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11. Climate-Resilient Migrant-Friendly Towns: A Conceptual Framework

Author:
Mizan R. Khan, Madiha Chowdhury, and Saleemul Huq
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
Abstract:
For the last few years, ever increasing climate change impacts resulting from the new normal of extreme events are becoming a rude fact of life around the world. The findings of the Working Group-1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in August 2021 again provides mortal warnings about the impending climate crisis. The impacts are particularly stark in South Asia, the most populous region on Earth. Within South Asia, Bangladesh stands as the most vulnerable: 4.1 million people were displaced due to climate disasters in 2019 (2.5% of the population), with 13.3 million people likely to face displacement by climate change by 2050, and 18% of its coastland will remain inundated by 2080 (Rigaud, et al. 2018). The Paris Agreement goal of keeping the temperature rise at 1.5°C or well below 2°C compared to pre-industrial times cannot be achieved, given the lack of ambitious mitigation, when we already live with 1.1°C higher temperature. As a result, the number of people estimated to be displaced by slow-onset events will stand at ~22.5 million by 2030 and ~34.4 million by 2050 in South Asia including Bangladesh (Singh, et. al. 2020). Where will all these people go? A land area of 147,570 km2 is inhabited by 165 million people. So, Bangladesh has no space to retreat. Estimates show that about half a million people displaced by river-bank erosion move to Dhaka city alone, crowding the slums and mounting pressure on limited city services. In such a situation, one option to address displacements in a world of increasing urbanization including in Bangladesh could be the transformation of smaller towns to be climate resilient and migrant-friendly (CRMFT). This option appears practicable for populous countries like Bangladesh, having little or no space for retreat from vulnerable hotspots. In this context, several queries can be raised: What is the rationale of the model of CRMFT? What does make a town climate resilient and migrant-friendly? What are its elements and dimensions? While responding to these queries, this policy brief attempts to design a framework for CRMFT, though it may differ across physical and socio-economic boundaries.
Topic:
Climate Change, Migration, Displacement, and Resilience
Political Geography:
Bangladesh and South Asia

12. What does the IPCC Working Group II say about Bangladesh in its Sixth Assessment Report?

Author:
Saleemul Huq, Md. Bodrud-Doza, Khandker Tarin Tahsin, and Mizan R. Khan
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
Abstract:
In March and April 2017 Bangladesh experienced drastic floods which affected 220,000 ha of nearly ready to be harvested summer paddy crop and resulted in almost a 30% year on year increase in paddy prices. An attribution study of those pre-monsoon extreme rainfall events in Bangladesh concluded that anthropogenic climate change doubled the likelihood of the extreme rainfall events resulting in such floods. Forecast-based financing, which automatically triggers funds when threshold forecasts are reached for an extreme event, used in Bangladesh prior to a 2017 flood event, allowed low-income, flood-prone communities to access better quality food in the short term without accruing debt.
Topic:
Climate Change, Natural Disasters, Food Security, Flood, and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Political Geography:
Bangladesh and South Asia

13. Mobilizing Knowledge To Enhance Adaptive Capacity

Author:
Casey Williams, Danielle Falzon, and Saleemul Huq
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
Abstract:
For over a decade, researchers and policymakers have considered enhancing “adaptive capacity” to be a linchpin of successful adaptation to climate change. In 2015, at the 21st Conference of Parties in Paris, the international community formally asserted the importance of increasing the ability of individuals and groups to adapt to long-term changes in the climate, and committed to doing so through the Paris Agreement. Article 7 of the Paris Agreement, the “Global Goal on Adaptation” (GGA), commits signatory countries to “enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change, with a view to contributing to sustainable development and ensuring an adequate adaptation response in the context of the temperature goal.”1 There are many challenges to measuring adaptation, and there is currently no internationally accepted tool for doing so. Craft and Fisher (2018)2 identify four main challenges to measurement for the GGA: designing a system that can aggregate results; managing the dual mandate of reviewing collective progress and informing the enhancement of national level actions; methodological challenges in adaptation; and political challenges around measurement. Drawing from their insights, we construct a multi-scalar, contextually flexible, multi-method based framework for measuring one central component of adaptation: adaptive capacity.
Topic:
Climate Change, Paris Agreement, and Adaptation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. Building Climate-Resilient, Migrant-Friendly Cities and Towns

Author:
Sarder Shafiqul Alam, Saleemul Huq, Faisal Bin Islam, and Hasan Mohammed Asiful Hoque
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
Abstract:
Bangladesh has been experiencing a rapid growth in urban population during last four decades. However, this growth follows an imbalanced spatial distribution, mostly directed towards Dhaka city. As of 2011, almost 44% of the country’s urban population lived in Dhaka resulting in excessive pressure on its housing, transportation, infrastructure, and basic services (GED, 2015). This pressure is accumulating every year as a result of rapid population influx where climatic stresses play a major role in driving people towards major cities in search of livelihood opportunities. It is projected that around 13 million people within Bangladesh are likely to be displaced by 2050, eventually migrating to Dhaka and other major cities, where climate migrants are likely to outnumber other internal migrants (World Bank, 2018). It will be difficult for cities like Dhaka to absorb this huge influx of climate migrants. The citizens of Bangladesh should not be encouraged to migrate into major cities. Rather, they should be incentivized to move to other secondary cities in the country. As climate change worsens, and more people are likely to migrate from their rural homes to urban centers, it is imperative that Bangladesh pursues a policy of creating climate resilient, migrant-friendly cities to disperse the massive influx of migrants moving to Dhaka.
Topic:
Climate Change, Migration, Cities, and Resilience
Political Geography:
Bangladesh and South Asia

