Time is of the essence in climate fight

With the COP28 summit running into extra time on Tuesday after disagreements over a call for "phasing out" fossil fuels—the main driver of climate change—hopes to end the event on a high have all but ended. By now, we are aware of both its highlights and lowlights, which will no doubt be discussed in length in the coming days. While the agreement to operationalise the Loss and Damage Fund has been an encouraging development, so far only $700 million has been pledged, which is less than 0.2 percent of the annual losses developing countries suffer due to global warming. Moreover, the bill for loss and damage will only increase if adaptation is not sufficiently funded and emissions are not urgently cut, both targets proving difficult to achieve.

This again underscores the importance of major polluters fulfilling their financial and emission commitments. For Bangladesh, the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change despite contributing only 0.47 percent of global emissions, 2023 has been a testing year as it grappled with multiple extreme weather events: sweltering heatwaves in summer, poor rainfall during monsoon, sudden temperature drops in winter, etc. Heatwave in particular has been a major concern, with it sweeping the country for a total of 62 days. This year saw the capital Dhaka record its highest temperature in 58 years, with 40.6 degrees Celsius. There were also four cyclones so far.

All these can be attributed to a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors. These were also in line with global trends with the April heatwave in Southeast Asia reported to be a once-in-200-years event. Experts say anthropogenic factors, including rising greenhouse gas emissions, are primarily influencing the overall climate system, leading to alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns. But local factors can also play a significant part, with one expert highlighting the role of land transformations, air pollution, and geographic features. Particularly, land-use changes at the local level can have a significant impact on land-atmosphere interactions, resulting in unusual weather patterns.

This shows how important it is that Bangladesh, while calling for global efforts to cut down emissions and fund adaptation measures in vulnerable countries, also looks inwards to address factors contributing to the climate change. This is a crisis that we cannot tackle alone, but nor can we absolve ourselves of all responsibility for it, however little our contributions may be in the big scheme of things.