refugees, in their host countries. Such a safety net is the least
we in the developed world should offer, as an acknowledgement
of our contribution to the global environmental problems and pushing
particular models of development.
5. PRIVATE INVESTMENT
THAT IS
ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE
AND LINKED
TO WIDER
AIM OF
POVERTY ELIMINATION
5.1 An appropriate area for private investment
for poverty elimination and environmental sustainability in Bangladesh
is renewable energy and the country's abundant gas fields both
on and off shore. The proposed exporting of the gas to nearby
markets could well fund the further extension of the electricity
to the rural population; reducing fuel wood dependency and giving
improvements in people's life, like electric lighting in their
homes.
5.2 Bangladesh is also taking steps to reduce
its future emissions through the development of renewable energy
and the use of relatively clean natural gas. Bangladesh has only
been able to supply electricity to less than a quarter of its
rural population, this means the country has the opportunity of
developing future energy infrastructure with renewable energy
including solar photo voltaics as well as wind energy in the coastal
areas. Already several groups including Grameen Shakti (a subsidiary
of Grameen Bank) is providing photo voltaics and wind energy to
rural communities.
5.3 The gas fields are an obvious candidate
for foreign direct investment (FDI) in Bangladesh, not withstanding
the present discussion in Dhaka about scarcity of gas for future
domestic use against receiving receipts now. It has already drawn
much interest from foreign companies, and in particular the exporting
of the gas to neighbouring India. But the domestic market needs
to be developed with a new gas pipe infrastructure particularly
for rural households and should be a clear requirement for companies
exploiting this natural resource, allowing the transfer of technology
to the indigenous energy sector.
5.4 The vast majority of the rural population
still rely on biomass energy for their primary energy needs (mainly
cooking) which has implications on the rural biomass availability.
Indigenous methods of using improved stoves for cooking, bricketing
of saw-dust and other biomass and use of peat in the Gopalganj
area are worth promoting further to enable the rural poor population
to get access to energy in a more efficient and environment-friendly
manner.
6. DFID'S POLICIES,
STRATEGIES AND
PROGRAMMES ON
THIS FRONT
6.1 Bangladesh is one of DFID's primary
aid countries. Over 50 million people, roughly half of its population,
officially lives in absolute poverty, mainly in rural areas.
6.2 Ever since the huge international attention
focused on the country during its war of independence in 1971,
Bangladesh has had a large NGO sector playing a major role in
development activities. Bangladeshi NGOs include significant internationally
acclaimed success stories such as the Grameen Bank and Gonashastra
Kendra (People's Health Centre). During his recent diplomatic
trip to South Asia in January 2002, Tony Blair and his wife visited
the village of West Kelia, near Savar, the centre of a major development
programme run by the country's largest NGO, the Bangladesh Rural
Advancement Committee (BRAC).
6.3 DFID's annual aid programme to Bangladesh
is about £75 million, making the country the second largest
recipient of UK development aid after India. DFID's current Country
Strategy Paper for Bangladesh ("CSP") was published
in November 1998. It sets six key objectives in line with DFID
policy:
(i) Sustainable improvements in livelihoods
and basic services for the poor and those vulnerable to poverty.
(ii) Sustainable, broad based and pro poor
economic growth.
(iii) Better governance and more effective
institutions.
(iv) Improved realisation of human rights.
(v) Improvements to the position on women
in society.
(vi) Consistency in UK and Bangladeshi policies
in support of the elimination of poverty in Bangladesh.
6.4 The strategy paper envisages an increase
in the aid programme to £90 million in 2002-03, with a total
of 46 projects with an aggregate value of £263 million, already
approved. The next paper is expected to be completed by Autumn
2002.
6.5 The BBPA broadly supports the aims and
principles listed by the CSP, but notes with considerable concern
that little or no attention is paid to the potential drastic
consequences of climate change for Bangladesh. As noted elsewhere,
the human and political consequences of a large unplanned displacement
of people caused by climate change could have grave implications
not only for Bangladesh but many other countries. Moreover, it
is self evident that a failure to consider climate change concerns
could have catastrophic consequences for the attainment of all
DFID's other objectives.
6.6 The BBPA believes that the next CSPs
for Bangladesh and other developing countries with significant
coastal areas should pay substantially closer attention to the
issue of climate change.
6.7 The BBPA acknowledges that political
instability within Bangladesh and poor governance are widely seen
as major obstacles to building on the notable progress made since
independence. We note that DFID highlights this factor within
its CSP objectives and indicates that "A further increase
in programme resources should await movement on reform."
6.8 Whilst acknowledging this principle,
the BBPA considers that the special global nature of climate change
as an issue, means that a focused increase in resources to address
climate change concerns, would not detract from the overall CSP
objectives.
7. RECOMMENDATIONS
7.1 In conclusion our main recommendations
are:
— Equitable share of the global atmosphere
in further extension of the Kyoto Protocol when including the
developing world. So as we have equal per capita rights to emissions
for all citizens of the world.
— A new Geneva Convention to cover
the increasing numbers of Environmental Refugees.
— Policy commitments to strengthen
the developing world's capacity, especially Bangladesh, to participate
in international negotiations including using nationals and descendants
of those countries based in the UK.
— The involvement of Bangladesh in
the trading regime being set up in the UK in tradable permits
of greenhouse gases.
— DFID to fund a capacity building
aid programme for academic and scientific research in threatened
countries like Bangladesh to be procured through their own academic
and NGO institutions.
— The transfer of technology in the
energy field to the developing world and in particular renewable
energy, permitting growth of the indigenous energy sector.
— Country Strategy Papers for Bangladesh
and other developing countries with significant coastal areas
at DFID to pay substantially closer attention to the issue of
climate change.
British Bangladeshi Professional Association (BBPA)
January 2002
(Appendix A of this memorandum, letter to the
Rt Hon Clare Short MP, and Appendix B, list of BBPA contributors
and contact details, have not been printed and have been placed
in the Library.)
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