Climate Change
Climate change making dengue an annual affair in Bangladesh: Experts
Dengue, a mosquito-borne tropical infectious disease, is gradually becoming an annual affair in Bangladesh as an endemic due to the adverse impacts of climate change, say experts.
They also said Bangladesh’s climate conditions are becoming more suitable for dengue and other vector-borne diseases like malaria and chikungunya due to excessive and erratic rainfall, waterlogging, flooding, and rise in temperature and abnormal shifts in the country’s traditional seasons.
The analysts think the government should focus on rigorous scientific research to understand the Aedes mosquitoes' reproductive and behavioural changes due to climate change and thus find out effective measures to contain it.
Also read: 'National laws need to be revised to tackle dengue menace'
Bangladesh saw the first dengue fever cases in 2000 and the country reported a few hundred cases each year until 2017.
The country experienced a massive dengue outbreak in 2019, claiming the lives of 164 people and infecting 101,354 others.
After the hiatus of a year, dengue cases surged again in the country this year.According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), 82 people died of dengue this year as of Wednesday while 20,729 were admitted to different hospitals with the disease since January.
Read 'Turn pledges into action': Hasina's clarion call to combat climate change
Saline water invasion: Many in coastal Bagerhat taking to rainwater for survival
Rozina Begum’s tin-roofed house in Uttar Chandpai village in Mongla upazila is surrounded by water on three sides. Yet excessive salinity has rendered the water unfit for use in cooking or drinking.
Every day middle-aged Rozina walks three kilometres from her home to fetch water from a river even for cooking the family’s meals. And she has to buy saline-free drinking water.
“There have been days we passed without eating rice as there was no water to cook it,” said Rozina as she narrated her miseries to the UNB correspondent this week in her Chandpai village of the upazila.
Read:Covid fear deprives Bagerhat of its legendary Shikdar Bari’s Puja
She said her poor family also spends up to Tk 30 to 40 to collect the day’s drinking water.
Rozina’s neighbours Fuljaan Bibi, Khalil Mia, Haoa Begum, Mukul Molla and Dulal Sheikh have similar tales of water woes to share.
An invasion of saline sea water has made the sweet water in ponds, canals and other water bodies of the district’s coastal villages unfit for any use. Salinity higher than the permissible limit has been found in underground water too, making it difficult for the villagers to use well water.
Read Agro revolution to be seen in saline areas: Dr Razzaque
Up to 85 per cent of the district’s population have now little access to sweet drinkable water, according to studies. Diseases related to long-time excessive use of saline water have also become a big problem.
Many are turning to harvesting rainwater with the technology being provided by NGOs like Brac.
'NAM should allow free mobility of capital, technology, labour within its member states'
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has called on the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to allow free mobility of capital, technology and labour within its member countries to ensure socio-economic prosperity.
The Foreign Minister said it is imperative for the members to put less restrictions on the mobility of resources to help boost economic growth, reduce poverty and a more equitable distribution of income to achieve the major goals of SDGs (sustainable development goals).
Read:FM leaves Dhaka to join meetings in Romania, Serbia
Dr Momen was addressing the 60th anniversary event of NAM in Belgrade.
Referring to the life-long struggle of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for ensuring equality, humanity and justice, Dr Momen reiterated the strong conviction of Bangladesh to the founding principles of NAM.
"Our peace-centric foreign policy echoes the very spirit of the Non-Aligned Movement,” the Foreign Minister said.
Bangladesh knows how to address climate change challenges: EU envoy
Bangladesh has a wealth of ideas on how to address the challenges of climate change both at home and in the wider world. The word of praise has come from the head of the Delegation of European Union (EU) in Dhaka.
The EU Delegation to Bangladesh organised a roundtable on climate change on Monday, ahead of the COP-26 meet scheduled to take place in Glasgow from October 31.
Read: German companies urge next government to step up on climate change
Eminent climate specialists set out their expectations for the COP, including what it should deliver for Bangladesh, how the EU and Bangladesh should work together before and after COP-26, and what needs to be done to build climate resilience.
The recently arrived Ambassador of the EU Delegation to Bangladesh, Charles Whiteley, opened the discussion, underlining the important role played by both Bangladesh and the EU in the climate discourse and recognising Bangladesh’s leading role in the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF).
