Britain will give Bangladesh at least £50 million (US$88.4 million) to adapt to climate change in the first big attempt by a rich nation to stave off environmental catastrophe in one of the world’s poorest countries.
Other European countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands, as well as the World Bank, are expected to contribute to the new Bangladesh fund, which will be launched this week in London at a conference of the Bangladesh government and donor countries.
Bangladesh suffers from many climate-related problems, including floods, drought and river erosion, and is forecast to be devastated by climate change within 40 years.
“A 30[cm]-45cm sea level rise will dislocate about 35 million people from coastal districts by 2050,” Atiq Rahman, Bangladeshi lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will tell the British government tomorrow.
“The climate is changing far more rapidly than anticipated,” he said last week. “Bangladesh is experiencing climate-related natural disasters and extreme events like prolonged and repeated floods which have deadly consequences on agriculture and food security.”
In the last three years, Bangladesh has faced several of its strongest cyclones and worst floods. More than 3 million people were made homeless following super-cyclone Sidr last November, when nearly 30 percent of the rice harvest was lost. It has also been plagued with droughts and the waterlogging of vast areas of farmland.
Bangladesh has pledged to contribute £25 million a year to the new fund which, it is hoped, will attract nearly £100 million within three years. Other global funds for poor countries are expected to be set up in the run-up to a new Kyoto climate change agreement at the end of next year.
The Bangladesh government has calculated that it will need £250 million to adapt to climate change in the next three years.
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