Bangladesh: Ground Zero for Climate Change
Where the worst affected are among the least culpable.
Bangladesh Ground Zero, SuSanA Secretariat, CC BY 2.0
Despite being home to only 4.21% of the world’s population, the United States is responsible for a full 14% of all carbon emissions. Bangladesh, a densely populated country surrounded on three sides by India, has released a mere 0.21% of the world’s carbon emission, despite making up a substantial 2.14% of the Earth’spopulation. This means that on average, a person in the US releases about 33.67 times the carbon emissions of a person in Bangladesh.
Yet, it is Bangladesh that is facing among the most dire consequences of global warming. Often called “Ground Zero” for climate change, Bangladesh was ranked number 7 in the latest Global Climate Risk Index, and has a higher population than every country ranked above it. With nearly 75% of Bangladesh below sea level, the South Asian country will be drastically impacted as sea levels rise. Consequently, by 2050, the World Bank predicts that Bangladesh will have almost 20 million climate refugees.
Cyclone Aila Climate Change, Mayeenul Islam, CC BY-SA 3.0
These aren’t just empty statistics. A historically large flash flood in May 2022 displaced more than 4.3 million Bangladeshis . For context, the entire population of Los Angeles is 3.84 million people. Moreover, climate change does not just cause huge events like these. Every day, about 2,000 people move from the countryside to Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. About 70% of those who move say this is due to either natural disasters or climate change.
Flash floods, amirjina, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
For those who move to Dhaka life continues to be difficult. Many migrants end up among the 4 million people already confined to Dhaka’s 5,000 poorest neighborhoods, where they will likely suffer from an extreme water shortage. In 1963, when Dhaka had a population of less than a million, the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewage Authority (DWASA) needed to supply only 130 million liters of water a day. Now, with its exploding population of about 23 million, the DWASA must provide 2,590 million liters every day, and dig hundreds of meters deeper to reach groundwater. A similar water shortage is ongoing in Bangladesh’s second biggest city, Chittagong.
Korail, Dhaka / BD, 2014, william veerbeek, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Bangladesh does not have the resources to survive this crisis on its own. The World Bank estimates that Bangladesh needs about $5.7 billion per year to fund climate adaptation programs by 2050. Today, the country is spending about one billion dollars annually, approximately six to seven percent of its GDP, on climate adaptation. Of that money, only 25% is from international development partners. In 2009, at the 15th UN conference of parties, the world’s developed nations committed to spend 100 billion USD per year on climate action in developing countries by 2020. In 2019 however, only $20 billion of global climate finance funds went to climate adaptation.
TO GET INVOLVED
The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) is the largest Non-Governmental Organization in the World. They work in 11 countries in the global south to counter climate change, eliminate extreme poverty, and support locally led climate adaptation. According to the Executive Director of the BRAC, the largest Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in the world, it would cost them only $350 to provide safe drinking water to a Bangladeshi household for 20 years, $8,000 dollars to build a climate resilient house, and $126,000 to create a climate adaptation clinic that can support 3,500 farmers. If you would like to support BRAC, you can donate to them here.
The Bangladesh Environment and Development Society (BEDS) works to balance humans and nature, mitigating the harmful effects of climate change. Recently, they have focused on supporting citizens on the sundarban coast by supporting nature based solutions such as mangrove based livelihoods and integrated farming. You can support BEDS here.
In 1992, Friends of the Earth International founded the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers association (BELA). Beginning as a local young advocacy group, BELA uses the law to protect the environment, and the people that live within it. While there is no way to donate to BELA specifically, you can support Friends of the Earth International as a whole here.
Jeremy is a Writing Seminars and International Studies major at Johns Hopkins University. He is an avid writer and the Co-Founder of Writers’ Warehouse, Johns Hopkins’ first creative writing group. He is an advocate for Indigenous rights, and studies how Indigenous philosophies can be used to help prevent climate change. Using his writing, he hopes to bring attention to underrepresented voices in today’s world.