According to the leaked report of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scheduled to be released in April 2007, drafted by Dr. Graeme Pearman, rising temperature will cause critical water shortages and millions of people in the world will die due to food shortage by 2080. Having 2 to 3 Celsius (3.6 to 4.8 Fahrenheit) rising temperature, 200 to 600 million people across the world will face typical food shortages in another 70 years, while coastal flooding will hit another seven million homes.

Talking with Reuters on January 30, 2007, Dr Graeme Pearman, a recipient of a United Nation's Environment Programme Global 500 Award in 1989 for his active involvement in a national awareness programme on climate change, said that Africa and poor countries such as Bangladesh would be most affected because they were least able to cope with greater coastal damage and drought.

According to the NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies, over the last century, the average global temperature climbed from 13.88 degrees Celsius in 1899-1901 to 14.44 degrees in 1999-2001, an increase of 0.56 degrees. But four fifths of this gain came in the century's last two decades. During the last century, sea level rose an estimated 10-20 centimeters (4-8 inches) and the projected sea level rising during this century will be 9-88 centimeters (4-36 inches).

The panel of IPCC, supported by the U.N Environment programmed to guide policy makers globally on the impact of climate change and World Meteorological Organisation, will released a report on February 2, in Paris forecasting global temperatures rising by 2 to 4.5 Celsius (3.6 to 8.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2100, with a ''best estimate'' of a 3C (5.4 F) rise.

Climate change affects food security in many ways. In 2000, the World Bank published a map of Bangladesh showing that a one meter rise in sea level would inundate half of the country's rice land. Bangladesh would lose not only half its rice supply but also the livelihoods of a large share of its population. The combination of a population of 144 million expanding by 2.7 million a year and a shrinking cropland base is not a reassuring prospect for Bangladesh.

Bangladesh's food supply is already threatened by flooding due to melting glaciers in some areas and droughts due to heat in others. Moreover, the typhoons and monsoons that routinely pummel Bangladesh are intensifying because of climate change.

It is so strange that when we have a real problem and that it threatens our so beautiful system, we tend to diminish the problem or making it disappear by focusing on the wrong thing.

Although Bangladesh is a signatory to a number of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) including the Rio Conventions on biological diversity, climate change, and desertification, the country's capacities at different levels to implement these conventions are limited.

Bangladesh lies on a flat, alluvial plain. It is neighboured by India on three sides, while its southern border dissolves into the Bay of Bengal. Two mighty rivers, the Ganges and the Bramaputra, flow through Bangladesh and fan out like tassels into the bay. This low delta and its beautiful mangrove islands are constantly transforming and shifting with typhoons, rains, and dry periods.

One of the most serious long-term effects of climate change is rising sea level, which is driven both by the thermal expansion of the oceans as temperatures rise and by the melting of glaciers.

The soft, malleable coast is vulnerable to rising seas. Even if greenhouse gas emissions were to stop today, scientists believe that warming already underway will cause seas to rise between one and two inches over the next century.

If nothing is done to curb emissions, sea levels could climb more than three feet. If this happens, 15 per cent of Bangladesh could be under water. The mangrove forests of the low-lying Sundarban islands, a world heritage site, as well as the Bengal tiger and hundreds of bird species may disappear.

Mounting sea levels and loss of land will also create human disasters and dilemmas, especially in Bangladesh. Government hardly takes any steps to understand this real problem. Nobody thinks if it really occurs then where will the tens of millions of internally displaced people go and how will they live? What will they drink when salt water contaminates fresh water supplies? Who will provide health care to combat the diseases that are sure to spread?

It is precisely the topography that makes Bangladesh particularly vulnerable to the effects of global climate change. If these environmental effects converge with the country's high population and widespread poverty, they will create a perfect storm of disaster.

Moreover, Bangladesh doesn't have any capacity or planning to go through a real challenge under climate change, biodiversity, and desertification.

Life in Bangladesh is already harsh. Bangladesh's dense population may give a glimpse into the future elsewhere. In an overpopulated Earth, millions of people may have no choice but to live on the fringes of habitable environment. This in turn can severely increase the human toll of environmental disasters.

Environmental issues can also fuel violence and political change. When India and Pakistan split in 1947, Bangladesh (then East Bengal) joined Muslim Pakistan. Separated by the entire country of India, the long-distance marriage did not last.

The poor response to a typhoon in 1970 added to the Bengali's frustration with the government in West Pakistan. The Bengalis revolted and, after a bloody war and the help of India, won independence from Pakistan. Environmental pressures brought on by global warming enflame new political unrest might somewhere, who knows!

Possible solutions, such as water storage, reforestation, and shelters, are expensive and difficult. Nobody knows who will pay for disaster prevention and relief.

Bangladesh is poor and contributes only a miniscule amount of the world's carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.

There are also some shocking indications in that report. Snow would disappear from Australia's southeast Alps, while water inflows to the Murray-Darling river basin, the country's main agricultural region, would fall by 10 and 25 percent by 2050.

In Europe, glaciers would disappear from the central Alps, while some Pacific island nations would be hit hard by rising sea levels and more frequent tropical storms.

It is so easy to talk about global warming and come up with so many theories about it, but difficult to come up with real solution. We need to keep in mind that the sun itself is heating up the entire solar system.

According to the NASA and Space.com, all the planets in our system are undergoing temperature rise and Associated Press Study reveals that our sun is getting hotter. Solar radiations are 0.036 per cent warmer then in 1986.

Continuing emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are likely to result in significant changes in mean climate and its intra seasonal and inter annual variability in Asian region. Although the emissions of greenhouse gases usually more visible in the developed countries, Bangladesh should also be aware of it due to lack of resources to protect this emissions.

The bottom line is that altering the earth's climate is serious business -- not something to be taken lightly. Does Bangladesh have any intention and preparation to restructure the energy economy before climate change spirals out of control?

Ripan Kumar Biswas is a freelance writer based in New York.