He highlighted the EU’s Climate Law, which enshrines in legislation EU commitments, including to achieve “climate neutrality” by 2050.
EU Delegation representatives also took stock of the EU’s Climate Adaptation Strategy published in last August and the Team Europe Initiative on Green Energy Transition, which will support the fulfilment of Bangladesh’s energy needs through renewable energy.
Seven experts took part in the event -- Executive Director of Centre for Policy Dialogue, CPD, Dr Fahmida Khatun; Dr Ainun Nishat, Professor Emeritus, BRAC University; Major General Muniruzzaman (retd) from the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, BIPSS; Dr Mizanur Rahman Khan from the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, ICCCAD; Dr Atiq Rahman from Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, BCAS; Shafqat Munir, Research Fellow of BIPSS: and UNDP climate specialist AK Mamunur Rashid.
Issues explored included the need to ensure that pledges on climate finance are met, the importance of technology transfer and capacity building, the need to preserve ambition to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the imperative of international discussion on climate-induced migration, the impact of Covid-19 and the importance of building resilience.
Read: NAP needs to focus climate adaptation priorities, identify challenges
Also present at the event were officials of the EU Delegation to Bangladesh Jeremy Opritesco, Dario Trombetta and Towheed Feroze.
"This exchange will help to enrich our preparations for COP-26 and to deliver a result that meets the need and expectations of both Bangladesh and the EU," said the EU Ambassador.
German companies urge next government to step up on climate
Dozens of large German companies have urged the country's next government to put in place ambitious policies to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord.
In an open letter Monday, 69 companies said the next government needs to put Germany “on a clear and reliable path to climate neutrality” with a plan for doing so within its first 100 days in office.
The signatories included chemicals giant Bayer, steelmaker ThyssenKrupp and sportswear firm Puma.
Read:Germany will take next step after WHO's approval of Covaxin
The center-left Social Democrats narrowly beat outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Union bloc in last month election. They are due to meet Monday with the environmentalist Greens party and the pro-business Free Democrats to discuss forming a coalition government.
“Climate protection was the decisive topic in the federal election and the parties must place it at the top of their agenda in building the new federal government,” said Michael Otto, board chairman of mail order company Otto Group and president of the Foundation 2 Degrees, which organized the letter.
Earlier this year, Merkel's government adopted a plan to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions to ‘net zero’ by 2045, five years earlier than previously planned.
But official figures show that Germany is slipping behind on its ambitions for cutting greenhouse gases, with 2021 emissions forecast to rebound sharply after a pandemic-related economic slump.
Read:After close vote, Germany on tricky path to form government
The foundation, which says its members have an annual turnover of about 1 trillion euros ($1.16 trillion) and employ more than five million people worldwide, wants the next government to support the rollout of renewable energy and enact a climate-friendly tax reform that includes a strengthened carbon pricing system to prevent investments in power-hungry industries going abroad.
Pointing toward the upcoming U.N. climate summit in Glasgow and Germany's presidency of the Group of Seven major economies next year, the companies said the government must also work to set international standards for the global financial system and climate-neutral products.
“As businesses, we are prepared to fulfil our central role in climate action. We call upon the new German government to make the transformation to climate neutrality the central economic project of the coming legislative period,” they said.
Fight against climate change: 'Bangladesh adopts nature-based solution'
A nature-based approach is the most effective way to tackle biodiversity loss, climate change and achieve sustainable development, Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Md Shahab Uddin said Thursday.
Bangladesh has been putting efforts into achieving sustainable development goals, placing climate, nature and development at its heart, he said.
The country has adopted a green growth strategy in its 8th Five Year Plan and Bangladesh Perspective Plan 2021-2041 to harmonise economic growth with environmental sustainability to create a climate-resilient nation, Shahab added.
Read: Climate crisis no longer a looming crisis: Mia Seppo
The minister made the remarks during the Fourth United Nations Environment Program Session of the Forum of Ministers and Environment Authorities of the Asia-Pacific held Thursday in South Korea, joining virtually from Dhaka.
The government has adopted the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 to achieve a safe, climate-resilient and prosperous delta by ensuring long-term water and food security, economic growth, environmental sustainability while effectively reducing vulnerability to natural disasters and building resilience to climate change, Shahab said.
To cut GHG emissions, Bangladesh has revised and submitted Enhanced Updated NDCs on August 26 this year, enhancing both the unconditional and conditional contributions with ambitious quantifiable mitigation targets, he added.
