International climate negotiations in Cancun during November 29-December 10, have reached a deal to curb climate change, including a fund to help developing countries. The draft documents said deeper cuts in carbon emissions are needed, but could not establish a mechanism for achieving the pledges by the countries. The decision to set up the Green Climate Fund is intended to raise and disburse $100bn a year by 2020 to protect poor nations against climate impacts and assist them with low-carbon development, against which only a meager $30bn has been pledged by the European Union, Japan and the US. Considering the gravity and the on-going natural disaster it may be too late to save the man-kind from the climate catastrophe, according to the Editorial of the current News Bulletin of International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh (ICCB) released on January 13.

According to the Climate Vulnerability Monitor Report 2010, launched by the DARA, a leading humanitarian research organization, and the Climate Vulnerable Forum, formed by a group of committed most vulnerable countries, all nations are vulnerable to climate change and will continue to face the risks due to the prevailing warming trend. The Report assesses the vulnerability of the 184 countries to different climate impacts with barometer indications of intensity from low, moderate, high, severe to acute vulnerability.

Recent studies by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) show that even if countries fully followed through on their promises, we would still only reach 60 percent of the emission reductions needed to keep global average temperatures within two degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels.

The World Bank in it’s latest report “Cities and Climate Change – an Urgent Agenda”, released on December 3,considers that even though the cities are both the culprits and victims of climate change, but they still can play a major role in slowing down global warming. Urban residents are responsible for as much as 80 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, says the report. The world’s 50 largest cities having a combined population (500 million people) larger than that of the United States emit about 2.6 billion tonnes of GHGs, still being the third leading source after the US and China.

Researchers predict that if the world does not take drastic actions to slow global warming, some 10 million people will live under the threat of climate-driven desertification, and some 1 million people are likely to die as a result of extreme weather disasters in each year beginning in the year 2030. Global climate change also posed a serious threat to the Himalayan region, due to their vast dependence on water originating in high mountains.

South Asian countries, in particular Bangladesh already face extreme climate-induced disasters, such as annual floods, cyclones, and droughts. Furthermore, Bangladesh is in the top 10 Nations most vulnerable to climate change, according to German Watch Global Climate Risk Index (CRI)-2011
Report. The sixth CRI of German Watch, a non-profit research organization was published on the sideline of the global climate conference on the basis of ten most affected countries in the last decade on the specific results in the four indicators: total death tolls, number of events, loss of property of each person and loss of gross domestic product.

SAARC has been accredited as an Observer at the Sixteenth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCC (COP16) and submitted a common statement in the summit. Criticized for doing little for years now, this regional bloc, for the first time, has shown signs of trying to become active at the Cancun Summit. But given its past performances, the question is whether SAARC will be able to steer the regional ship through the climate change storm? Besides, South Asia also borders with China, world’s second biggest greenhouse gas emitter. So, even if SAARC really comes together to deal with the effects of climate change while the big players in the region and elsewhere fail to cut down their emissions, experts say it will be a zero-sum game.

Experts consider Bangladesh as a ‘poster child’ for the unfolding tragedy of climate change. The region’s unique geography and topography leave the nation prone to severe flooding, and global warming, which is likely to deteriorate in the years to come. Bangladesh, therefore, must pursue to have international support for a bigger pie of the Green Climate Fund to implement projects for protecting the nation and the people from this man-made worst disaster.