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Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change in
Bangladesh: The Global Initiative at Local Level
Aka Firowz Ahmad, Ph.D
Professor & Chairman
Department of Public Administration
University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email: akafirowzahmad@yahoo.com
Introduction
When we are talking about climate change in our modern setting, we refer to changes
brought about by industrialization as seen in the increased use of energy sources that emit
harmful gases into the atmosphere. These gases have a warming effect that effects
climate patterns. In the recent past, climate change has impacted negatively on the
livelihoods of people particularly the rural dwellers in many countries. Many developed
and developing countries experience natural disasters largely in form of drought and
floods, albeit in different magnitudes. The whole world is worried about the unnatural
changes occurring in global climate.1 The severity of storms, droughts, rainfall, floods
and other natural disasters has been increasing in Asian countries and in Bangladesh in
particular, due to climate change. Global warming threatens agriculture, which is the
backbone of Bangladesh. With 140 million people, Bangladesh is one of the world’s densest
nations and also one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. People in
Bangladesh live precariously close to the risks of cyclones, floods and droughts and more than
100 million people live in rural areas. Two-thirds of the country is less than 5 meters above
sea level and in an average year, a quarter of the country is inundated. Bangladesh has
experienced severe floods every 4 to 5 years that may cover more than 60 percent of the
country, resulting in significant losses.2 Every year, natural disasters have widespread
effects on Bangladesh, touching every corner of the country. Due to limited resources,
Bangladesh does not have the capacity to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to
mitigate the damage.3 A few donor agencies working in Bangladesh and they do have
different programmes/projects focusing mainly on community based adaptation. This
paper examines Bangladesh’s response to climate change and the efficacy of the
community based adaptation to climate change in the context of Bangladesh.
For some time there has been a debate concerning the best response to the climate
change-- should we try to minimise or even prevent the cause of climate change (known
as mitigation) or should we simple prepare for the changes and make adjustments as they
1
http://www.modernghana.com/blogs/250259/31/climate-change-and-bangladesh.html
http://beta.worldbank.org/content/bangladesh-economics-adaptation-climate-change-study,2.6.2010
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ibid
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arise (adaptation)? While mitigation has traditionally been the pivotal issue for many
climate change experts, adaptation to the effects of climate change is now acknowledged
as necessary for responding effectively and equitably to the impacts of both climate
change and climate variability. In recent years, adaptation has become a key focus of the
scientific and policy-making communities and is now a major area of discussion in the
multilateral climate change process.
The debate around global climate change remains stubbornly connected to the
environmental movement, while scientists describe scenarios of climate change that go
far beyond ‘traditional’ environmental issues. Even moderate global climate change will
reshape the face of the world, radically altering economic systems, infrastructure,
ecological systems, and even physically moving human populations. The response to
global climate change will involve changing energy, transportation, financial, and
cultural systems and a coordinated global response. Categorizing global climate change
as just an ‘environmental’ issue does a disservice to the scale of the problem and
excludes groups that must be involved in the debate of how to respond to climate change.
Recognizing this reality forced me to examine the divide between environmental and
humanitarian communities, two essential constituencies for this issue, on their solutions,
evaluations of the threat, and efforts to respond to the global climate crisis. Even a brief
survey of materials on the topic reveals a deep divide between environmental groups
primarily advocating for mitigation efforts and humanitarian groups that are grappling
with basic questions of adapting to extant climactic conditions, let alone a rapidly
changing world.
The Controversy
The issue of adaptation vs. mitigation grew highly controversial in the wake of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The scientists involved in the effort
established the existence of anthropogenic climate change, possible future scenarios, and
outlined some ideas for reacting to climate change. The IPCC stopped short of
recommending any particular strategy, instead claiming that it was a political decision.
Most environmental groups seized on the research to validate their position that
greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced, treating them as pollutants. Aerospace
scientists argued for space technology solutions and economists argued for balance
between cutting emissions and adapting to change. The acceptance of global climate
change as an unavoidable reality by many of those advocating for adaptation was seen as
fatalistic dithering in the face of a clear policy avenue. Ever since, most environmental
groups have held it taboo to discuss adaptation.
The end result of over a decade of campaigning to halt global climate change remains
underwhelming. Environmental campaigner’s efforts to mobilize the scale of changes
required to respond to global climate change are stymied by the intransigence of the fossil
fuel lobby, the lack of urgency on behalf of many people, and the resistance by the
United States. The United States, as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is
the key to tackling global climate change, but politics have blocked every effort to
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implement major effort to react to global climate change on a national level. Until the
United States is brought to the table on tackling global climate change, a truly global
effort to tackle a global issue can not be undertaken.
