Climate change myths: What do we really know?

[Banglar Bir]

With climate change driving child marriage risks, Bangladesh fights back

• Reuters
• Published at 10:45 AM July 22, 2017
• Last updated at 10:48 AM July 22, 2017

Child marriage is too common a problem for the new law to ignore Reuters
Monitoring of child marriage rates over the last two years suggests that numbers are falling
Climate change-driven extreme weather – from flooding and mudslides to blistering heat – is accelerating migration to Bangladesh’s cities, raising the risks of problems such as child marriage, according to UNICEF’s head of Bangladesh programmes.

“In Bangladesh, climate change is in your face. You can’t avoid it. You can see it happening,” said Sheema Sen Gupta in an interview in London with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Every year you have cyclones, floods, landslides. It’s a given. It’s now part of everyday living, and the clearest thing you see (from it) is rural to urban migration.”

But surging migration to cities by rural families no longer able to make a living from farming or fishing brings other threats, from worsening urban overcrowding to child marriage, as families seek to keep girls “safe” in a new environments.

“I hesitate to say climate change and urbanisation are the major causes of child marriage. But they do compound it and make it a bit more difficult to intervene,” said Sen Gupta, who has been in Bangladesh for seven months and previously worked for UNICEF in India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Ghana and Somalia.

However, innovative efforts to curb the threat – particularly training young people to help each other – are paying off, with Bangladesh’s government now incorporating programmes started by organisations such as UNICEF and Save the Children, she said.

Across Bangladesh, more than 4,000 youth clubs have been set up which gather young people regularly to listen to radio broadcasts on human rights issues, health, nutrition and other topics, and then discuss the issues.

Youth Initiatives
Preventing child marriage is one of the main focuses of the groups, Sen Gupta said, with members keeping an eye out in the community for girls at risk, and then, if they see a threat, alerting community leaders, who are able to step in.

“The best tool is the adolescents themselves,” she said “They intervene – they know who to contact, they have a helpline. They call and say a marriage is planned.”

Better yet, said Sen Gupta, a psychologist by training, the groups have created a growing conviction among many girls that early marriage is not only bad for their health and prospects, but something they can avoid with community support.

“Adolescents themselves are more able to say ‘I’m not getting married'” she said. “Girls are able to stand up to their parents.”

Monitoring of child marriage rates over the last two years suggests that numbers are falling, but Sen Gupta said UNICEF is not yet fully confident of the data.

Bangladesh in February passed a Child Marriage Restraint Act, which bans marriage of girls under 18 – a significant change in a country where 18 percent of girls are married before 15 and more than half by 18, according to a 2016 UNICEF study.

However, the new ban has a gaping loophole that allows parents to agree to such marriages in “exceptional circumstances” with a magistrate’s approval, Sen Gupta said.

UNICEF and other partners are now “trying to frame the rules about what the exception is so everything doesn’t become an exception”, she said.

Sen Gupta said that low-lying and densely populated Bangladesh, widely seen as one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, sees the risks and has proved adept at scaling up successful pilot efforts run by non-governmental organizations into broader government-run programmes.

“Bangladesh has a good framework of climate adaptation, based on the fact that they need to survive,” she said. “Clearly there is an awareness (climate impacts) are increasing and we need to do something.”

That is an attitude needed more globally, she said.

“People need to understand how important this is for kids, for their rights, for their development,” she said. “If we don’t look at climate change, at addressing these issues, we won’t make the progress we’re committed to making.”
http://www.dhakatribune.com/banglad...-child-marriage-risks-bangladesh-fights-back/

 

[Banglar Bir]

TIB: South Asian governments less aware of green house gas emission commitment

• Tribune Desk
• Published at 10:34 PM July 24, 2017
• Last updated at 10:35 PM July 24, 2017

Prof AK Enamul Haque, second from left, speaking during the presentation of a study titled 'Unbundling Pledges, Actions of INDCs and Measuring Public Perceptions - A Methodological Study: The Case of South Asian Countries' at TIB head office on Monday Courtesy
The study shows that in Bangladesh, the private stakeholders are less aware of rail and water transport systems to reduce GHG (green house gas) emission than the government officials
Government officials of the six South Asian countries are not well aware of the commitments of their countries in reducing the emission of greenhouse gases while the government and academic groups in Bangladesh are more aware of energy-efficient technologies than private stakeholders and NGOs, says a new study of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB).

