There are no cyclone shelters or early warning systems on the tiny Bangladeshi island of Ashar Char - little more than a spit of land marooned in the Bay of Bengal. So a month ago, when the island took the full brunt of Cyclone Sidr, the 2,000 people who live here had nowhere to go. One-third of them perished.

The cyclone's 160 mph winds whipped up a six-metre tidal surge that destroyed the homes and livelihoods of those who survived. Across Bangladesh, more than 4,000 people died and 3.5 million were affected by the worst cyclone to hit the country in 15 years.

Khaleque Howlander, who, along with his neighbours, scrapes a living drying fish on raffia mats strewn down Ashar Char's bleak stretch of beach, saved his family by using empty water jugs as floats and tying his children to a tree branch with a sari.

As he ran from the house he was sheltering in, he urged the 11 other terrified people with him to try to get to higher ground. When he came back the next morning, their bodies were strewn in the trees behind the encampment.

Now his family is living out of a tarpaulin shelter, and he says he has no idea how he is going to feed them through the coming winter.

Trapped between the Bay of Bengal and the Himalayas, and with 17 million people living less than one metre above sea level, Bangladesh has always been particularly susceptible to natural disasters such as flooding and cyclones.

But scientists such as Atiq Rahmen, a member of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) and one of Bangladesh's leading climate change experts, says it is becoming ‘indisputable’ that climatic instability brought on by rising global temperatures is making extreme weather events like Cyclone Sidr increasingly worse.
Research has already shown that higher sea surface temperatures in the Bay of Bengal could increase land-falling cyclones by nearly one-third. And at a time when it is predicted global temperatures will rise at least 2C degrees by 2100, Bangladeshi research has estimated that an increase of just 1C in Bangladesh could increase tropical cyclone intensity by 10%.

According to a new report by development agency Tearfund, Bangladesh is the most disaster-prone poor country in the world. The report says there have been 62 weather-related disasters in Bangladesh since 2000 and that the number is set to rise as global warming and rising sea levels increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and cyclones across the world.

Bleak predictions

Even before Sidr destroyed their settlement, the people on Ashar Char say that over the last 10 years, increasingly unpredictable weather and rising sea levels have been having a huge effect on their ability to survive.

“Ten years ago, we lived 3 km further out to what is now sea, but now we have to move our houses back once or twice a year as the sea takes more of the island,” says Halader, a 30-year-old fish-drier.

“The weather is changing so quickly, there are more storms, which means the fishing boats can't go out to sea so we don't have fish to dry and sell. Then we don't know when the rains are coming, so we can't dry our fish like we used to, so we lose out economically. Now that the cyclone has taken everything,” he adds.

About 50 km up the coast, in the Bhola province village of Gabtolli, home to 150 families, Nilofa Hanif describes how the storm surge caused by the cyclone ripped her daughter from her husband's arms as he clung to a palm tree. Many others in the village died that night.

But Gabtolli is facing another long-term problem - over the past five years rising tides have led to increasing salination of the groundwater. The fresh water they once relied on is now undrinkable and the land lies barren.
The current predictions for the future of Bangladesh are bleak, with increased flooding in the south and the desertification of the north following a global rise in temperatures. And while sea-levels could rise more than one metre by 2100, a water rise of just 40 cm in the Bay of Bengal would submerge 11% of the country's land area in the coastal zone, creating up to 10 million climate change refugees.

In its report, Tearfund says that climate change is already a reality for millions of people living in the world's poorest countries. More than 98% of the 443,000 people killed and 2.5 billion affected by weather-related incidents in the last 10 years are from developing nations. It argues that traditional disaster response mechanisms such as the millions poured into Bangladesh after Cyclone Sidr are no longer sufficient to help those on the frontline of climate change.

Instead, those countries that have contributed most to climate change must ensure that £25bn a year is spent on enabling communities like Ashar Char adapt to the consequences of increasing climatic instability.
“Airlifting stranded people from floodwaters and sending food packages to those affected by drought can no longer be our sole response to weather-related disasters,” says Andy Atkins, head of policy at Tearfund. “In the developed world, we invest millions of pounds into reducing the risks associated with floods and droughts. Yet we do not follow the same strategy with our international aid budgets. Instead, we wave sticking plasters at gaping wounds,” he says.

The Nero effect

As one of the least developed countries in the world, whose historical impact on climate change is virtually nothing, Bangladesh has gone to the UN's climate change conference in Bali hoping to get firm commitments to help it adapt to climate change.

The Bangladeshi delegation argues strongly that industrialised countries should agree to cut their emissions by 25%-40% in the next 15 years, and all countries should agree to a binding obligation to reduce carbon emissions.

Bangladesh needs the Bali talks to agree that adaptation will be prioritised after the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012.

Along with other developing countries, Bangladesh has been pressing for firm discussions to identify new funding streams to help them adapt. Under the Kyoto protocol, financing for adaptation has been based on voluntary funding as well as the clean development mechanism (CDM) levy.

Companies can earn carbon credits by building emissions-cutting projects in developing countries. These credits are then traded on the international carbon market, with 2% of the value set aside for an adaptation fund. So far, Bangladesh and African countries have barely benefited because the level of development has been low.
The Bangladeshi delegation insisted that the CDM levy will not even scratch the surface of the funds needed. The delegation holds no great hopes at the moment. According to Rahmen, developed nations are acting like Nero - “all playing their own fiddles while our global city burns”.


The Guardian