Read: Bangladesh, UK issue collective call for ‘ambitious action’ against climate change
Shahab Uddin said Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan 2030, finalised by Bangladesh, has recognised the co-benefits of maximising share of renewable energy, enhancing energy efficiency, giving importance to climate-resilient nature-based approaches of development and due consideration on Locally Led Adaptation.
The country is also working on implementing its sectoral policies and action plans like Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, Country Investment Plan on Environment, Forestry and Climate Change, Renewable Energy Roadmap, Plastic Waste Management Action Plan, the minister said.
Physics Nobel rewards work on climate change, other forces
Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for work that found order in seeming disorder, helping to explain and predict complex forces of nature, including expanding our understanding of climate change.
Syukuro Manabe, originally from Japan, and Klaus Hasselmann of Germany were cited for their work in developing forecast models of Earth’s climate and "reliably predicting global warming.” The second half of the prize went to Giorgio Parisi of Italy for explaining disorder in physical systems, ranging from those as small as the insides of atoms to the planet-sized.
Hasselmann told The Associated Press that he “would rather have no global warming and no Nobel Prize.’’
Manabe said that figuring out the physics behind climate change was “1,000 times” easier than getting the world to do something about it. He said the intricacies of policy and society are far harder to fathom than the complexities of carbon dioxide interacting with the atmosphere, which then changes conditions in the ocean and on the land, which then alters the air again in a constant cycle.
He called climate change “a major crisis.”
Read: Nobel physics prize goes to 3 for climate discoveries
The prize comes less than four weeks before the start of high-level climate negotiations in Glasgow, Scotland, where world leaders will be asked to ramp up their commitments to curb global warming.
The Nobel-winning scientists used their moment in the limelight to urge action.
“It’s very urgent that we take very strong decisions and move at a very strong pace” in tackling global warming, Parisi said. He made the appeal even though his share of the prize was for work in a different area of physics.
All three scientists work on what are known as “complex systems,” of which climate is just one example. But the prize went to two fields of study that are opposite in many ways, though they share the goal of making sense of what seems random and chaotic so that it can be predicted.
Parisi’s research largely centers around subatomic particles, predicting how they move in seemingly chaotic ways and why, and is somewhat esoteric, while the work by Manabe and Hasselmann is about large-scale global forces that shape our daily lives.
The judges said Manabe, 90, and Hasselmann, 89, “laid the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate and how human actions influence it."
Starting in the 1960s, Manabe, now based at Princeton University, created the first climate models that forecast what would happen as carbon dioxide built up in the atmosphere.
Scientists for decades had shown that carbon dioxide traps heat, but Manabe's work offered specifics. It allowed scientists to eventually show how climate change will worsen and how fast, depending on how much carbon pollution is spewed.
Manabe is such a pioneer that other climate scientists called his 1967 paper with the late Richard Wetherald “the most influential climate paper ever,” said NASA chief climate modeler Gavin Schmidt. Manabe's Princeton colleague Tom Delworth called Manabe “the Michael Jordan of climate.”
“Suki set the stage for today's climate science, not just the tool but also how to use it,” said fellow Princeton climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi. “I can't count the times that I thought I came up with something new, and it's in one of his papers.”
Read: 2 win medicine Nobel for showing how we react to heat, touch
Manabe's models from 50 years ago “accurately predicted the warming that actually occurred in the following decades," said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the Breakthrough Institute. Manabe's work serves “as a warning to us all that we should take their projections of a much warmer future if we keep emitting carbon dioxide quite seriously.”
“I never imagined that this thing I would begin to study has such a huge consequence,” Manabe said at a Princeton news conference. "I was doing it just because of my curiosity.”
About a decade after Manabe's initial work, Hasselmann, of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, helped explain why climate models can be reliable despite the seemingly chaotic nature of the weather. He also developed ways to look for specific signs of human influence on the climate.
Meanwhile, Parisi, of Sapienza University of Rome, “built a deep physical and mathematical model” that made it possible to understand complex systems in fields as different as mathematics, biology, neuroscience and machine learning.
His work originally focused on so-called spin glass, a type of metal alloy whose behavior long baffled scientists. Parisi, 73, discovered hidden patterns that explained the way it acted, creating theories that could be applied to other fields of research, too.
