Living on the front-line

Any planning for the future must take into account the fact that Bangladesh needs to remain a livable country, and that environmental pollution of waterways etc and the effect of urbanization and industrialization need to be focused on as we develop a blueprint for the future.Prompted by my recent viewing of the documentary film made by ex-US Vice-President Al Gore entitled "An Inconvenient Truth" on the threat of global warming, today I would like to specifically address the issue of global warming and the potential impact on Bangladesh, and what we need to be doing about it.

Despite what the know-nothings in the Bush administration might try to have us believe, there is no serious scientific debate as to the fact of global warming and the dire consequences for the planet. Global warming is a reality and the entire world needs to get real about dealing with it.

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In the final analysis, the Bush administration's refusal to sign the Kyoto accord and constant peddling of pseudo-science to try to down-play the evidence for global warming may go down in history as an even more cataclysmic blunder than the invasion of Iraq when it comes to long-term negative consequences for the planet.

While this is a problem for everyone, the country which will suffer the most in terms of numbers of people adversely effected by global warming (as though we haven't had enough to overcome in terms of floods and cyclones), would be, you guessed it, Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is already inundated with flooding every monsoon, but with global warming melting the polar ice-caps and the level of the oceans rising as a result, things stand to get far worse in the not too distant future. If the ocean level rises even a few feet (which is entirely possible within the next few decades), 40 percent of the country will be permanently underwater, displacing as many as 60 million people.

If we think the country is overcrowded now, imagine what it would be like with 40 percent underwater.

This is a serious issue that we need to contend with. The catastrophic consequences are so great that almost everything else pales in comparison. We really need to have a plan in place to try to ward off this eventuality or a contingency plan in case the worst happens.

Make no mistake about it. Bangladesh with the bottom 40 percent inundated by sea-water would cease to be a functional state. There are many good things happening in the country and I resist any suggestion that we are anything close to being a failed state.

Nevertheless, like any other country, Bangladesh simply could not cope with such a cataclysmic event. If the southern half of the country goes underwater and we do not have a plan in place, then, as night follows day, the entire country will descend into chaos and dysfunction.

So what can we do about it? Skeptics may point out that in Bangladesh our contribution to global warming is actually rather negligible, and that continuing to maintain a small carbon foot-print, while beneficial to the environment in general, isn't going to help us when it comes to global warming.

This is true, but there is much else that we can also do.

In the first place, we need to become more vocal on the world stage to tout the dangers of global warming. We need to join hands with and put the moral weight of our 140 million souls behind the anti-global warming movement. Bangladesh needs to be at the forefront of the anti-global warming movement. No one has more to lose.

Frankly, a campaign highlighting the evils of global warming and the catastrophic consequences for Bangladesh (perhaps an ad in the New York Times or funding a documentary on the plight of communities in southern Bangladesh who would be effected) would have been a far better use of a million dollars than a campaign to supposedly boost the image of the country.

We need to make our voices heard and our opinions count when it comes to this issue. Every foreign mission in Dhaka should be informed that as far as Bangladesh is concerned, attention to this matter is how we gauge whether a country is friendly towards us or not.

After all, regardless of the amount of aid that is piped in, if you are supporting policies that will ultimately result in 60 million people being rendered homeless, that isn't being much of a friend, is it?

There are all sorts of other measures that we can also take. One suggestion that is gaining ground is that the biggest polluting countries have a moral obligation to take in "climate change refugees." This might be a good policy proposal to put weight behind.

In this line, for the past decade at least, India has been apoplectic about Bangladeshi migrants coming over the border. Well, imagine how it will be when half of Bangladesh is underwater. India is one of the world's biggest contributors to global warming, so it is only fair (and practical) that it pledge to take in some Bangladeshis rendered homeless by the effects of global warming or help us to resolve the coming crisis in some other way.

Better to start addressing the issue now than in 30 years when the country is half underwater and it is too late. So we need to put climate change and how to manage its effects and the implications for the two countries on the agenda of bilateral discussion with India as well.

Finally, we need to plan for a future in which there are a lot more of us but a lot less space. This means planning for a highly urbanized country, which, by definition, will be non-agricultural.

This means planning for high-rise buildings and massive population concentrations. This means thinking about mass public transportation and connectivity and building a post-industrial economy. This means thinking of the Bangladesh of the future. There are models out there for us to base our plans on, but we need to first fully understand what our future will look like to adequately plan for it.

We need to realize that the Bangladesh of the future will have to be highly urbanized and that our pastoral way of life will not last past the half-way mark of the 21st century. This is a terrible thing for Bangladeshis to have to contemplate, but the sooner we come to terms with it, the sooner we can begin to plan for such an eventuality.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.