15. Gibika Final Research Report

Author:
Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, Kees van der Geest, and David Wrathall
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
Abstract:
An overview of research findings from the 2013 to 2018 Gibika project. Understanding how environmental stress and climatic changes influence people’s livelihood resilience and lives in Bangladesh. A climate-resilient and sustainable future for people in vulnerable countries starts with resilient livelihoods. There is an urgent need to turn knowledge around livelihood threats, shocks, trajectories and opportunities into operable solutions. Gibika is a five-year research-to-action project between United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and Munich Re-Foundation (MRF) that aims to advance the scientific understanding of livelihood resilience in Bangladesh, and to apply conclusions towards community-led solutions that improve the living conditions of vulnerable people. When livelihood systems are not resilient, environmental shocks will have long-term impacts on human wellbeing and development goals. By using the analytical concept of resilience, the project brings researchers, practitioners and the community-members in the study sites together to debate and develop solutions that can improve the living conditions of extremely vulnerable people. Therefore, the project promotes livelihood resilience and sustainable development within Bangladesh and beyond.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Sustainability, Resilience, and Livelihoods
Political Geography:
Bangladesh and South Asia

16. Planning for Adaptation in Bangladesh: Past, Present and Future

Author:
Saleemul Huq and Mizan R. Khan
Publication Date:
08-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
Abstract:
The world community already lives in a climate changed world. However, the need to adapt to its increasing impact is extremely urgent for the particularly vulnerable countries, such as the least developed countries (LDCs), small island developing states (SIDS) and Africa. Of all these countries, Bangladesh stands unique in terms of climate impacts on a huge population of 160 million living in a small territory sandwitched between the Himalayas in the North and Bay of Bengal in the South. Obviously, Bangladesh has a huge groundswell of experiential learning from living with climate disasters for ages. This experience has been reinforced during the last decade and a half when Bangladesh started anticipatory adaptation planning, first in the form of developing the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) under the mandate of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Since then Bangladesh has accepted adaptation to climate change impacts as a national priority, with gradual integration of adaptation needs into national development planning. This Policy Brief is a stock-taking of what Bangladesh has done so far and how she can proceed with future adaptation planning.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Natural Disasters, and Adaptation
Political Geography:
Bangladesh and South Asia

17. Defining Loss and Damage: Key challenges and considerations for developing an operational definition

Author:
Alexis Durand and Saleemul Huq
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
Abstract:
The idea of support for vulnerable countries that experience loss and damage (L&D) from climate change is nothing new, and countries have been proposing such an arrangement from the beginning of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. Pressure to institutionalize a UNFCCC mechanism on L&D has increased in response to the shortcomings of mitigation policy and the inadequacy of adaptation support for nations and communities already experiencing the worst effects of climate change. At the 18th Conference of Parties (COP) in Doha, the UNFCCC officially invited “all parties… to enhance action on addressing loss and damage” associated with the impacts of climate change and agreed to establish institutional arrangements to address L&D at COP 19. At COP 19 in 2013, the UNFCCC was charged with creating the “institutional arrangements… to address L&D” it had promised a year earlier. This mechanism created, dubbed the “Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage” (WIM), was given the role of addressing L&D from extreme and slow onset events in developing countries “particularly vulnerable” to effects of climate change.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, United Nations, and Loss and Damage (L&D)
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. Loss and Damage in INDCs: An investigation of Parties’ statements on L&D and prospects for its inclusion in a Paris Agreement

Author:
Victoria Hoffmeister and Saleemul Huq
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
Abstract:
This paper discusses individual nations’ experiences with Loss and Damage (L&D), their plans to respond, and their calls for international support, as expressed in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). It also considers the developed-developing nation divide that persists in support for addressing loss and damage within the COP and the importance of including L&D in a Paris agreement.
Topic:
Climate Change, Paris Agreement, Foreign Assistance, and Loss and Damage (L&D)
Political Geography:
Global Focus

19. What does the IPCC say about Bangladesh? – ICCCAD Briefing

Author:
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
Abstract:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific body established to provide a scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its impacts. The IPCC was first established in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The IPCC is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change, and thousands of scientists and other experts contribute to the reports which are then reviewed by governments. The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) (2014), is the fifth in the series of IPCC assessment reports and provides an update of knowledge on the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of climate change. Working Group I covers the Physical Science Basis, Working Group II is on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, and Working Group III is on Mitigation of Climate Change. In this report, we have focused on Working Group II (WG2) of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) for relevance for Bangladesh and we will now present our findings. The objective of this report is to provide a guide for stakeholders and decision makers in Bangladesh.
Topic:
Climate Change, United Nations, and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Political Geography:
Bangladesh and South Asia