Response to Global Climate Change
Formal responses to climate change had begun with the First World Climate Conference
in 1979. At this time, when the first effects of human induced climate change were
discovered, the changes were so small it didn’t seem like a big issue. But by 1988 when
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed the dangerous
consequences of climate change became clearer. 4 The immediate response to climate
change exposed in the form of holding seminar conferences, workshops,dialogue,
meeting etc. All these efforts help develop policies, strategies, intervention and funding
mechanism for conducting programs in response to climate change. But the strategies for
responses to the climate changes do not follow any linear perspective, some are proactive
and mitigating; and others are mainly reactive and adhere to adaptation to the climate
changes. The primary vehicle designed to tackle global climate change has been the
Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol is an international convention, negotiated through
the UN that attempts to cap the allowable emissions of developed nations to a variety of
percentages below the countries’ 1990 emissions levels. It has gone into effect, despite
the fact that the United States pulled out of the protocol. Nevertheless, scientists claim
that reductions far greater than the Kyoto Protocol will be needed to stabilize the climate.
Other efforts like those by international groups of cities to set emissions reductions
targets, or a collection of states in the Northeastern United States to tackle emissions
reductions with Canada, are important steps for environmental campaigners. However,
what is considered politically possible by many involved in climate negotiations remains
far short of what is needed.
Both mitigation and adaptation are important ways of dealing with climate change. Until
recently, international climate policy didn't address adaptation in part because of a hope
that we could mitigate climate change and in part because the possible effects were too
far down the road. Mitigation was the main goal of a facet of the Kyoto Protocol. There
were two programs laid out in the Protocol to deal with mitigation: the Clean
Development Mechanism, which is geared towards developing countries, and Joint
Implementation, which is geared towards developed countries. While these programs still
exist, adaptation has also started to receive more attention at international negotiations.
This is in part because adaptation has so many benefits in the present, especially for
people in developing countries who work in climate-dependent trades. At Copenhagen,
the US pledged to start a $100 billion fund to help with adaptation in developing
countries.
4
Pender, J.S. 2008. What Is Climate Change? And How It Will Effect Bangladesh. Briefing Paper. (Final
Draft). Dhaka, Bangladesh : Church of Bangladesh Social Development Programme.
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Mitigation Debate
Climate mitigation is any action taken to permanently eliminate or reduce the long-term
risk and hazards of climate change to human life, property. The International Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) defines mitigation as: “An anthropogenic intervention to reduce
the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases.”
Mitigation tackles the causes of climate change, adaptation tackles the effects of the
phenomenon. The potential to adjust in order to minimize negative impact and maximize
any benefits from changes in climate is known as adaptive capacity. A successful
adaptation can reduce vulnerability by building on and strengthening existing coping
strategies. In general the more mitigation there is, the less will be the impacts to which
we will have to adjust, and the less the risks for which we will have to try and prepare.
Conversely, the greater the degree of preparatory adaptation, the less may be the impacts
associated with any given degree of climate change.
Mitigation efforts are advocated by the vast majority of environmental groups, who focus
on “stopping global warming”. The problem with this position is that scientists agree that
sufficient greenhouse gases have been emitted into the atmosphere, that a certain level of
climate change is unavoidable. While the mitigation of global climate change is essential
to prevent further and worse impacts, it can not substitute for an effort to look at the
impacts of climate change.
The groups advocating for mitigation efforts to tackle global climate change are primarily
environmental groups. These groups remain the most engaged on this issue and set much
of the terms of debate. Concerns over protecting the environment, preventing global
climate change from disrupting ecosystems and threatening species have been themes
running throughout the debate. Environmental campaigners and advocates have also
focused on human impacts, tolls, economic costs and other related issues as ways to
target politicians and groups not normally concerned with traditional environmental
issues. While some success has been reached on these fronts, global climate change
remains primarily seen as an “environmental issue” and coalitions assembled to tackle
these issues are usually driven by environmental organizations.
Mitigation is an essential and the primary effort to slow and halt global climate change,
but achieving this victory will be impossible without a broadening of the groups
advancing this agenda and an elevation of the issue in the minds of citizens worldwide.
The relative inaction on an issue that has the potential to reshape the world, compared to
the political efforts around terrorism or nuclear proliferation, presents a dilemma.
Nonetheless, mitigation in one part has already failed as a strategy in isolation, as
scientists identify the mounting human and ecological tolls of climate change every day.
An expansion of the definition of the problem and the solutions advocated for global
climate change may be necessary to break the political deadlock preventing action on
climate change.
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There is a common tendency to put the mitigation responsibility on the shoulders of the
developed countries alone for historical reasons. In fact, this position may create more
problems than it is capable of solving. Besides, we should not lose our sight of the
developing countries (e.g. China, India, Brazil, Mexico)--which are witnessing fast
industrialization and higher economic growth. Because of the nature and level of their
economic advancement these countries would be polluting the environment at a much
faster rate than it was done by other countries in the past.
