Abdul Mannan
I had the privilege to attend Expo 74 in Spoken, USA, in 1974 where a discussion took place in a seminar about air pollution. Having got the time to speak for Bangladesh, I emphasized of land and water pollution as a core issue in point rather than that of air pollution as in those days air pollution in Bangladesh was almost absent. As I said this the delegates raised their eyebrows. After a spell of about four decades Bangladesh today is most concerned about air pollution, mostly not emitted by itself but due to global and regional input.
Land Pollution: It is caused by the country as if self-inflicted, e.g. lack of recycling processes for garbage and effluent treatment plants amongst others.
Water Pollution: It is a case of both internal and external causes, though the latter is more pronounceable as Bangladesh is a lower riparian country of many common rivers. Commonalities of common rivers become sources of boon, if tapped coordinately and harmoniously, but remain as a curse otherwise.
China has planned to build a dam upon Yarlung – Tsangpo point on the Brahmaputra river in Tibet; when completed, it will divert water to the Yellow river a quantum of 200 bn cu m per annum equivalent to that of the entire lean season 6 months flow of Brahmaputra river. It is easy to comprehend as to how much India can get out of Brahmaputra’s flow, once Chinese dam is put in operation, and how much can India afford to release to Bangladesh. This apprehension India has got to foresee as much as Bangladesh would, in view of the riparian state of both in the respective cases in point.
Should India out bargain Bangladesh on the issue of Tipaimukh Dam and Fulertal Barrage, on the same analogy China is likely to do that at the upstream.
In the process of desertification Bangladesh will become unlivable for Bangladeshis and soon this basin will become a no-man’s land after having been inflicted by four-front attack i.e. from N-E-W river flow attack due to either shortage creating desertification or excess inundating with floods and of course from the South i.e. the Bay of Bengal wherefrom will come the upsurge of water with all its might having concentrated salinity on account of global warming due to ozone layer thinning by the discharge of CFC contributed in bulk by the most industrialized nations, though Bangladesh contributes practically little or nothing in the ozone thinning process.
The basic issue here is that flow pattern will change due to man-made dam disrupting God-made natural flow. In a nutshell, to obtain our legitimate share of water flow we shall have to depend upon the mercy of the upper riparian countries who will control and regulate flow through dams. What we need is a well-concerted water harnessing method amongst the co-riparian countries.
Adverse impact of regulated flow
Regulated flow entailing change in the pattern of flow will do a lot of harm due to:
Reduction in agri-crops, loss in navigability, less water availability, siltation of river beds, off-season floods, dwindlement of fisheries.
Air Pollution: Causes emanate from global, regional as well as local actions. Thinning of ozone layer is being caused due to major contribution of CFC up in the air by the most industrialized countries. Non-industrialized countries bear the brunt as if one is a nonsmoker but inhales also poisonous smokes as a co-traveller.
Global Warming: Due to ozone layer thinning, global warming plays havoc and more adverse diversity effect as:
Sea level rise is having a great adversity on a sea level Bangladesh land and eventually will lead to submergence of low lying coastal areas and saline water intrusion up into the coastal rivers and into groundwater aquifers, reducing freshwater availability; damage to the Sundarbans mangrove forest with rich biodiversity; and drainage congestion inside coastal polders, which will affect agriculture.
Increased river bank erosion and saline water intrusion in coastal areas are likely to displace hundreds of thousands of people who will be forced to migrate, often to slums in Dhaka and other big cities. If sea level rise is higher than currently expected and coastal polders are not strengthened and/ or new ones built, six to eight million people could be displaced by 2050 and would have to be resettled.
A global climate change model shows that the overall global crop productivity will reduce by 20-30 percent because of climate change and South Asia is particularly vulnerable.
Bangladesh will loose about 8 percent of its rice and 32 percent wheat production by the year 2050.
Protocols: Conventions and/or protocols of Kyoto, Cancun and Copenhagen have resulted into a case of raising an Adaptation Fund. The developed countries should commit to provide 1.5 percent of GDP for climate fund in addition with 0.7 percent of GNI according to Monterrey Consensus.
Little progress has so far been achieved, rather the richer, bigger and greater as CFC contributors the nations are, the lesser is their interest to raising of the fund.
Greenhouse Effect: This is basically an internal issue of a country to emit minimum quantum of CO2 in order to reduce its green house effect to the minimum.
Inventions of technologies have made advancement in the development of global economy but have also made adverse effect so much on some that they are likely to vanish from our mother earth.
‘‘If we do not look after earth, soon our mother earth will kill us all’ — wrote in a paper my granddaughter, only 8 years old. I could not agree with her more.
Time has come, for us, Asia’s most densely populated people, the sprit of our mindset is to talk green, drink green, eat green, act green, think green, go green, dream green and do nothing but green.
Development of new technologies/inventions and innovations: The global scenario must change its attitude, specially that of the most developed industrialized nations towards use of more bio-friendly fuels, change of the existing technologies, if necessary and binding agreement for each of those countries not to emit carbon gases beyond the limited quota.
Berlin Rules on Water Resources, 2004
The area of mistrust has now spread to encompass apprehension of dominance by the bigger and powerful member states to the smaller member-states on account of security as well as trade and economic domination, lack of exercise in equity towards sharing of common natural resources, (e.g. Berlin Rules on International Water Resources, 2004, assert the right of access of every individual to water to sustain life without harming the ecology, even in times of war regardless of location of the water and whether or not the water source is shared).
While fear of domination by the bigger states appears to be the major apprehension of the smaller states, those smaller states, in turn, should also show depth of mutual co-operation towards forging ahead greater interest.
What is needed is a synchronization of “big needs a big heart” as small needs to look beautiful” to effectively benefit member states of Asian region.
To strengthen and cement the co-operation in the arena and umbrella, let the mistrust, misgivings, misunderstandings and misconceptions be done away with.
Source: Weekly Holiday