All three physicists used complex mathematics to explain and predict what seemed like chaotic forces of nature. That is known as modeling.
“Physics-based climate models made it possible to predict the amount and pace of global warming, including some of the consequences like rising seas, increased extreme rainfall events and stronger hurricanes, decades before they could be observed,” said German climate scientist and modeler Stefan Rahmstorf. He called Hasselmann and Manabe pioneers in this field.
When climate scientists with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, some who deny global warming dismissed it as a political move. Perhaps anticipating controversy, members of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel, emphasized that Tuesday's was a science prize.
“What we are saying is that the modeling of climate is solidly based on physical theory and well-known physics,” Swedish physicist Thors Hans Hansson said at the announcement.
Read: Nobel Prize honors discovery of temperature, touch receptors
For a scientist who trades in predictions, Hasselmann said the prize caught him off guard.
“I was quite surprised when they called,” he said. “I mean, this is something I did many years ago.”
But Parisi said: “I knew there was a non-negligible possibility” of winning.
The award comes with a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor (over $1.14 million). The money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895.
On Monday, the Nobel in medicine was awarded to Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries into how the human body perceives temperature and touch.
Over the coming days prizes will be awarded in the fields of chemistry, literature, peace and economics.
Can Democrats hold together? Biden's agenda depends on it
It’s one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s favorite sayings, a guidepost for Democrats in trying times: "Our diversity is our strength. Our unity is our power.”
But as Democrats try to usher President Joe Biden's expansive federal government overhaul into law, it's the party's diversity of progressive and conservative views that's pulling them apart.
And only by staying unified does their no-votes-to-spare majority have any hope of pushing his rebuilding agenda into law.
Biden will set traveling to Michigan on Tuesday to speak directly to the American people on his vision: It's time to tax big business and the wealthy and invest that money into child care, health care, education and tackling climate change — what he sees as some of the nation's most pressing priorities.
Together, Biden, Pelosi and other Democrats are entering a highly uncertain time, the messy throes of legislating, in what will now be a longer-haul pursuit that could stretch for weeks, if not months, of negotiations.
Read: China hopes Biden turns statement on no Cold War into action
“Let me just tell you about negotiating: At the end, that’s when you really have to weigh in,” Pelosi said recently. “You cannot tire. You cannot concede.”
“This,” she added on a day when negotiations would stretch to midnight, “this is the fun part.”
The product — or the colossal failure to reach a deal — will define not only the first year of Biden's presidency, but the legacy of Pelosi and a generation of lawmakers in Congress, with ramifications for next year’s midterm elections. At stake is not only the scaled-back $3.5 trillion plan, but also the slimmer $1 trillion public works bill that is now stalled, intractably linked to the bigger bill.
As Democrats in Congress regroup, having blown Pelosi's self-imposed Friday deadline for passing legislation in the House amid bitter finger-pointing, they now face a new one, Oct. 31, to make gains on Biden's big plans. The $3.5 trillion package is being chiseled back to around $2 trillion and final approval of the Senate-passed $1 trillion public works bill is on hold, for now.
Attention remains squarely focused on two key holdouts, Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who along with a small band of conservative House Democrats are the linchpins to any deal.
Biden is expected to be in touch as the senators return Monday to Washington. Pelosi has been in conversations with both West Virginia's Manchin and Arizona's Sinema.
“The president wants both bills and he expects to get both bills,” Biden adviser Cedric Richmond said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We’re going to continue to work on both.”
The inability to win over Manchin and Sinema to support Biden's broader vision contributed to the collapse last week of a promised House vote on their preferred $1 trillion public works bill, which they had negotiated with Biden.
Tempers flared and accusations flew over who was to blame. Progressives lashed out at the two senators for holding up Biden's big agenda; the centrists blamed Pelosi for reneging on the promised vote; and progressives were both celebrated and scolded for playing hardball, withholding their votes on the public works bill to force a broader agreement.
Ultimately Biden arrived on Capitol Hill late Friday afternoon to deliver a tough-love message to all of them — telling centrists they would not get their vote on the bipartisan deal he helped broker until the progressives had a commitment on the broader package and warning progressives the big bill's price tag would likely come down to around $2 trillion.
In many ways, the weeks ahead are reminiscent of the last big legislative undertaking by Democrats pushing the Affordable Care Act toward the finish line during the Obama administration.
