It is heartening to note that moves are now on to set up a permanent fund for Bangladesh to cope with the global climate change. The decision to set up such a fund for the worst affected countries was taken at the global conference on climate change at Bali last December. A conference of the donor countries at Dhaka was organized last Tuesday as a follow up to this decision at Bali to aid the victims of climate change. It was organized by the British Department for International Development (DFID) and was participated by all important donor countries. It was agreed in the meeting that a permanent fund should be set up for Bangladesh to cope with climate change .

A multi-donor permanent mechanism to assist Bangladesh to cope with climate change as well as for its other developmental needs, is now likely. But as always, Bangladesh government and its diplomatic machinery in particular, will have to retain relentless pressure on the donors to set up the fund at the soonest so that its resources can be utilized to start work immediately in line with the objectives. Bangladesh could progressively make good use of the funds to set up all kinds of barriers and devise different technologies to cope with the climatic changes. For example, dykes like in Holland and sea walls can be built in the coastal areas of Bangladesh to guard against sea level rise and research can be attempted to evolve new varieties of seeds to resist drought, floods and salinity.

Bangladesh is discharging very insignificant amounts of greenhouses in the atmosphere which is creating the climate change. But from the massive emissions of a few countries, a handful of the rich and developed countries of the west, Bangladesh would be likely devastated from the consequences of changes in the global weather. Being the seventh biggest populated country in the world, it could find 16 per cent or more of its small land territories sinking into the sea by 2040 or earlier. A big part of its population would be displaced and turned into environmental refugees. Its agricultural productivity and food production would be hard hit cyclically from drought, heavy rains and floods. Indeed, some projections are that Bangladesh would be the hardest hit among the countries from global climate change.

The latest warning from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC) which is a research organisation guided and funded by two United Nations organisations, suggests that Bangladesh is likely to be one of the hardest hit countries in respect of its agriculture due to the global climate change. Thus, its production of rice may drop by 10 per cent and wheat by one-third by 2050 if agriculture in this country fails to devise appropriate strategies to cope with changing climate. Of course, such coping will be all the more necessary because consumption of cereals will increase substantially with the projected further increases in the Bangladesh population. The challenge is to introduce more higher yielding seeds. Not only the yield, seeds will also need to be resilient to meet drought conditions and other vagaries of weather which the IPPC is predicting for Bangladesh.

It is high time for the authorities in Bangladesh to wake up to this very great need of getting compensation and assistance in response to the climatic adversities which would be thrust on it. The permanent fund now being contemplated to assist Bangladesh in these matters will not come into existence automatically. The government must be proactive to attain this goal. The fund's purpose may be realised if the Bangladesh authorities can prepare a detailed plan for fastest implementation identifying very precisely the areas where early work should be started to cope with climatic changes.