ON ITS OWN:
BANGLADESH CAN
SAVE ITSELF FROM
SOME CLIMATE
CHANGE
ROBERT LITAN
For almost as long as climate change has been a global issue, Bangladesh has
been an international poster child for what can happen if climate change is not
somehow contained. The country sits at sea level, is largely flat and laced with
rivers, and thus is like a sitting duck for disasters caused by sea levels that con-
tinue to rise as the polar ice caps continue to melt. Coupled with this massive
flooding are increasingly frequent intense storms, also induced by climate
changement, which pose a major threat to the 170 million citizens of the world’s
most densely populated nation.
Climate change projections made by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Changement (GIEC 2021) in mid-2021 aggra-
vate these worries. Although the panel did
not materially change its central projec-
tion from earlier reports—that in the
absence of substantial change in policies
technologies,
and climate-improving
global temperatures are projected to rise
by at least three degrees centigrade above
1900 levels by the end of the century—the
2021 report expressed much less uncer-
tainty about that outcome.
A three-degree increase may not
sound like a lot, but in the world of cli-
mate change, where changes in weather
and melting ice respond in a highly non-
linear fashion to warming temperatures, un
temperature increase of that magnitude
portends catastrophic effects. When those
effects will materialize depends on how
quickly that increase occurs. It takes time
for ice to melt, and the longer it takes
global temperatures to rise—a scenario
made more likely by gradual global
changes in emissions and carbon-capture
technology—the higher the ultimate
levels will be.
increase
Paradoxically, a faster increase in global
temperatures that then levels off—a sce-
nario associated with short-run delays in
climate change policy and technological
sea
dans
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advances but major positive changes
thereafter—would restrain the rise in sea
levels (“Briefing” 2021, 19).
My thesis here is that, while there is
probably no way Bangladesh and other
low-lying areas around the world can sur-
vive the IPCC’s projected worst-case rise
in sea levels—as much as 10 feet by 2100
and more than 16 feet by 2150—it proba-
bly can protect itself against a more mod-
erate sea level increase, roughly 2 feet by
2100 in the PPCC’s intermediate emis-
sions scenario projection. Thanks to the
major economic advances Bangladesh
has achieved over the last two decades
(though largely unnoticed outside the
country), the country has the resources to
do this without substantial official foreign
investissement. This is due in part to the high
rate of domestic savings and the large
number of
remittances made by
Bangladeshis living outside the country.
Leaders in Bangladesh should know
they will be largely on their own to deal
with the consequences of continuing cli-
mate change for at least two important
raisons. Un, sad to say, is that the devel-
oped world, the United States in particu-
lar, has thus far shown relatively little
regard for the fate of the developing
world in climate matters. Had the rich
world taken more aggressive steps to mit-
igate the effects of climate change—for
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
example, by taxing carbon emissions or
implementing national cap-and-trade
systems years ago—the climate change
crisis would not be as severe now or in the
avenir. Deuxième, the rich world’s response
to the COVID-19 pandemic—commend-
able in making vaccines available, but not
as rapidly and as extensively as the situa-
tion warranted—only further under-
scored the fact that developing countries
always will be last in line for receiving
help. Only by taking matters into their
own hands can countries like Bangladesh
avoid, or at least mitigate, the potentially
catastrophic outcomes expected due to
climate change.
Pour faire ça, cependant, the government
will need to follow, and ideally strength-
dans, existing plans for adapting to climate
change and be resilient in dealing with its
effects. Dans 2020, the government of
Bangladesh released its latest economic
planning document, the Vision Plan,
which set the national goal of a roughly
sixfold increase in real per-capita GDP
over the next two decades, from about
US$2,000 in 2020 to US$12,500 in 2041,
coupled with the virtual elimination of
extreme poverty over that time span. That
planning document recognized the vul-
nerability of low-lying areas of the coun-
try that are the most susceptible to rising
sea levels, which not coincidentally are
Robert Litan, an economist and lawyer, is currently a nonresident Senior Fellow at the
Brookings Institution and a lawyer specializing in complex antitrust litigation. During his career,
he has directed economic research at three leading organizations (the Brookings Institution,
Bloomberg Government, and the Kauffman Foundation), and held high-level positions in the US
Department of Justice and the Office of Management and Budget. He is the author or co-author
de 30 books and more than 300 articles that address financial institutions policy, as well as insur-
ance and catastrophe issues.
