Durban to Doha

Durban Outcomes under LDC lens: Kyoto Protocol and Future of Global Climate

While evaluating Durban outcomes, it is less likely to come to a consensus based positive statement as well as equally difficult to define the outcomes as a Big Zero. Despite debate on the outcomes from different perspectives, the Durban outcomes should be credited for reviving the hope for a new emission binding protocol which once seemed far-reaching after Copenhagen conference. This paper is the first issue of ‘Durban to Doha’ climate negotiation policy brief series which has been designed to analyse various outcomes of the Durban conference from the viewpoint of LDCs and provides strategic direction for the preparation of Doha conference. The current issue mainly focused on Kyoto Protocol decisions taken at Durban and its probable consequences to the global climate as a whole and LDCs in particular. Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are arguing that the Durban conference ...

Cyclone Aila

One Year on Human Suffering

Within two years of SIDR, when the coastal people of Bangladesh were struggling for the recovery of damages from it, another outrageous cyclone AILA struck the southern part of Bangladesh on 25 May 2009. Though Aila was a weak category cyclone by the definition, its destruction statistics outweighs the impacts of Super Cyclone ‘Sidr’ and brought in long-term sufferings for the southwestern people of Bangladesh. About 2.3 million people were affected by Aila and many of them stranded in flooded villages as they had no alternative to save themselves. The tidal surge height of about 10-13m dropped on the region and washed away the huge number of households, lives, livestock, crops and all other resources of the affected region. The entire southern coastal region is now in a distress of managing even the life sustaining food, drinking water, shelter and medicine. Even, a number of schools or other educational institutions still remain closed and the dropout rate is alarmingly on the rise. Now around 1 million people are still fighting against the rampant effect of slow poisoning of Aila in the Khulna and Satkhira District.

Climate Change and South Asia

A Briefing Note

The Bali Action Plan shines with lots of hopes for developing countries that in two years there would be a shared vision to combat global warming. In that plan, the shared vision was portrayed as a ‘long term cooperative action” which would include a “long term global goal for emission reduction”. This implies an action taken jointly with long term goals so that rising global temperature would be far below two degree centigrade. This 20C is based on the recommendations of Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, according to IPCC, there is a strong likelihood that the temperature increase from prehistoric levels may overshoot 20C if drastic actions are not taken urgently. The significance of the shared vision is of utmost importance for planning any action. The ultimate objectives and principles of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) stipulate that any action taken must be in line with common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) and respective capabilities, and respective social and economic conditions.

Future Climate Change and Moisture Stress

Impact on Crop Agriculture in South-Western Bangladesh

Despite outputs of many models for estimating the impacts of climate change on crop production vary widely due to multidimensional complications (Karim et al., 1999; Reilly, 1996; Reilly et al., 1996), generally the simulation results support the statement that global agricultural production might not suffer much, though regional effects will vary widely (Reilly et al., 1996a). The effects will be more acute in the subtropical and tropical (Karim et al., 1999) developing countries (Walker and Steffen, 1997) such as Bangladesh. The country is already a victim of hydro- meteorological variability, as it suffers from moisture stress during the pre-monsoon and post-monsoon periods, when the Potential Evapo-transpiration (PET) stays lower than the available moisture in soil due to uncertainty of rainfall for the first period and insufficient rainfall for the second period (Karim et al., 1990). In both periods, rising temperature coupled with unavailability of rainfall hike up the moisture stress in soil leading the condition to an agricultural drought which eventually affects the major crops (e.g., HYV Boro, Aus, Wheat, Pulses, Sugarcane and potato) and cause significant damage in production where irrigation is limited.