Read: US, India committed to taking on toughest challenges together: Biden
No one doubts Pelosi — and Biden — can do it again. But the fight ahead is certain to be politically painful.
With no support from Republicans who deride Biden's vision as socialist-style big government, Democrats must decide among themselves what size package can win over support in the 50-50 Senate and narrowly held House.
Paid for by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, those individuals earning more than $400,000 a year, or $450,000 for couples, the measure, Biden insists, will carry an overall price tag of “zero.”
Still, private discussions about trimming back various programs have now delved deeper into conversations over wholesale cuts that may need to be made. It's all on the table.
For example, will the push from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to expand Medicare to include dental, vision and other health care benefits survive? Or will those benefits have to be scrapped or reduced?
What about the new child care subsidies or COVID-19-related tax credits for families with children — will those be able to run for several years or have to be scaled back to just a few?
Will free community college be available to all, or only those of lower incomes, as Manchin proposes?
Can Biden's effort to tackle climate change be extended beyond the money already approved for electric vehicles and weather-resilient buildings in the public works bill?
"What we have said from the beginning is, it’s never been about the price tag. It’s about what we want to deliver,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in a Sunday interview on CNN.
“The president said this to us, too. He said don’t start with the number. Start with what you’re for,” she said.
Pelosi has been working the phones to win over Manchin and Sinema, who in many ways are outliers among Democrats in the House and Senate who lean more progressive.
The two senators' prominence has morphed beyond the beltway into popular culture — Sinema was lampooned on “Saturday Night Live” over the weekend, while a flotilla of kayak-activists recently swarmed Manchin's D.C. houseboat.
Read: Biden aims to enlist allies in tackling climate, COVID, more
Pelosi and Sinema had a prickly relationship when the Arizonan first joined Congress, but they now share a common interest in tackling climate change.
Manchin and Pelosi have a warmer alliance, and she showered the senator with praise as someone with whom she shared values as Italian Americans and Roman Catholics. “We’re friends,” she said.
But Pelosi has made it clear she is prepared to fight to the finish for a bill she called the “culmination of my service in Congress."
At a private caucus meeting last week, when one lawmaker suggested she had gone back on her word to have the infrastructure vote, she said that was before some among them were joining with the senators to reject Biden's broader plan, according to a person who requested anonymity to recount her private remarks.
“Let’s try to at least stick together,” Pelosi implored the Democrats.
Climate change: EU to step up support for Bangladesh
The European Union (EU) will assist Bangladesh in its ongoing effort to tackle climate change, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission's European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, said Friday.
Appreciating the role of the Bangladesh government, he said: "The EU will continue to increase its cooperation in the days to come."
Frans said this at a bilateral meeting between the EU and Bangladesh led by the Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Md Shahab Uddin in Italy's Milan.
Read: Climate crisis no longer a looming crisis: Mia Seppo
The environment minister told the EU that Bangladesh is playing a significant role in the international arena on climate change.
Also, he sought the EU's cooperation in all sectors, including technology transfer, capacity building, renewable energy and implementation of adaptation activities, to tackle climate change.
Read: Bangladesh, UK issue collective call for ‘ambitious action’ against climate change
Additional Secretary (Development) A Shamim Al Razi and Director of the Department of Environment Md Ziaul Haque were also present at the meeting.
China to continue supporting Bangladesh until final win against COVID: Envoy
Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming on Thursday said his country reassures its support to Bangladesh in the fight against the pandemic till the final and full victory.
With Bangladesh endeavoring to become fully developed by its 70th jubilee, and China embarking on a new journey towards its second centennial goal, there are infinite opportunities yet to be explored to uplift the Strategic Partnership of Cooperation to a higher level, he said.
The Ambassador said China will continue standing firmly with Bangladesh on regional and global issues, such as maintaining peace and security, responding to climate change, achieving SDGs, securing free trade and open economy, and developing science and technology of the next generation.
Read:China's Xi leads Martyr's Day ceremony amid patriotism drive
"As the old saying goes, “ Walk alone if you want to go fast, walk together if you want to go far.” Let China and Bangladesh keep our hands joined on the way to our dreams, to a peaceful and prosperous Asia, and to a brilliant shared future of mankind," he said.
Ambassador Li was addressing a webinar in celebration of the 72nd anniversary of the founding of People’s Republic of China.