1.1 The British Bangladeshi Professional’s Association ( BBPA ) welcomes the House of Commons, International Development Committee inquiry into Global Climate Change and Sustainable Development. We take an unashamedly pro-Bangladesh stance on many of the issues within the Inquiry making our contribution distinct from others such as the predominantly International Development NGO’s and Academic responses. We see this as the best way to assist our ancestral homeland, as an emerging democracy struggling with raising its peoples from absolute and abject poverty and environmental threats posed by climate change. Furthermore we also feel we have particular responsibilities, as representatives of the largest Bangladeshi community outside of Bangladesh, in the developed world.

1.2 To this effect, we have set up an International Development Group to co-ordinate our campaigns and policy work, which to date has included a submission to the DFID White Paper on Eliminating World Poverty, making globalisation work for the Poor. Here we advocated debt reduction for emerging democracies; honouring our trade commitments along with the rest of the developed world; new UN convention for Environmental Refugees; and last but not least calling for global environmental leadership from the UK government. A copy of the submission can be found in Appendix A. We have also held a one day conference on Climate Change & Bangladesh at the very end of the Marrakech meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Global Warming on the 10^th of November, with a special focus on what the Bangladeshi community in the UK can do to safeguard their ancestral home.

1.3 We will also be organising another conference in the late summer of 2002 on Bangladesh and Climate Change, campaigning for the world community to have an obligation to pay serious attention to the views of developing countries critically threatened by climate change and any extension of the Kyoto Protocol to the developing world to be done so on the basis of equitable share of the global atmosphere ( per capita share to emissions ). It will be undertaken in London in the lead up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002.

1.4 If nothing else, many of us in the Bangladeshi community in the UK, would like to continue to be able to visit our relatives in our ancestral home during the rest of our life-time.

2.0 Potential Impact of Global Climate Change on developing countries, especially on poor people in the country.

2.1 Bangladesh is one of the countries most likely to suffer adverse impacts from anthropogenic climate change. Threats include sea level rise, droughts floods and cyclones. Approximately a fifth of the country consists of low lying coastal zones within 1 meter of the high water mark and almost 130,000 people were killed in the cyclones of April 1990. With a population of 130 million, most of whom earn less than U.S $ 1 a day, it has some of the poorest people in the world. The impacts of climate change will only exacerbate the problems already facing the population.

2.2 Thus when discussing the threat of global warming to Bangladesh, it is worth remembering the following;

3.1 The country needs to develop a concerted plan of action to face problems of climate change and the development challenges they will present. This will require a well co-ordinated policy for scientific research and development, focusing particularly on building adaptive capacity. In particular, such capacity needs to be developed in the fields of disaster management, agriculture, water resource management, and coastal zone management. For example, Bangladesh and the Netherlands are both low-lying deltaic countries, but the Netherlands has the financial, scientific, and technological capacity to build higher sea walls, whereas Bangladesh does not. The elements of the strategy specific to climate change also needs to be incorporated into national and sectoral planning to ensure that they are compatible with national sustainable development objectives.

3.2 The most important step will be for the government of Bangladesh to appreciate the importance of climate change as a development issue in the short and medium term – not just an environmental issue for the long term – and to develop appropriate scientific and strategic planning initiatives keeping this in view. Some of the problems will also need to be tackled on a regional scale. For example, the watershed problems of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers, which flow through Nepal and India before they reach Bangladesh which will require co-operation across the countries in the region.

3.3 Bangladesh has been able to develop some skills and capabilities in its scientific community to address the problems of assessing vulnerability to climate change and developing appropriate strategic responses. Bangladeshi scientists have played important roles as lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For example the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies has been pioneer in preparing assessments of vulnerability to climate change, and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology has been analysing greenhouse gas emissions from different sectors and devising policies and measures to reduce emissions in the future. However, Bangladesh has very few financial resources of its own to support that required scientific research. For example, almost the entire budget for the universities and research institutes is spent on salaries and running costs, leaving little if any research work to be supported by international donors. In this respect, it would be useful for DFID to fund a capacity building aid programme for such academic and scientific research in threaten countries like Bangladesh through their own academic and NGO set ups, so as the countries develop appropriate strategic responses. This will obviously aid their ability to participate in international negotiations and it is raised as an issue again below.

4.0 International mechanisms for achieving SD, mitigating environmental degradation and lower greenhouse gas emissions

4.1 Bangladesh emits less than 0.1 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions compared to 24 per cent by the United States with less then 3 per cent of the worlds population, raising major global equity questions. Future rounds of the Kyoto Protocol extending its coverage to the developing world need to acknowledge this as the US and the rest of the developed world has had the benefit of free riding on the earth’s carbon sinks for more than the past century. For such an agreement to be seen as fair by the majority of world’s people and thus the agreement to last for a century or more, an equitable share of the global atmosphere is required. As the amount of CO2 that can be safely emitted is finite, there has to be a long term framework to share out available emissions. The most equitable and logical way to share finite emissions is based on equal per capita emissions rights. We trust in the meantime, the UK government will continue to provide global environmental leadership on these important details and through its special relationship with the US convince it of the importance of it ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

4.2 Together with other severely threatened nations Bangladesh needs to play a still more important role in international negotiations on climate change. The cause of the problem is being addressed in the international negotiations around the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but Bangladesh has been able to participate nominally so far. The countries such as Bangladesh, stand to be most adversely affected by the continued emissions of greenhouse gases have an especially powerful interest in global actions to mitigate them. The world community has an obligation to pay serious attention to their views on the establishment of developing country emission targets, which as argued above should be based on equitable share of global atmosphere, for example per capita right to emissions.