The study shows that perception on using rail and water transport systems to reduce GHG (green house gas) emission is much lower among private players, too. The same is true for energy efficient fans to reduce emissions. Prof AK Enamul Haque of Asian Centre for Development, Dr Pranab Mukhopadhyay of the University of Goa, India, Dr Mani Nepal, Research Programme Manager of ICIMOD, Nepal, economist Fatimat Shafika of the Maldives, Dr Heman Das Lohano of Karachi University, Pakistan, and Shamen P Vidanage ofAsian Centre for Development, Bangladesh, jointly conducted the study on behalf of the TIB.

The study shows that in Bangladesh, the private stakeholders are less aware of rail and water transport systems to reduce GHG (green house gas) emission than the government officials.

Prof AK Enamul Haque presented the findings of the study at a press conference at TIB head office in the capital on Monday.

The study was conducted after taking opinions from some 140 government and private stakeholders of these countries.

About the level of awareness on INDC pledges in the South Asia, the study says governments in each of these six countries pledged to reduce GHG emissions, but the level of awareness vary across different stakeholders. The government and academic groups are less aware about the pledges made by the government than NGOs and private sectors players, it added. Speaking at the press conference, TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said the sources of power generation, including carbon emission, remain under the control of the governments of the South Asian countries, and that is why it is the governments’ responsibility to reduce carbon emission.

Besides, he said, general people as well private stakeholders can play a strong role in reducing GHG, which has been revealed in this study. TIB’s Executive Management Prof Dr Sumaiya Khair was also present during the presentation.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/climate-change/2017/07/24/tib-south-asia-emission/

 

[Banglar Bir]

12:00 AM, July 27, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:00 AM, July 27, 2017
Climate change: What Bangladesh can do
Photo: Star
ISABELLA AHMAD
Growing up in the northeast region of the US, I can say that the average person's carbon footprint is one of highest in the world due to the privilege that comes with living there. From going on planes frequently to creating e-waste by disposing of old phones and TVs, the luxuries are endless. But across the country, in cities by the Pacific Ocean, people have different attitudes. There, you can't go to a grocery store having forgotten your reusable shopping bag without your fellow shoppers frantically trying to find you one. Where does this rare awareness and urgency come from?

Every day when these shoppers leave their homes, they're reminded of reality. Waste dots their ocean, bobbing in the waves. They see the effects of reckless actions firsthand and therefore have a greater drive to make a difference.

As a US-residing Bangladeshi, I expected the same aspect of human nature to stay true in Dhaka. When I arrived a few weeks ago, I was surprised that I wasn't immediately overwhelmed by a craze over global warming. According to the Scientific American, melting snow in the Himalayas is causing frequent flooding. Water edges further and further into our land everyday on coastal areas, wiping away farms, houses, etc. The World Health Organization claims that all the water is causing water-borne diseases like cholera to be even more common, and in a country that is burdened by overpopulation, this is even more dangerous. The Daily Star reported that The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deemed “that groundwater, crop soils and many rivers are likely to become increasingly saline as a result of climate change effects.”

However, Bangladeshis have adapted, as usual. This country has repeatedly stunned the rest of the world by improving despite incessant obstacles. The way people have dealt with climate change is no different. According to The World Bank, farmers have thought of ways to make their ground fertile again after saline contamination. Flood shelters that accommodate cattle have been built to incentifise locals to utilise them in Cox's Bazar.

But when I asked my great-grandmother's cook Asiya if she knew anything about what was causing the need to adapt, she met me with a blank stare. Following a study done by The Guardian, neither Asiya nor the farmers brainstorming constructive ways to fend off the effects of climate change emit even one-seventieth of the carbon the average American emits. The injustice is in the fact that they didn't cause the problem, yet they're having to deal with it and they haven't even been made aware of why problems are arising.

