Bangladesh is most climate change vulnerable

Global warming has advanced to the point where the question is no longer how to stop it, but to what extent it can be mitigated. Media reports on Sunday said that raising seas, floods, and intensifying cyclones are just a few of the calamities that threaten many developing countries, including Bangladesh, one of the most climate change-vulnerable countries in the world. Despite producing only 0.56 per cent of the global emissions changing our climate, Bangladesh ranks seventh on the list of countries most vulnerable to climate devastation,
Ecosystems, food production and health and infrastructure have already sustained considerable damage to the developing nations. However, further damage can be contained to some extent if the temperature rise is kept to around 1.5 degrees, but it will not be possible to eliminate all adverse effects, experts said during the three-day Global Youth Climate Summit that ended on Saturday, organised by the Global Youth Leadership Center (GYLC). Although the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Glasgow last autumn, agreed to keep striving to contain the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, as well as phased reduction of coal-fired power generation, the agreement could not have been more conservative.
Former Harvar Professor of leadership Dr Dean Williams conducted a master class on the concluding day and shared with the delegates’ essential leadership skills and strategies that can help the youth to be effective in mobilising others for action. However, he said, in the pursuit of creating change it is important for youth to be committed but not to be crusaders. Change takes time and overwhelming people with information and asking them to make too many changes too quickly may be counterproductive. The summit was warned that extensive damage had already been done. Already, between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion people around the world fall into rapid climate change victims, and what happens in the next 10 years is deemed to be crucial. The summit brought together 500 young people virtually and 150 other youth in person.
Talking about climate impacts in Bangladesh would hardly be complete without mention of the staggering injustice the country faces. Because overwhelmingly, climate impacts are being imposed on Bangladesh by high-emitting, wealthy countries — not by the people of Bangladesh themselves. The wealthy countries should give every consideration to the people of Bangladesh who won’t be able to bear the burden. Otherwise, some scientists project a five-to-six foot sea-level rise by 2100, which would displace perhaps 50 million people.