4.3 Thus we welcome policy commitments to strengthen the developing world’s capacity to participate in international negotiations and hope you would consider extending this to also using nationals and descendants of those countries based in the UK. For example, using British Bangladeshi’s with relevant background and talents in assisting in better representation of the developing world. This would be a good case of using the human capital available from the wider Bangladeshi diaspora, particularly those in the UK.

4.4 In the UK, we are now about to establish the world’s first economy-wide means of reducing greenhouse gases through the introduction of emission trading. It was the UK who gave us this concept, now being embraced in the UK, Europe and elsewhere. The government must seek the active involvement of representatives of the developing world in this new market being created particularly those representing countries most affected by the consequences of the greenhouse gases like Bangladesh. Doing so would give more credibility to the extending out of the Kyoto Protocol to cover developing countries green house emissions, as the developing world are get actively involved both as agents, sellers and buyers of the permits between countries and companies.

4.5 Environmental degradation also leaves the poor more vulnerable to natural disasters. Indeed moving with your feet has been one of the major responses of human kind to poverty, hunger and environmental disasters. The Red Cross Report of 1998, estimated for the first time that the number of refugees from natural disasters exceeded those displaced as a result of war. Such environmental refugees should be acknowledged and be assisted by a similar 1951 Geneva Convention for political refugees, in their host countries. Such a safety net is the least we in the developed world should offer, as an acknowledgement of our contribution to the global environmental problems and pushing particular models of development.

5.0 Private Investment that is environmentally sustainable and linked to wider aim of poverty elimination

5.1 An appropriate area for private investment for poverty elimination and environmental sustainability in Bangladesh is renewable energy and the countries abundant gas fields both on and off shore. The proposed exporting of the gas to nearby markets could well fund the further extension of the electricity to the rural population; reducing fuel wood dependency and giving improvements in peoples life like electrical lighting in their homes.

5.2 Bangladesh is also taking steps to reduce its future emissions through the development of renewable energy and the use of relatively clean natural gas. Bangladesh has only been able to supply electricity to less than a quarter of its rural population, this means the country has the opportunity of developing future energy infrastructure with renewable energy including solar photo voltaics as well as wind energy in the coastal areas. Already several groups including Grameen Shakti (a subsidiary of Grameen Bank) is providing photo voltaics and wind energy to rural communities.

5.3 The gas fields are an obvious candidate for foreign direct investment ( FDI ) in Bangladesh, not withstanding the present discussion in Dhaka about scarcity of gas for future domestic use against receiving receipts now. It was already drawn much interest from foreign companies, and in particular the exporting of the gas to neighbouring India. But the domestic market needs to be developed with a new gas pipe infrastructure particularly for rural households and should be a clear requirement for companies exploiting this natural resource, allowing the transfer of technology to the indigenous energy sector.

5.4 The vast majority of the rural population still rely on biomass energy for their primary energy needs (mainly cooking) which has implications on the rural biomass availability. Indigenous methods of using improved stoves for cooking, bricketing of saw-dust and other biomass and use of peat in the Gopalganj area are worth promoting further to enable the rural poor population to get access to energy in more efficient and environment–friendly manner.

6.1 Bangladesh is one of DFID’s primary aid countries. Over 50m people, roughly half of its population, officially lives in absolute poverty, mainly in rural areas.

6.2 Ever since the huge international attention focused on the country during its war of independence in 1971, Bangladesh has had a large NGO sector playing a major role in development activities. Bangladeshi NGOs include significant internationally acclaimed success stories such as the Grameen Bank and Gonashastra Kendra (People’s Health Centre). During his recent diplomatic trip to South Asia in January 2002, Tony Blair and his wife visited the village of West Kelia, near Savar, the centre of a major development programme run by the country’s largest NGO, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC).

6.3 DFID’s annual aid programme to Bangladesh is about £75m, making the country the second largest recipient of UK development aid after India. DFID’s current Country Strategy Paper for Bangladesh ("CSP") was published in November 1998. It sets six key objectives in line with DFID policy:

6.4 The strategy paper envisages an increase in the aid programme to £90 million in 2002/3, with a total of 46 projects with an aggregate value of £263m, already approved. The next paper is expected to be completed by Autumn 2002.

6.5 The BBPA broadly supports the aims and principles listed by the CSP, but notes with considerable concern that little or no attention is paid to the potential drastic consequences of climate change for Bangladesh. As noted elsewhere, the human and political consequences of a large unplanned displacement of people caused by climate change could have grave implications for not only Bangladesh but many other countries. Moreover, it is self evident that a failure to consider climate change concerns could have catastrophic consequences for the attainment of all DFID’s other objectives.

6.6 The BBPA believes that the next CSPs for Bangladesh and other developing countries with significant coastal areas should pay substantially closer attention to the issue of climate change.

6.7 The BBPA acknowledges that political instability within Bangladesh and poor governance are widely seen as major obstacles to building on the notable progress made since independence. We note that DFID highlights this factor within its CSP objectives and indicates that "A further increase in programme resources should await movement on reform."

6.8 Whilst acknowledging this principle, the BBPA considers that the special global nature of climate change as an issue, means that a focused increase in resources to address climate change concerns, would not detract from the overall CSP objectives.