There scholars who offer ethical views on different aspects of mitigation. Judith SimmerBrown states that relentless consumerism pervades our society and the World. Greed
drives so many of the damaging systems of our planet. On a different note but with a
similar spirit the socially engaged American biologist Stephanie Kaza once stated that “in
America each of us consumes our body weight each day in materials extracted and
processed from farms, mines, rangelands, and forests-120 pounds on average. Since 1950,
consumption of energy, meat, and lumber has doubled; use of plastic has increased fivefold; use of aluminum has increased seven –fold; and airplane mileage has increased 33fold per person. We now own twice as many cars as in 1950. And with every bite, every
press of the accelerator, every swipe of the credit card in our shopping malls, we have left
a larger ecological footprint on the face of the world. We have squeezed our wealth out of
the bodies of plantation workers in Thailand, farmers in Ecuador, factory workers in
Malaysia.” David Loy in his book ‘The Religion of Market’ maintained that “the crisis of
consumerism is infecting every culture of the World, most of them emulating our
American Life style. He considers whether the consumption has actually become the new
religion. He further states that the religion of consumerism is based on two tenets of
beliefs:
1. growth and enhanced world trade benefit everyone, and
2. growth will not be constrained by the inherent limits of a finite planet. Its ground
is ego gratifications, its path is an ever-increasing array of wants, and its fruition
is expressed in Descartian perversion-“ I shop, therefore I am.”
Adaptation
Adaptation remains a strategy that is advocated by mostly humanitarian groups that argue
it is necessary to protect development and vulnerable populations. As a strategy, it spans
a wide variety of issues, from good governance to early warning system or sea walls to
wetlands restoration. One of the major issues facing adaptation as a viable strategy is that
many environmental groups remain opposed to dams, levees, and other projects that are
sometimes labeled as for adaptation.
Adaptation to environmental change is not a new concept. Human societies have shown
throughout history a strong capacity for adapting to different climates and environmental
changes. For example, farmers, foresters have been forced to adapt to numerous
challenges to overcome adversity or to remove important impediments to sustained
productivity. Examples of adaptation and coping strategies with current climate
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fluctuations include farmers planting different crops for different seasons, and wildlife
migrating to more suitable habitats as the seasons change. The Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) defines adaptation as the “adjustment in natural or human
systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which
moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities”
Approaches to Adaptation
Adaptation was not a major part of the debate when climate change came onto the
international policy agenda at the UN General Assembly in 1988. Initial approaches to
managing climate change generally focused on mitigation through reducing greenhouse
gas emissions at the source or increasing carbon sequestration through reforestation and
better land use management (Ayers and Huq 2006). Adaptation was not a major part of
the debate when climate change came onto the international policy agenda at the UN
General Assembly in 1988. Initial approaches to managing climate change generally
focused on mitigation through reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the source or
increasing carbon sequestration through reforestation and better land use management.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992
mentioned adaptation only five times, never defining it. Since then, adaptation has gained
standing within the international climate change arena. The Third Assessment Report of
the IPCC in 2001 showed that climate change impacts are already happening because for
the first time the IPCC used observations over the previous 10 years rather than working
solely on predictions. Six years later, at the 13th Conference of the Parties of the
UNFCCC, adaptation formed one of four steps of the so-called Bali Roadmap- which
paves the way for a post-Kyoto policy framework to include adaptation alongside
mitigation, technology cooperation, and finance.
The most common approach to adaptation considers how far processes of adaptation can
reduce dangerous impacts of climate change and therefore defines the highest acceptable
thresholds of greenhouse gas concentrations. This approach also supports adaptation
practices that aim to lessen the impacts of increased atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentrations, for example, through engineering and technological measures including
new seed varieties, water management, and early warning systems based on projections
of future climate conditions and an expected severity in events such as storms, droughts,
or tidal surges (Klein and Persson 2008). Some observers have pointed out that focusing
on uncertain climate impacts has slowed down adaptation practices because potential
victims of climate change and aid donors are often reluctant to commit to adaptation if
they do not yet know exactly what they are adapting to. Others hold the view that largescale engineering or technological investments may not be the most cost-effective way to
reduce vulnerability to climate change (Burton et al 2003). A longstanding literature
within development studies has argued that risks posed by disasters and natural hazards
are often linked more to social, economic, and even political factors in different contexts
rather than simply the size of physical events such as storms and floods (Wisner et al
2004).
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A more development-oriented perspective to adaptation considers development and
adaptation risks as strongly complementary. Under this approach, adaptation is not only
focused on anticipating enhanced physical risks associated with increased greenhouse gas
concentrations. Rather, it also addresses developmental needs such as improving access
to livelihoods and productive assets to increase the adaptive capacity of poorer, more
vulnerable people (Ayers and Dodman 2009).
Community-based adaptation takes the approach of adaptation as development.