© 2021 Robert Litan
nouveautés / volume 13, number 1/2
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Robert Litan
also highly impoverished areas, and dis-
cussed current plans to address the issue.
Those plans must come to fruition if these
areas are to be saved and the country’s
goals for economic growth and poverty
reduction are to be met. As important as
the fiscal investment that will be needed
are the measures the country will need to
take to accommodate the increasing
migration away from low-lying areas.
In what follows, I first provide a brief
background on Bangladesh’s exposure to
the threats of climate change. I follow
with suggestions for how to mitigate
those threats, though without the benefit
of the more detailed adaptation plans,
which are not in the public domain. je
close by discussing ways Bangladesh,
largely on its own, can finance its invest-
ment in the necessary adaptation.
THE CLIMATE CHANGE
THREAT TO BANGLADESH
Bangladeshis know all too well why their
country is so exposed to the dangers of
climate change, especially the rising sea
levels that result from the melting of the
polar ice caps and other frozen areas of
the world, such as Greenland, Siberia, et
Northern Canada. That is because the
entire country sits at or near sea level,
with roughly 65 million people living at
an elevation
pieds.
lower
En outre, the country is crisscrossed
by multiple rivers, most notably the
Ganges River (call the Padma River in
Bangladesh). As it is now, substantial por-
tions of the country are regularly flooded
during the summer monsoon season.
que 32
It is not an accident that the most
flood-prone areas, and thus those most at
risk from rising sea levels, are the poorest
areas in the country. The Vision Plan
notes that the most vulnerable districts of
Bangladesh include most of the 15 poor-
est. It also notes that the Bangladesh Delta
Plan 2100 includes measures aimed at
“flood control, water storage, irrigation,
land management, agriculture, forestry
resource management, and ecological bal-
ance,” which also are part of the overarch-
ing plan for enhancing growth and reduc-
ing
(Bangladesh
Planning Commission 2020, 46). Clairement,
the government must see this effort
through.
extreme poverty
Bien sûr, Bangladesh is hardly alone
in its exposure to rising sea levels. Around
the world, presque 700 million people live
in coastal areas that are at risk of perma-
nent submersion as ocean levels continue
to rise (Frey 2021). Even rich countries
like the United States face major conse-
quences; assuming the country musters
the political will to make the required
investments, an estimated US$400 billion will be needed over the next 20 years to protect US eastern and southern coastal areas from rising ocean levels (Litan and Fleming 2021) Other risks resulting from climate change are unique to Bangladesh and just as worrisome as the rise in sea levels. As the Vision Plan warns (Bangladesh Planning Commission 2020): changement] threatens Rising temperature [due to cli- mate to increase monsoon rains causing river overflow and higher inci- dence of flooding; temperature rise also threatens to damage crops and contribute to health problems. In parts of the country over-exploitation of groundwater with low rain owing to climate change threatens to weaken the surface aquifers that could create water shortages for irrigation-fed agriculture in the Northwest dry zone of Bangladesh. In the urban areas, the water tables in many parts have already sunk very low owing to over-exploitation of 88 nouveautés / Bangladesh at 50 Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/13/1-2/86/1978754/inov_a_00285.pdf by guest on 07 Septembre 2023 On Its Own: Bangladesh Can Save Itself from Some Climate Change groundwater and inadequate re- charging. Arsenic contamination threatens many water supply sources. Assuring adequate water supply to a growing urban popu- lation and expanding industrial and commercial activities will be a major challenge in moving for- ward. The Vision Plan follows up these warn- ings with a single sentence, which seems inconsistent with its otherwise optimistic projects about future GDP growth and poverty alleviation: Unless these vulnerabilities are managed and addressed compre- hensively, Bangladesh faces seri- ous downside risks to [its] food security, growth momentum and poverty reduction efforts. The plan elsewhere emphasizes the point again by admitting that “the ability to address the environmental challenge will also determine the ability to achieve high- income targets and mostly eliminate the incidence of absolute poverty by FY2041” (Bangladesh Planning Commission 2020, 202). Dans 2018, a World Bank report vali- dated this concern, projecting that a warmup of just 1.5 degrees centigrade could reduce Bangladesh’s GDP by 6.7% par 2050, even if preventive measures are taken. This would adversely affect the liv- ing standards of more than