The central question of this thesis is whether the UNFCCC instruments, such as adaptation, can help Bangladesh to combat climate change impacts and ensure climate justice. Climate change is a serious risk to poverty reduction and development efforts. Adaptation policy is the biggest challenge for the GoB because it needs to mainstream and integrate adaptation to climate change into poverty reduction and development efforts. The main challenge for mainstreaming adaptation is the first step of mainstreaming—that is, awareness. Information systems and knowledge-sharing systems need to be strengthened to increase development. To that end, the Department of Information and Department of Environment can work together to close the gap. Political will also plays a key role in mainstreaming climate resilience into development planning and creating project-based action plans. Bangladesh has limited resources to undertake adaptation measures, so it needs to identify priority-based projects and fund management control between the GoB and international agencies. Institutional arrangements at the national level are very important; this may include technical working groups as well as standing committees for integration at national, regional, sub-national and community level. In Gambia, for example, community-level institutions are responsible for the actual implementation and management of climate change projects.320 The institutional capacity and human resources quality of national organisations needs substantial improvement for successful and timely implementation of projects. Bangladesh has a high density of population but the NAPA of Bangladesh has not mentioned the close relationship between climate change and population problems. Salination of water and rising temperatures place food production at risk, meaning there is a need to improve agricultural research. In the agricultural sector the government can take initiatives while promoting farmers’ training and education so that they help promote food security.
The environmental problems have been made worse by the lack of enforcement of existing rules and regulations and, on the other hand, a history of poverty, high population density and weak political governance. To address this problem, the GoB needs to increase awareness about sound environment, pollution control and conservation of natural resources among the common people, especially in rural areas. Bangladesh has received disaster management and
320 Mousumi Pervin et al, A Framework for Mainstreaming Climate Resilience Into Development Planning
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adaptation support in several sectors from the international community and has itself developed some capacity to deal with the impacts of climate change at the national level.321 It has mobilised policy response options that deal with reducing vulnerability to climate change.
Awareness of climate change in Bangladesh arose earlier than in other developing countries, but there is a gap between awareness and policy-level action. It has attracted limited attention from policy-makers. One reason might be that international agencies and policy-makers pay more attention to mitigation than adaptation. As a result, the Bangladesh Government carried out more mitigation activities and research than adaptation activities from 1993 to 2002. On the other hand, Bangladesh has several laws and policies governing environmental issues, but these laws need updating and coordination for internal consistency and to address conflicts of management among the public agencies. Increasingly, however, the GoB, scientific and civil societies are aware of climate change and its impacts and are trying to reduce its effects. The GoB has successfully completed the NAPA programme, which offers guidelines to focus more on actions rather than research priorities. As a result, Bangladesh has developed a capacity to deal with climate change vulnerability reduction at the national level and formulated the BCCSAP.
Every ministry has its own systems and publishes reports depending on its own access to information and data; as a result, there is an enormous gap among the ministries. Furthermore, the impacts of climate change have a multi-sectoral nature. Due to lack of coordination, decision-makers are unable to use in-depth information and specific scientific information for effective planning and investment. Lack of sector-specific studies and research, unavailable published information and lack of coordination, communication and information sharing between the sectors are among the greatest challenges for the GoB. As a result, decision-makers are unable to make concrete decisions on adaptation and mitigation. The GoB will have to pay special attention to these gaps and, at the same time, will have to generate a common agenda for monitoring and evaluation of adaptation and mitigation to climate change.
Some South Asian countries have established Environment Ministries and developed the capacity to formulate environmental policies to manage the work of other ministries relating
321 Saleemul Huq and Jessica Ayers, Climate Change Impacts and Responses in Bangladesh (European
Parliament, 2008), <http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/2008/400990/IPOL- CLIM_ET(2008)400990_EN.pdf>.