Responding to the concept that adaptation is local and place-based, it addresses the
locally and contextually specified nature of climate change vulnerability because it takes
place at local levels where people encounter impacts, build adaptive capacity, and
respond (Kates 2000). A community-based approach considers that adaptation strategies
must be generated through participatory processes, involving local stakeholders and
development and disaster risk-reduction practitioners, rather than being restricted to
impacts-based scientific inputs alone. As such, expertise in vulnerability reduction must
come from local community-based case studies and indigenous knowledge of locally
appropriate solutions to climatic variability and extremes.
Bangladesh: Climate Change and its Impact
Countries like Bangladesh are not big GHG emitters. Unfortunately, as predicted by the
national and international research communities involved in climate change impact
assessments, poor countries such as Bangladesh would be the worst victims of climate
change and sea level rise.5 The impact will be intensified by the fact that Bangladesh is
both one of the most populated and one of the poorest nations on earth. In terms of the
impact of climate change few places in the world will experience the range of effects and
the severity of changes that will occur in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is experiencing
frequent severe weather patterns, in the form of floods, cyclones, heavy rains, droughts,
river erosion and salinity intrusion due to climate change.6
Due to climate change, the weather in Bangladesh has changed. Water levels have fallen,
temperatures have risen, and the incidence of floods, dry spells and cyclones have all
increased, affecting both people's lifestyle and the crops. At least 30 rivers, including the
the Padma, the Gomti and the Teesta, have dried up. And most of the other rivers in
Bangladesh are being lost because they are being filled with soil. Parts of northern
Bangladesh are becoming desert. Geological and biological changes in the area are
threatening normal life.7
At the same time, every day, Bangladesh is losing ponds, lakes, dams and forestry.
National and regional varieties of fish are being lost. Specialists have reported that 54
varieties of fish in Bangladesh have already been lost due to climate change. And forest
animals are also being lost. At least 70 percent of people in Bangladesh are living in very
poor situations. Many elements of both human society and the environment are sensitive
5
http://www.bdix.net/sdnbd_org/world_env_day/2004/bangladesh/climate_change_index.htm
ibid
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ibd
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to climate variability and change. Human health, agriculture, natural ecosystems, coastal
areas and temperatures are all sensitive to changes in climate.8 Following are the some of
the impacts climate change in the context of Bangladesh:9
1. Increased risk of extreme events like cyclone, tornados, storm surges etc.
this will have significant implications on the lives and livelihoods of
affected communities
2. Increasingly erratic and intense rainfall, increasing risks of floods,
drought and erosion
3. Loss of biodiversity in mangrove forests, due to storm damage, as well as
changing balances between rainfall and salinity driven both by seasonal
drought and sea-level rise
4. Significantly increased flooding due to sea-level rise as well as melting of
Himalayan glaciers by the end of the 21st century
5. Sedimentation of riverbeds, leading to changing ecosystem dynamics, and
increasing risk of flood
6. Transformation of thousands of hectares of land from non-flood-prone to
moderately or extremely flood-prone status
7. Beginnings of the progressive inundation of mangrove forests, farm land,
and other land in the area, stemming from sea level rise
Bangladesh: Response to Climate Change
Over the last three decades, the Government has invested over $10 billion (at constant
2007 prices) to make the country more climate resilient and less vulnerable to natural
disasters. Since the 1970s, the Government of Bangladesh with the support of
development partners, has invested in:
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Flood management schemes to raise agricultural productivity in low lying areas
Flood protection and drainage in urban areas
Coastal embankment projects to prevent tidal flooding and incursions of saline
water
Cyclone shelters
Disaster management projects.
Building cyclone shelters.
Irrigation schemes to enable dry season crop.
Agriculture research programs to develop saline, drought and flood adapted high
yielding crop varieties.
Coastal ‘greenbelt’ projects.
Recognizing the increased future vulnerability of its development objectives to climate
change, the Government of Bangladesh prepared the National Adaptation Program of
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ibid
CBA Country Programme Strategy of UNDP in Bangladesh
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Action (NAPA) in 2005. This was followed by the adoption in 2008 of the Bangladesh
Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) prepared by the Ministry of Forests
and Environment in consultation with all relevant stakeholders. The BCCSAP is the main
basis for the Government’s efforts to combat climate change over the next tens years. The
plan lays out a 10-year program to build the capacity and resilience of Bangladesh to
meet the challenges of a changing climate change. The plan envisions a financing need of
about $5 billion during the first 5 years through 2014. The government of Bangladesh has
recently established a Climate Change Fund from its own resources with an initial
capitalization of $45 million. To complement this initiative and to ensure donor
harmonization, development partners in Bangladesh have agreed to establish a Multi
Donor Trust Fund for Climate Change. The latter will be administered by the World
Bank with a proposed initial contribution of about $100 million. Bangladesh has also
been an active participant in the international discussions on climate change and acted as
the leader of 47 Least Developed Countries at the 15th Conference of the parties of the
UNFCCC at Copenhagen in December 2009.10
The international community has recognized Bangladesh as a particularly vulnerable
country for some time, and the country has received disaster management and adaptation
support in several sectors. Bangladesh has developed some capacity for dealing with the
impacts of climate change at the national level and has mobilized policy response options
that deal with vulnerability reduction to environmental variability in general and, more
recently, to climate change in particular. For example, Bangladesh was one of the first
countries to submit its National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) to the
UNFCCC and more recently has developed a national climate change strategy to deal
with mitigation and adaptation. In Bangladesh, many development partners are actively
taking part in community based adaptation to climate change.
