Achieving SDGs: Climate change still a major hurdle
Climate change remains one of the major threats to achieving Sustainable Development Goals that seek inclusive development, says a global UN report.
It indicates that poverty and inequality would only increase in the absence of a continuum of policies designed to reduce people's exposure and vulnerability to climate change.
“The condition of low-income people, who already face inequality, will worsen with the impacts of climate change…. This is a double burden for them,” said Nazrul Islam, senior economic affairs officer of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).
He presented the report titled “The World Economic and Social Survey 2016: Climate Change Resilience -- an Opportunity for Reducing Inequalities” at the UN Information Centre in Dhaka yesterday.
The report comes at a time when the world enters its second year on the way to achieve the 2030 Global Agenda or SDGs that seeks to leave none behind.
According to the study, a total of 6,457 weather-related disasters occurred during 1995-2015, which claimed more than 600,000 lives and affected another 4.2 billion people.
It revealed that low-income countries suffered the greatest losses, which was estimated to be about 5 percent of their GDP.
The UN report does not provide any specific estimate on Bangladesh, but says it is one of the few countries facing gross socio-economic losses.
Citing a recent study, UNDP Country Director Kyoko Yokosuka said 95 percent of the poor coastal people in Bangladesh experienced the impacts of climate change. One of the top three reasons for their failure in poverty reduction is climate change, she pointed out.
“Poor in general, and women, persons with disability, children, elderly people and indigenous people living below the poverty line are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change,” the UN official added.
Yokosuka said an estimated 400,000 people relocate to Dhaka every year from elsewhere in the country, while 70 percent of the capital's slum dwellers moved there to flee some sorts of environmental shocks.
“With increasing urban poverty, there are increased inequalities,” she said.
The UN report voiced concern that international resources to support climate change resilience were insufficient.
At the Paris climate conference last year, countries committed to setting a target of mobilising at least $100 billion per year for climate change mitigation and adaptation activities in developing countries.
Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change says adaptation costs will range from $70 billion to $100 billion per year by 2050 in the developing countries alone.
Climate change discussions focusing on mitigation through adaptation is more important for countries like Bangladesh, said Nazrul Islam of UNDESA.
While the world goes through an “emergency situation” due to climate change, there is an opportunity for the international community to come together to address the challenges, he added.
The UN report recommended immediate assistance to fight climate-related hazards, interventions for disaster risk reduction and taking up adaptation policies, including introduction of new crop varieties and water management techniques.
It also suggested ecosystem management and income diversification of people and policies to reduce inequalities, which in turn would help address climate change impacts.
These specific measures would be most effective when they are part of long-term transformative strategies aligned to economic, social and environmental dimensions of SDGs, the report said.
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