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to the environment. Pakistan has established the Environment Protection Council under the
Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997. It consists of the Prime Minister and all ministers
in charge of areas with environmental impacts, as well as at least twenty non-officials including representatives from commerce and industry, medical and legal professions, trade unions and NGOs, and technical/scientific communities.322 In 2009, the Government of Sri Lanka
developed a National Council for Sustainable Development, chaired by the incumbent President, that coordinates key ministries and agencies in an effort to plan the use of resources to meet development demand.323 In 2012, the Central Environmental Authority established an
environmental information database consolidating data received from Wildlife, Forest Conservation, Census and Statistics, Survey and Archaeological Departments, the National Building Research Organization and several other institutions, an important step towards resource-based planning.324
It has been found that the GoB lacks the political commitment and skilled human resources to ensure proper enforcement of rules and regulations for conservation and reducing the impacts of climate change.325 Recently, Bangladesh has experienced a growth in judicial activism (discussed in detail in Chapter 7) and public participation that have enhanced enforcement of the government’s environmental laws.326 At the same time, the government can develop
alternatives to private compensation claims by creating potential scope for recovery in the tort of negligence and nuisance. By a successful action in negligence and nuisance for damage caused by the impacts of climate change, it can identify a suitable defendant and establish the wrongful conduct.
322 South Asia Cooperative Environment Program, above n 283.
323 Global Environment Faculty, Ensuring Global Environmental Concerns and Best Practices Mainstreamed in
the Post-Conflict Rapid Development Process of Sri Lanka Through Improved Information Management. UNDP Project Document (GEF, 2013), <https://www.thegef.org/project/ensuring-global-environmental-concerns-and- best-practices-mainstreamed-post-conflict-rapid>.
324 Ibid.
325 Atiq Rahman, ‘Environmental Governance and Growth’, The Daily Star (online), 12 March 2015,
<https://www.thedailystar.net/supplements/24th-anniversary-the-daily-star-part-3/environmental-governance- and-growth-71123>.
326 Junayed Ahmad Chowdhury and Vertex Chambers, Public Participation in Bangladesh’s Response to
Climate Change Issue (Advocates for International Development, 2012),
<http://workspace.unpan.org/sites/internet/documents/S4BD12%20Public%20Participation%20in%20Banglade sh%27s%20Response%20to%20Climate%20Change%20Issues.pdf>.
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3.8 Conclusion
In concluding this chapter, this thesis returns to the question of climate justice. It has been mentioned in Chapter 1 that adaptation is one of the mechanisms of climate justice. It is often found that the discussion of climate justice focuses on the mitigation of climate change, rather than adaptation. The analysis of the current international climate change regime indicates that adaptation has gradually become more important and attracted more attention in the international community. This chapter also focuses on adaptation funding, which may reduce climate risk and inequality and secure climate justice at the local level.
Though this chapter has focused on the governmental structure, climate change policy, adaptation and adaptation finance of Bangladesh, climate justice considerations remain the core concern. As a result, this paper focuses on how Bangladesh has addressed climate change and taken adaptation measures. Adaptation must be taken as seriously as mitigation by policy- makers and a legal framework for adaptation created. These two policies will act as the government’s mechanism for reducing the climate change risk.
It has been mentioned that Bangladesh has no separate climate change policy; as a result, efforts are managed under other existing policy which may at time conflict with climate change priorities. The GoB has no plan to make a new policy, instead updating the existing framework, which is a lengthy process. The lack of enforcement of rules and regulations has also increased environmental problems. The GoB has revised its relevant legislation and enacted some rules and regulations for better management of natural resources and conservation. In some cases, the judiciary has made appropriate environmental decisions but court orders have not been implemented.327 In some cases, it has been found that there is lack of local government
capacity; in such cases, the role normally played by the local government is assumed by the central government or NGOs. In many cases, NGOs implement projects directly with communities (discussed in Chapter 5).
The role and value of adaptation has been highlighted in Chapter 2 as well as this chapter. Indeed, this chapter has reinforced that a national adaptation fund and international adaptation funding are the ways in which Bangladesh can best address climate change directly. However, given that mitigation remains a priority of international instruments, such as the Kyoto
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Protocol, Bangladesh should continue to develop this area part of as a multi-pronged approach to addressing climate change. Mitigation, especially in the form of the CDM, can provide a vulnerable source of revenue for Bangladesh and as such, should be encouraged. Accordingly, Chapter 4 discusses the CDM and how Bangladesh can develop economic conditions and address climate change through mitigation and what lessons can be learned from other developing countries in future implementation.
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