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International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Bangladesh
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CARE Bangladesh
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Practical Action, Bangladesh
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Oxfam, Bangladesh
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Action Aid, Bangladesh
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Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies (BCAS)
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Rupantar (local NGO from Khulna)
http://beta.worldbank.org/content/bangladesh-economics-adaptation-climate-change-study
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Center for Sustainable development (CFSD)
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UNDP, WB and ADB donor community)
Among development partners CARE and UNDP have been running important
programmes/projects focusing on community based adaptation to climate change in
Bangladesh. CARE suggests that climate change presents a profound threat to a world where
poverty has been overcome and people live in dignity and security. The world’s poorest people are the
most vulnerable to climate change though they contribute least to its causes. Without a wellfunctioning international adaptation regime, they will pay the highest price. CARE’s further suggests
that:
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Sufficient adaptation funding, while crucial, is not enough. We must also ensure that funds
are used effectively, and are channelled where they are needed most.
Existing funding mechanisms for adaptation are not designed to deliver funds in a way that
targets the most vulnerable.
Systematic assessment of socio-economic vulnerability within high-risk geographic regions is
currently not an integrated part of international and national approaches to adaptation.
Proposed priority adaptation measures are therefore unlikely to reach or benefit the most
vulnerable groups, who need the support the most.
Vulnerable groups within countries and communities must be identified.
Vulnerability assessments must incorporate analysis of economic, social and political
determinants of adaptive capacity. Developing countries should be assisted in carrying out
human vulnerability and climate risk assessments.
Resources for inclusive and participatory assessments and planning must be available up
front.
The UNDP also emphasizes on community based adaptation to climate change. UNDP
states that based on priorities identified in the National Communications to the UNFCCC
and recently completed NAPA process, as well as country priorities articulated in the
CP/GCF/RCF, the Community Based Adaptation Programme in Bangladesh should
focus its activities in two key priority areas: water and agriculture. It has now been
established that those two sectors are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts
and play an important role in the lives and livelihoods of the majority of the people.
UNDP suggests that CBA projects in Bangladesh will focus on community-level natural
resource management activities which reduce climate change risks while protecting
biodiversity or sustainable managing land/conserving biodiversity, enhancing the
resilience of communities and ecosystems in the face of climate change impacts. Other
mentionable CBA programmes include:
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Char Development and Settlement Project III in Noakhali: emphasis was on
holistic development and poverty alleviation through promotion of alternative
agriculture, building cyclone shelters/schools, land resettlement, awareness and
education, etc. to foster people’s adaptation to climate change impacts
•
Integrated Planning for Sustainable Water Management (IPSWAM) project
in the south–west region of Bangladesh organized local communities into CBOs,
to manage their water resources and their related issues through good governance,
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as an adaptation activity (since manifestations of climate change will be in terms
of water scarcity/floods)
Community Based Adaptation in Bangladesh: Some Snapshots
As a part of the community based adaptation to climate change, a number international
NGOs are working with local communities in a few districts to develop ways that farmers
can grow food on flooded land, using a process of community-led identification and
prioritization of natural resource management options and technologies (Rahman 2009).
For example, the innovative technology of floating gardens, or hydroponics, which
villagers have taken up in many other waterlogged and flooded areas of Bangladesh, has
been introduced to Gaibandha. A floating garden is built from a raft of water hyacinth
typically about 8 meters long and 1 meter wide. The raft is covered with soil, compost,
and manure, in which vegetable seeds are planted. The raft will last just one year but can
be used as fertilizer during the dry season. To ensure sustainability of the program,
training and input support was tailored to the particular profile of household members,
and technologies were accompanied by a widespread climate change awareness program.
The work in Gaibandha was partly inspired by bad flooding in 2007, which prompted
organizations such as Practical Action to look into long-term methods of reducing
vulnerability to inundation, as well short-term disaster relief (Rahman 2009). Villagers in
Gaibandha use floating gardens to grow vegetables such as bitter gourds, green okra, and
leafy greens, which provide subsistence for people even during the annual monga (period
of food shortage). Indeed, in some cases, these vegetables also provide an alternative
source of income when surplus is sold in the market. Because the rafts can be moved
from place to place, they are also suitable for those who have temporarily or permanently
lost their homes and land during increasingly severe flooding conditions.
In the coastal areas of southern Bangladesh, one further threat of climate change is
increasing salinity--the encroachment of salt water onto and beneath agricultural land.
