Vehicles move down the dusty Gulshan link road in Tejgaon area of the capital on Monday as lingered development works expose local people and the road users to health hazard and cause pollution. — Sony Ramany

Human-induced climate change impacts are likely to steadily reduce the production of Bangladesh’s major food items such as rice, wheat and fish while raising temperature and humidity in parts of the country by the end of this century to a level that will be unbearable for humans.

A new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released on Monday issued the warning.

Sea level rises together with extremely heavy rain and frequent flooding will lead to circumstances facing a fourth of the country’s people water scarcity by 2050, according to the report of the UN body.

The report said the national economy would face a severe setback because of the impacts of climate change.

The projected rise in sea levels is also a threat to ecosystems like the Mangrove Forest of Sunderbans, said the report.

From 2012 to 2050, freshwater river area is expected to decrease from 40.8 per cent to 17.1-19.7 per cent under different sea-level rise scenarios in the southwest coastal zone of Bangladesh, said the report.

The report iterated that Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world due to climate change and sea-level rise with a projected loss of 2 per cent to 9 per cent of annual GDP by mid and end of the century.

It also projected a displacement of 1 to 2 million people of south Bangladesh by mid-century and declining rice production by 12-17 per cent and wheat production by 12-61 per cent,’ said Rawshan Ara Begum, one of the coordinating lead authors of the report.

According to the report, parts of the country would lose 31-40 per cent of agricultural output in this century to sea-level rise alone because of current emission plans.

And a third of the country’s power plans may need to be changed over the next decade to avoid flooding from sea-level rise, the report said.

Unless carbon emissions are rapidly eliminated, the report suggests, Bangladesh is among the places that will experience intolerable heat and humidity.

If emissions continue to rise, parts of Bangladesh towards the end of this century would exceed the  threshold where heat and humidity becomes survivable for humans, the report said.

 As result of climate change and increasing demand for water, about 25 per cent of people in Bangladesh will live with water scarcity by 2050, compared with about 10 per cent now, the report said.  

Both the Ganges and Brahmaputra river basins will also see increased flooding as a result, according to the report.

‘This will further worsen the country’s current challenges including extreme poverty, income inequality, economic and non-economic losses and damages and low adaptive capacity,’ said Md. Arfanuzzaman, one of the lead authors of the IPCC report.

Climate change will hit international supply chains, markets, finance, and trade, reducing the availability of goods in Bangladesh, increasing their price, as well as damaging the markets for Bangladeshi exports.

Economic shocks caused by climate change, including reduced agricultural yields, damage to critical infrastructure, and commodity price rises, could lead to financial instability in the country.

Nearly 26 million people are currently exposed to very high salinity in shallow groundwater in coastal Bangladesh, the report said.

The report attributed the 2017 haor flood affecting 220,000 hectors of paddy crop on anthropogenic climate change. 

 ‘Moreover, floods, extreme weather events and cyclones have led to animal escapes and infrastructure damage in aquaculture,’ said the report.

The report also linked the cyclone Amphan to climate change impacts which caused estimated damage of $13.5 billion.

The diarrhoea cases are likely to rise by up to 2.2 million more by 2100 in Bangladesh under a 2.1°C rise in temperature scenario, according to the report.

Salinity intrusions into freshwater aquaculture systems have changed oxygen and water quality of inland ponds, resulting in mortalities in areas such as India and Bangladesh, the report said.

In coastal Bangladesh projected saline inundation to wetland ecosystem will result in ecosystem losses of raw materials and food provisioning, ranging from $18-$20 million under different temperature rise scenarios.

‘This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction,” said Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC, in a press release.

‘It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks,’ he added.