BANGLADESH has a dynamic deltaic system that is historically famous for its rich and thriving civilisation. The Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna basins are one of the largest deltaic systems in the world, and about 25 per cent of global silts reach the banks of Bangladesh. Bengal was known as the Abde Jannat (the nation of paradise) for its abundance of agricultural, fish, and saltpetre resources and world-class ship-making and muslin industries.
Flooding and cyclones were a natural seasonal phenomenon in this rich landscape of flora and fauna. The farmers, fisherfolk, shipmakers, and muslin producers harnessed this rich biodiversity to contribute the most to Europe from India (88 per cent of exports to the Dutch were from Bengal). The British colonial administration could not comprehend the inextricable link between ecological abundance, the unique ecosystem, and the skills of the local population to harness this wet ecology with this economic abundance. The British knowledge discourse was shaped based on a racist and top-down hegemonic domination that viewed the culture and practices of the farmers, fisherfolk, and small-scale industries in Bengal as backwards and crude. The British administrators had a dry ideology; they wanted to govern Bengal like they governed Europe. This knowledge discourse has been a massacre for the local population. It has turned this land of abundance into a land of disasters. As floods in a dry ecology are shaped by complex infrastructures that view any flood as a disaster, cyclones in habitats built in low-lying coastal and deforested land are a disaster. In the climate discourse, the historicity of this ecocide is completely ignored, and these disasters shape the entire climate discourse.听
Climate change has indeed changed the precipitation patterns, the frequency and intensity of cyclones, and the seasonal patterns. It is profoundly impacting the marginalised population, inducing loss of livelihood options and forcing frequent migrations. However, the causality behind climate vulnerability is shaped by modern development鈥檚 complex political, social, and environmental dynamics. There is a reductive translation of climate change that simplifies natural disasters such as floods, cyclones, and heat waves to climate change. For instance, the reductive translation of climate change, which narrates that rising sea levels will drown more than one-third of the population of Bangladesh, is incorrect. According to the late Hugh Brammer, an internationally renowned geographer and soil scientist, Bangladesh鈥檚 coastal area is not uniform but dynamic; historical trends of land gain in the Meghna estuary might far exceed land loss resulting from the slow rates of sea level.
According to Dr Camelia Dewan from Sweden鈥檚 Uppsala University, the complex and dynamic nature of our coastal landscape and social and environmental interactions must be accurately captured in the simplistic climate change narrative. This simplistic narrative has been created as a meta-code to attract climate financing. Any project that uses the term 鈥榗limate鈥� is likely to get access to pots of funds that have been narrowly designated for climate adaptation.
Some of the most common climate adaptation measures, like the construction of embankments, dams, and polders, feed this narrow, simplistic definition of climate change. The flood protection dams were constructed by the British administration not to protect against flooding but to prevent intrusion of saline water for cultivating agriculture in the mangroves. The watertight embankments had replaced the thousand-year tradition of the farmers to manage river water irrigation through equitable water sharing. The construction of embankments, dams, and polders has changed the natural land use pattern, resulting in more siltation, land accretion, and increased salinity. The climate adaptation discourse is reproducing the developmental discourse of the British administration.听
Climate adaptation measures must consider geomorphology, hydrology, soils, land use, and socio-economic geography. However, Bangladesh鈥檚 climate discourse needs to be configured to adapt to the complex interaction between environmental degradation and social and political dynamics with climate change, but with the prerogative of climate finance. Bureaucrats design the climate finance projects, and consultants with expertise in development, finance, civil engineering, and economics design the funding proposals.
In the recently held United Nations Climate Change Conference, popularly known as COP, the chief advisor to the interim government, professor Muhammad Yunus, called for a more transparent and fair process in distributing climate finance. It is indeed true that the Global North owes not only climate debt but also the burden of colonial debt. However, this financing must be utilised to develop the community鈥檚 long-term climate resilience. There must be a critical engagement of knowledge discourse of hydrology, soil science, and geography in undertaking climate adaptation measures.
Decolonising the climate discourse is crucial in disentangling the causality of climate vulnerabilities and environmental degradation.听
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Syed Muntasir Ridwan is a degrowth and environmental justice activist. He is the CEO of think tank Catalysing Sustainable Transformation Network Limited.