Saltwater makes it difficult to grow crops historically irrigated by fresh water, and it can
accelerate the deterioration of buildings. In Mongla subdistrict, near the mangrove forests
of the Sunderbans, villagers are responding to the threats of salinity by building houses
on raised platforms and installing sealed containers of freshwater. Small containers-called mokti--areoften made of pottery and partly buried into the clay soil surrounding
houses to provide reservoirs of freshwater for every house. Larger water tanks of plastic
or even concrete are also installed near schools or in villager centers to provide a more
communal and robust reservoir. The freshwater usually comes from rain that is channeled
off roofs into containers. Some wealthier farmers are also converting old rice fields to
fishponds and using these to fatten crabs for local restaurants or for consumption in
Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital city.
In the coastal district of Noakhali, South Bangladesh, the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has been implementing the Promotion of Adaptation to
Climate Change and Climate Variability Project, which aims in part to increase adaptive
capacity at the community level. One community-based adaptation project under this
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program involves raising and reinforcing homesteads to make them more resilient against
flooding and cyclonic activity, reducing the need for people to flee their homes during
extreme weather events and reducing losses. The project brings together a design team of
local individuals engaged as village-level house-building specialists, architects, planners,
an engineer, a geographer, architecture students from local universities, user groups, and
local builders and carpenters to develop preliminary design options. The team selects one
family in the community for whom to build the first demonstration house. Once built, a
new local design and construction team is formed from the now-experienced local
members of the first team, who move the project forward in their community, building
other houses in the locality along with the house owners. House design is based on
traditional cultural preferences but incorporate modest technological innovations that
help strengthen or otherwise improve parts of the house that are particularly weak and
vulnerable in the local climate. These include raising foundations, reinforcing house
structures, and creating raised platforms within homes where people can take shelter
during floods. Planting extensively along edges of homesteads is a local way of reducing
wind impacts.
The Implications of Sea-level Rise for the Coastal Belt of
Bangladesh: Limits to Community Based Adaptation
The coastal belt of Bangladesh is the site of many community-based adaptation programs
that are responding to problems such as water-logging, salinity intrusion, and increasing
storm and cyclone severity. But what are the implications of sea-level rise on this region
for the sustainability of these projects in the longer term? Sea-level rise will result in
more coastal flooding under ambient conditions and even more so in the event of storm
surges. One prominent 2003 study suggests that a 1 meter rise in sea level would inundate
18 percent of Bangladesh's total land, directly threatening 11 percent of the country's
population (Adger et al 2003) while a 2000 World Bank report suggests such a rise would
flood 15-20 percent of the land mass and displace 20 million people, mainly from the
southern coastal areas. These projections are very possible by the end of this century,
with recent studies that factor in glacial melt suggesting rises of 0.8 to 2 meters by 2100.
In addition, sea-level rise in conjunction with increased frequency and intensity of storms
and cyclones has severe implications for coastal inundation in the region. A researcher at
the Bangladesh Space Research and Remote Sensing Organization calculated the effect
of 2 degrees Celsius warming on a repeat of the devastating 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh,
which forced a 6 meter storm surge inland over a wide area, killing at least 138,000
people and leaving as many as 10 million homeless.
In the face of such dire implications for the region, there is a sense that community-based
adaptation initiatives such as floating gardens and reinforced housing, while undeniably
contributing to the short-term adaptive capacity of a small number of people to current
climate variability, can only prove a palliative solution for a small proportion of the
threatened population. Community-based adaptation in the region is helping people cope
with current climatic risks, which will in turn assist in building (or limit the loss of) assets
and entitlements that can contribute to adaptive capacity over a longer time scale.
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However, if they are not integrated into wider and more strategic policymaking processes
that address the longer-term and wider-scale implications of climate change, such
interventions can only be short term, assist a very small number of people in relation to
the threatened population, and may result in only coping against risks that perhaps should
be recognized as unmanageable without much larger interventions. Coping with added
shocks and stresses implies that people are able to deal with these while maintaining their
original (vulnerable) state but are not able to address the myriad challenges that constrain
lives and livelihoods and make people vulnerable in the first place. Adaptation, on the
other hand, suggests a process that reduces vulnerability and builds resilience to climatic
stresses, facilitating more general improvements to the quality of human lives.
Challenges of Community Based Adaptation:
Both the authors of “The Death of Environmentalism” and the Yale report on climate
change endorsed elevating adaptation as an issue. Their motivations were different; as
Shellenberger and Nordhaus argued if the issue should even be defined as an
environmental issue rather than a broader issue of protecting people. “Why, for instance,
is a human-made phenomenon like global warming -- which may kill hundreds of
millions of human beings over the next century -- considered "environmental"?” The
Yale study argued that introducing the idea of adaptation might make mitigation seem
more reasonable and move us beyond the debate over whether global warming is real.
