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Programme on Climate Change Until recently, most people treated climate change as a matter of scientific discourse, or at best a technical issue discussed and debated in highbrow academic seminars and 'expert consultations'. Of late, however, the pervasive effects of climate change hovering over economic to social to political sectors that bind people of every stage in the society-- regardless of race, caste, ethnicity, sex, and level of income -- have forced this traditional “far-off” perception of climate to change into one of the hard realities of everyday life. As a progressive multidisciplinary independent think-tank Unnayan Onneshan is continuously conducting research on various aspects of climate change. Its research area ranging from climate change science to adaptation, mitigation and international, regional and local climate polices. The organisation is producing research reports on above mentioned aspects and organising workshops, seminars to aware concerned stakeholders as well as contributing to capacity building. The programme of climate change at the Unnayan onneshan drives the three main activities of policy advice, advocacy and capacity building. Advocacy and Dissemination Creation of broad awareness of, and active support for, sustainable development in government, the private sector, NGOs, academia and the general public arena Policy Advice and Engagement with negotiators Effective negations in favour of developing countries, focusing interests of LDCs particularly Bangladesh Capacity Building in adaptation and technology use Provision of high quality training to public and private organizations, NGOs and individuals to strengthen institutions and build capacity for adaptation, mitigation and use of climate friendly technology Research Surviving Cyclones: The Indigenous Wisdom by Mohammad Tareq Hasan Indigenous communities living in the coastal areas for centuries with unique cultural identity have close contact with nature. Rakhains are the only indigenous ethnic community who lives at the coastal region of Bangladesh and it is assumed that they have developed indigenous perception, prediction and survival strategies and thereby posses an effective disaster management strategy. The people were found mostly to be ignorant of the formal preventive and survival strategies and rely upon cumulative experience of the earlier generations, which is evident in the structural adjustment and specific forms of housing for long-term adaptation, prediction of cyclones using the state of the sea-water, wind direction, condition of the sky etc, and also in their ability to sustain before any institutional help arrives after the cyclone hit. Their indigenous knowledge and strategies for disaster management and to survive ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ the cyclone “Sidr” has helped them in building resilience against mighty cyclones. Climate Change and Food Security by Jayanta Kumar Basak The purpose of this paper is to build the interfaces among Boro rice production, increasing temperature and population growth and those effects on total rice production in Bangladesh. More than 6.5 crore people may be fully deprived from their rice requirement within 2050 i.e. above 45% of the total population of Bangladesh in 2006-07 for the combined effects of increasing temperature and population growth. Bangladesh will face a remarkable food shortage in the next few years and it will turn into a vital issue around 2050, if the current trend continues. Improving Boro and T.Aman production and protecting the declining rate of Aus rice production and developing more heat tolerant rice varieties and management practices would be a major concern for increasing rice production in Bangladesh. Download PDF Version
Migration and Living Conditions in Urban Slums: Implications for Food Security by Tahera Akter Slum improvement not only uplifts the living quality of urban poor but also supports adaptation measures of climate change, while planned migration of the climate-induced displaced is a present-day concern. Building of environment-friendly infrastructure with sanitation facilities will help a great deal in eliminating the effects of environmental degradation.
Climate Change Impacts on Rice Production in Bangladesh: A Modelling Study by Jayanta Kumar Basak Rice production would be a major concern in recent years due to changing climatic conditions, because a significant amount of rice yield may be hampered for fluctuations of climatic parameters. Combined effects of maximum and minimum temperatures are more significant compared to their individual effect on rice production in Bangladesh. Boro production is drastically reduced for increasing maximum and minimum temperature of 20C and 40C and it may be 3.2% to 18.7% and 5.3% to 36.0% for rising temperature of both 20C and 40C, respectively. The average figure of yield reduction of the two temperature parameters is 10.4% for 20C and above 22.9% for 40C.
Climate Change and Flow of Environmental Displacement in Bangladesh by Tahera Akter The study depicts environmental displacement with the premise of increased frequency of natural disasters and the adverse impacts of climate change. The research findings reveal that on an average 25%, 3% and 2% populations are displaced from different natural calamities like floods, droughts and cyclones respectively. The estimation of future displacement reveals that approximately 49 million, 63 million and 78 million people might be displaced in 2010, 2015 and 2020 respectively. To avert future crisis, the study proposes to adopt and update policy guidelines including action plans with a timeframe to keep track with the changing climate. Future Climate Change and Moisture Stress: Impact on Crop Agriculture in South-Western Bangladesh by Kushal Roy, Masudur Rahaman and Uthpal Kumar Using the projected scenarios as input for CROPWAT model, it was found that due to soil moisture stress, rainfed HYV Boro rice and potato are likely to face increased yield reduction by 2075, which are 4% and 8.7% respectively in addition to the 1990 baseline. To cope with the situation even up to 22 percent more irrigation would be required in worst cases like potato production. Despite of increase in projected rainfall over every season, unavailability of rainfall in planting periods and different growing periods would hamper crop production. As a result food security is likely to be threatened under climate change.Dissemination We are continuously publishing our research reports in our website, www.unnayan.org. Moreover, in every week we are publishing our policy briefs and opinions in renowned national and international dailies and weeklies as part of our capacity building programmes to aware mass people also to inform our policy makers regarding contemporary climate research and policy debates. Here some of our published articles focusing climate change: Climate Change Negotiations: Whither agreements?- The Daily Star, 7th November, 2009 Agriculture, climate change and population growth- The Daily New Age, 11th November, 2009. A strong case for slum improvement- The Daily New Age- 22nd November, 2009. Uncertain negotiations in uncertain climate- The Daily New Age- 10th December, 2009. Climate change, food security and agro-economic growth- The Daily New Age- 11th December, 2009. Integrating indigenous knowledge in climate change adaptation- The Daily New Age- 12th December, 2009. Events As a part of our dissemination process, we are continuously organising seminars, workshops, round table discussions. We are arranging in-house seminar in every Saturday in our conference room at Unnayan Onneshan premise to share research findings, opinions among researchers conducting research on diverse aspects. We believe that this ‘in-house’ seminar series would help to strengthen our researchers’ capacity to conduct interdisciplinary research and contribute positively to our move towards building a ‘knowledge based society’. The outcome of the seminars regularly updates in our website. We are requesting all to browse our website, www.unnayan.org and participate in our in-house seminars on every Saturday. The high-up seminar on Climate Change organised by Unnayan Onneshan was ‘Financing for climate change- challenges and way forward’. The seminar was held in RDEC conference room, LGED from from16-17 August, 2009. |