Mr. Abdullah Al Mohsin Chowdhury, how successful do you think the adaptation works of Bangladesh are in tackling climate change? If we talk about the success in adaptation, then there are a number of initiatives that we’ve successfully implemented.
But we can’t yet say that we have done it all, because if we want to do it as per our demand then we need to involve many other things.
I’ll give you some examples of our works.
We’ve introduced salt-tolerant paddy variety.
Considering the frequent tidal bores in coastal regions, we’ve made plan to build dam in coastal area and many of those have already been actualized.
The dams have been made considering the level of height necessary to deal with the tidal bores.
As our land is decreasing, we’ve introduced floating vegetable cultivation.
We have success stories in context of research to introduce submerge crops to overcome flood.
We have also done many other researches and we have shown how to do adaptation by involving people.
If we consider our coastline from the forest perspective, then of our 540 Km. coastline will become 2,700 Km.
Of which, we’ve already covered around 900 Km. area with green belt.
You know that when we submitted our INDC before Paris Agreement, then though Paris Agreement emphasized on Mitigation, our priority is Adaptation.
Accordingly, we’ve included Adaptation in our INDC.
If we do complete Adaptation in our country, we’ll need about $42 billion.
If we could use $42 billion for Adaptation, then we would’ve said that we got complete success in Adaptation.
Is it ever possible to be completely successful?
It’s never possible.
Because, the Adaptation needs we thought about 10 ago have changed now due to temperature rise and other issues.
So, we are bound to change our adaptive capacity on a regular basis.
We are building our capacity by mixing our local technology with foreign technologies.
We have to consider it as a continuous process.
Most of our adaptive capacity is for short-term.
For long-term, we have to reduce carbon emission.
But, parallel to that, if we fail to increase our adaptation capacity, we’ll never be able to cover our loss.
So, we have to emphasize on Adaptation more.
I’ll come back to you again.
Dr. Mohammad Musa, how the Global Commission on Adaptation is working to advance Adaptation throughout the world?
Thank you.
The Global Commission was initiated from such a realization where countries of the world realized that Climate Change can’t be left for any particular country to take care of.
Rather, we all have to take care of it.
So, a Commission was made, which will work worldwide.
This Commission was actually made with 17 countries in 2018.
The goal was how to finance properly to solve the problems.
Financing is necessary.
So, sourcing of finance is an issue.
Technology is an issue.
How the technologies can be made for the future, so that those have low contribution in Climate Change.
Another issue is- how to build mass awareness, so that all can participate.
So, the Commission was made considering all these issues.
Initially, the mandate for Commission was made considering six aspects.
One is- how the countries of the world will manage the finance necessary for Adaptation.
So, making a fund is an issue.
Second is- how the people will reshape their life and livelihood in the changed condition.
So, empowerment is the local environment is an issue.
So, a leadership is necessary, which will be global leadership but local implementation.
Third is- if the lands of our Satkhira become brackish due to Climate Change, the life of local farmers would become tough.
So, the people will migrate to cities.
As a result, both these people and the city dwellers are facing problems.
So, attention is necessary on how to manage the problems faced by the city dwellers.
Another issue is- infrastructure.
Planning are necessary in building road, dam etc., so that these can tolerate Climate Change and people can continue their life even in the face of Climate Change.
Another is- local initiatives.
This includes: research, development etc., so that new inventions can be made.
So, research, invention, devising ways to solve problems, spread the knowledge among people of the world etc. were the reasons behind the making of Global Commission.
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