Adaptation planning could serve as a back door to a more reality-based dialogue about
mitigating climate change in the first place.
While community-based adaptation is seen a vital approach to addressing the
vulnerability of communities, it also presents many challenges. For some analysts, it is
unclear how much community-based adaptation differs from community-based
"development" in general. This lack of distinction has presented problems for
practitioners and funding bodies who require firmer signposts of successful communitybased adaptation projects to distinguish good practice.
From a community-based adaptation standpoint, climatic changes are acknowledged by
trying to understand locally observed, historic patterns of change in ways that are
meaningful to local people. For some, this represents a strength of the approach, with
proponents arguing that a focus on the underlying "drivers" of vulnerability so dependent
on the development context represents a much-needed move away from an "impactsbased" approach. If climate change projections are not brought into community-based
adaptation projects, then can they really be said to be addressing climate change, and
hence be seen as legitimate approaches to climate change adaptation?
These questions also influence how community-based adaptation should be funded. Some
donors, such as the World Bank, have called for a greater involvement of official
scientific assessments of climate change before using climate change funds for
community-based adaptation. Another option is to fund it through official development
assistance. This option raises further challenges, however, since it may then be competing
with other local development priorities. Moreover, funding adaptation to climate change
through official development assistance faces strong criticisms from developing countries,
14
who argue that climate change is another stressor on top of (albeit exacerbating)
underdevelopment, and it should therefore be the responsibility of industrialized
countries who have caused this problem to bear the brunt of the additional costs.
Another common concern is how to make local lessons of community-based adaptation
apply to wider spatial scales (a concept often called"upscaling"). NGOs and academic
studies are currently identifying several examples of successful projects at the scale of a
household, a village, or a collection of villages. But do these local, community-based
initiatives offer lessons for how to adapt to climate change at the national scale, or in
other countries? The contextual nature of community-based adaptation makes developing
indicators or models problematic, risking the proliferation of a piecemeal approach that
lacks clarity and fails to attract wider climate change and development investment.
According to some analysts, the institutional design of community-based adaptation lies
in the local deliberations that can identify development needs and cultural preferences,
rather than the application of the same technologies or assumptions about livelihoods to
different places. Indeed, one option is to take the existing development assistance known
as the sustainable livelihoods approach and sensitize it to future climate risks. A
sustainable livelihoods approach makes households more resilient to climate shocks
either by using migration selectively or empowering households to intensify agriculture
outputs and diversify economic activities. For example, in Mongla subdistrict of southern
Bangladesh, some households are reducing their vulnerability to climate by gaining
remittances from family members working in Dhaka and growing freshwater crops in the
dry season and crabs in saltwater in the wet season. Addressing climate risk sometimes
can mean reducing the dependency of income from agricultural or fishing-based
activities.
Perhaps the ultimate criticism of community-based adaptation is that it may not suffice in
preventing some impacts of climate change. If current climate change policies fail to
prolong atmospheric warming at just 2 degrees Celsius, and if warming approaches 4
degrees or more, then it is likely that large areas of land will, in time, be inundated with
seawater. Relocation of villages would therefore be a reality. Community-based
adaptation that does not incorporate detailed climate change information or communicate
likely scenarios at the community level may discourage the kind of technological or
engineering-based approaches to adaptation that a community-based approach seeks to
supplement. Perversely, this could lead to a situation in which larger-scale strategic
adaptation options that respond directly to future climate change scenarios are alienated
even more from the communities they affect because a lack of awareness of the need for
such programs will make participation with local people problematic. Some analysts call
this mismatch of expectations a form of maladaptation. In Bangladesh, such issues are
particularly poignant because many communities undertaking community-based
adaptation are located in areas threatened by inundation .
Over the years, donor agencies have shown an interest in investing in community-based
adaptation, recognizing that it is a valid approach to building adaptive capacity in
vulnerable communities. For example, at the Third International Community-Based
15
Adaptation Workshop in Dhaka in February 2009, the Food and Agricultural
Organization of the United Nations announced the possibility of providing funding for
small-scale community-based adaptation projects, while other donors--including the
World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, UK Department for International
Development, and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency--were
actively engaged in conference discussions on the best way to achieve donor support for
community-based adaptation.
For a developing country like Bangladesh, community based adaptation approach is
heavily dependent on foreign aid donors. There are evidences that donors have already
failed to disburse funds they pledged--which are adversely impacting upon the
sustainability of the projects undertaken for adaptation. Even in case where funds flow
for adaptation, they are to flow to government. Now those most affected by climate
change are often remote, poor rural communities. Government does not have a good
record of channeling money to their most remote or vulnerable citizens. In addition, it is
evident that when the government think about adaptation, it is considering the need to
modify infrastructure, or make changes to export agriculture, or provide for additional
health risks, rather than supporting vulnerable communities. There must be an effective
mechanism in place to oversee of how international adaptation funds are disbursed and
spent, to ensure that they achieve the objective of enabling adaptation.