National Geographic projects that by 2050, Bangladesh will be partially underwater. So how can we create a people who are taught the reason behind the flooding? A people that will propel a California-effect by showing the perpetrators of climate change the humanity in those who are suffering from it? We can read, write, speak and protest. We can join forces with those around us and push for education, push for the agenda, because we live in a country that will always strive to do more than save itself.

http://www.thedailystar.net/shout/climate-change-what-bangladesh-can-do-1439113

 

[Banglar Bir]

Treading in dangerous waters
Nimra Naeem
Published at 04:11 PM July 30, 2017

Bigstock
Why are both Pakistan and Bangladesh making the wrong energy choices?
With the energy demand growing due to population explosions in South Asia, energy shortage is one of the biggest concerns our governments have to face.

For Pakistan, overcoming the energy crisis is one of the biggest challenges which the present government aims to resolve in its tenure, even if it comes at huge environmental costs. Under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, investments have been made in several energy projects in Pakistan including wind, solar and coal projects. The biggest investments have been made in setting up coal based power plants in Sahiwal, Gwadar and Port Qasim.

From renewables to fossil: going in the wrong direction
The share of coal in Pakistan’s energy mix-up has been low up till now, as Pakistan relies more on thermal, natural gas and hydro to meet its energy needs. The country has recently taken initiatives to increase energy production using renewables. Being a major sugar producer,

Pakistan has an annual capacity to produce 30-40 million tons of sugar. The sugarcane waste that the industry produces is known as Bagasse which has a potential to produce an estimated 2000 MW of energy. It can be produced at a very low cost, because there is no fuel required for transportation as the sugar mills can generate electricity using in-house Bagasse co-generation power plants.

The “Framework for Power Co-generation through Bagasse”will allow sugar producers to supply surplus electricity to the national grid. It is one of the cleanest forms of energy generation for Pakistan. Meanwhile, many rural homes in the country have electricity thanks to initiatives taken to provide low cost solar energy in rural Pakistan. Now with the coal power plants backed by Chinese investments, Pakistan is treading in dangerous waters.

The Sahiwal power plant will require 4.48 million tons of sub-bituminous coal per annum, which is imported from Indonesia. Similarly, the Port Qasim Power project would require an estimated 4.66 million tons of coal per annum, also imported from Indonesia and South Africa. The imported coal is considered to be a cleaner form of coal compared to local coal, which holds a high amount of sulfur. So Pakistan has little choice other than taking up higher import costs in order to incur less environmental costs. Even if the plants are based on clean coal technology the amount of emissions can only be decreased, but is not a long term solution in reducing emissions, the way renewables can.

It is possible to invest in renewable energy instead
Unfortunately Bangladesh seems to be suffering from the same illusion as Pakistan. As environmental activists in Bangladesh protest against the Rampal coal power plant, the government assures its citizens that the plant uses clean coal technology which will curb the emissions. However, estimates by Greenpeace suggest a totally different picture, claiming that the plant would be the biggest source of air pollution in the country. Moreover, the plant is being constructed on the world’s largest mangrove forest, declared as a UN World heritage site. However supporters of the plant claim that this is just a controversy created by the activists, justifying the land’s proximity to River Poshur as an ideal location for the plant. But considering the huge risks of coal spills in the area which could contaminate the water and threaten the existence of endangered species, the concerns of the activists seem valid. Bangladesh too would be importing coal from either Australia or India, either way, increasing its costs.

Pakistan and Bangladesh are amongst the countries most vulnerable to climate change, largely in part due to emissions generated by large industrialised countries. Isn’t it better, if instead of incurring huge costs setting up coal power plants, they divert the money into renewable energy? An interesting survey conducted in northern Pakistan showed 81 percent of respondents showing high interest in solar home systems. However, a significant majority (around 60 percent) also expected the government to provide incentives for them to use the system. If more incentives are provided to the sector, the prices of renewables would come down in developing countries and be market competitive, and more consumers would opt for renewables.

But the first step is for us to realise that clean coal is not a viable long-term solution. There are very few success stories when it comes to clean coal technology, and those too after huge costs were incurred in setting up the infrastructure in richer countries. However, a trip to the remote areas of Pakistan will reveal the changes that clean and affordable solar energy has been able to make in people’s lives. These stories are the real success stories, often pushed to the sidelines, maybe because they aren’t as exciting, but these are the stories we need to talk about.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/magazine/weekend-tribune/2017/07/30/treading-dangerous-waters/

 

[Banglar Bir]

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