Existing institutional designs for adaptation generally focus either at the national level
through National Adaptation Programmers of Action (NAPAs), or comprise of
community-based adaptation initiatives that have tended to take a projectised approach
and are detached from broader climate and development policy contexts.
The development of NGO interest in climate change adaptation has come with an
introduction of new institutional and management frameworks which have added
responsibilities and perhaps further confusion at local community level. Among the many
institutional arrangements introduced are “democratically elected” sectoral committees
and NGO based committees. However, these have often ignored existing informal
institutions and traditional leadership. The proliferation and multiplicity of committees
poses challenges in effective implementation of community based climate change
adaptation programmes and projects. The major challenges that surround the community
based climate change adaptation programme/projects are as follows:
•
The projects are heavily dependent on and influenced by the
external agencies
‘donors’ and
•
They lack coordination and integration amongst the key policies and institutions
•
The interventions not grounded in the local communities
•
Interventions often externally imposed, not grown from an indigenous need or
drive
16
•
Community organisations often remain weak – dimming the prospect of long term
sustainability of the interventions
•
Degree of community participation is low
•
There are difficulties in generating local funds
•
Generally inadequate flow of fund for community level activities
•
Indigenous knowledge remains often neglected and/or untapped
•
Interventions remain often palliative in nature
•
Reactive actions, rather than a proactive approach
Concluding Remarks: Need for a Balancing Strategy
In a recent interview by John Holdren, science advisor to US President Obama states:
“Mitigation alone won’t work because the climate is already changing. We’re already
experiencing impacts from that. Nothing we can do in the mitigation domain can stop it
overnight. And so a mitigation-only strategy would be insanity.
"Adaptation alone won’t work. Adaptation alone won’t work because adaptation gets
more difficult, more expensive, and less effective the larger are the changes in climate to
which we are trying to adapt. If you live on an island that is one meter above sea level
and the sea level goes up two meters, adaptation is no longer the question. You are
dealing with evacuation”.
Clearly, what we need is enough mitigation to limit changes in climate to a level with
which adaptation can largely cope. The question is whether we have the political and
social will to do enough of the former in sufficient time to make the latter actually
achievable. Crucial in this is the role of the somewhat overlooked virtue of prudence,
wise consideration of the future. Whether our political and economic systems are
designed to encourage this virtue in our leaders that remain to be seen.
In recent years, what we see is that mitigation efforts are being downplayed and emphasis
is now more on the community based approach as it is imposed on the poor developing
countries by the richer countries. The over-emphasis on the community based adaptation
to climate change relative to mitigation can be seen from a political economy perspective.
This approach can redress the immediate grievances of the climate change affected or
vulnerable poor population. And this is how it can be seen as a “process of social
engineering” through which the affected or the vulnerable people’s discontents are
addressed to some extent and it also suits the developed nations as it helps them getting
relieved from their immediate obligation for mitigation.
17
The Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama while addressing the group of young students,
very precisely characterized the 20th century, “as period of immense destructions, human
sufferings and serious and unprecedented environmental damages.” He maintained that
21st century obviously continues these legacies and realities but in this context he urged
to make 21st century “a century of dialogue and reconciliation”. According to Dalai Lama,
“As a human being we have quite enough intelligence to analyze and understand our past
mistakes. Basically many of the problems which we are facing are man-made, so human
beings also have the ability to make corrections, or at least minimize the problems we are
facing”.
In the words of Gerald A. Larue, “The 21st century promises to be a time of scientific and
technological growth at a level never before experienced in human history. This growth
will either trigger chaos, disruption, war, starvation and disease or will introduce a period
of humanistic cooperation, development, progress, and peace. What emerges will depend
upon which values are embraced, taught, encouraged, and legislated. The value choices,
which must be deliberately chosen and not left to chance, must be secular, global and
familial. The accepted values must be embraced, taught, encouraged, and supported
internationally, nationally, locally, and internationally. We can not turn our back on
consumerism completely, also we can not underestimate the importance of market. But
we need to know out limits, we need to understand where to draw the line, we must not
forget about the ‘value premise’ if we are to effectively deal with the problems we are
encountered with .
I believe that the environmental and humanitarian communities must forge a partnership
that can provide a model of how a response to global climate change can balance the
needs of varying constituencies and build a movement that can create meaningful
solutions to this global problem. The environmental community lacks the political clout
to bring about the change required to respond to global climate change and by failing to
identify and act on how to protect impacted communities has abandoned an essential area
of activism. The humanitarian community has minimized the enormous implications
global climate change has on the human agenda and has only begun to work on limiting
exposure to climactic disasters, very recently. Without a common framework for these to
be connected, neither community will be successful in their agendas or mobilize the
change needed to protect either vulnerable ecosystems or vulnerable peoples.
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