three-quarters of the country’s population, relative to a scenario in which the projected tempera- ture increase does not occur (Mani et al. 2018). MITIGATING THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE: WHAT SHOULD BE DONE The Vision Plan highlights several steps the government has taken or is planning to take to address the challenges of cli- laws mate change, and thus to keep any decline in living standards to a minimum. These steps include enacting tougher environ- enforcement (though mental remains a challenge); planning to address the environmental risks to the delta via the Delta Plan 2100; initiating flood-con- trol projects in other areas of the country; and adopting a National Adaptation Plan and a 2010-2015 National Disaster Management Plan. In addition, in coop- eration with and with help from other countries, Bangladesh has substantially increased its investment in building shel- ters to protect its people from periodic cyclones and major rains (“Climate Adaptation” 2021). Cependant, the government is candid about the fact that implementation of its planned adaptation measures remains a work in progress, due in part to the need for “long term investments in water man- agement” Planning (Bangladesh Commission 2020, 201). As recently as 2019, Bangladesh was still far from ready to meet its climate change challenges. Tasneem Siddiqui, a political scientist who leads the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit at the University of Dhaka, was quoted then as saying, “Right now the govern- ment’s vision is to have no vision. It’s just that everything is in Dhaka, and people are all coming to Dhaka. And Dhaka is collapsing” (McDonnell 2019). The Vision Plan was published after that statement was made. The plan repre- sents a major step forward, at least on paper, as it commits the country to a sub- stantial increase in water management investment, depuis 0.8% à 2% of GDP, and in annual operations and maintenance spending on these projects, from essen- tially zero now to 0.5% of GDP. Will these admittedly substantial investments, assuming they are made, be enough to keep the country from being flooded as sea levels rise and damaging innovations / volume 13, number 1/2 89 Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/13/1-2/86/1978754/inov_a_00285.pdf by guest on 07 Septembre 2023 Robert Litan storms become more frequent? It is diffi- cult to say, because the government plans still do not reveal precisely what invest- ments are contemplated. It presumably includes more and higher seawalls, in addition to those that already protect approximately 60% of the country’s coast- line. The plan also fails to indicate what increase in sea level these investments will protect against. In any event, higher seawalls may not be the only answer to Bangladesh’s cli- mate challenge. Ecological seawalls, such as the oyster reefs off Kutubdia Island, one of the country’s low-lying districts, help break the force of incoming water, which limits beach erosion. These reefs consist of oysters that attach themselves to concrete structures along the coast and grow to form barriers that help blunt the force of higher sea levels. Further experi- mentation with and investment in this technique merit consideration (Imtiaz 2021). Creative solutions are also needed to sustain agriculture in a country that faces increasing loss of arable land as sea levels rise. One answer, of course, is increased productivity land plots. in existing Another potential solution is hydronic agriculture, which uses a floating body of greenery in lieu of soil. This can serve as the base for growing various crops, including okra, gourds, spinach, and many herbs and spices (“Bangladesh’s Floating Gardens” 2021). Another inno- vation, a Netherlands-based NGO, is spreading technology that enables Bangladesh’s small farmers to grow salt-tolerant crops, which will be able to thrive as saline-con- centrated sea waters rise. ICCO has part- nered with Bangladesh-based academics and private-sector partners to apply these techniques with 5,000 small farmers, with another 5,000 scheduled to benefit by 2024 (Ahmed 2021). This is the kind of innovation that outside philanthropists pioneered ICCO, by and/or the Bangladeshi government should encourage. Many Bangladeshis, especially those living in the most flood-prone areas, will not wait—and are not waiting—for cli- mate adaptation measures to be fully implemented. Sensibly, they are already moving and will continue to relocate to higher ground. This movement initially crowded the capital city, Dhaka, but then began to disperse throughout the country. A World Bank study projected in its “pes- simistic” climate change scenario that the migration figure in Bangladesh would top 13 million by 2050, in contrast to just under 4 million in a more climate-friend- ly scenario (Rigaud et al. 2018, 144, 148). Of course, like other developing countries, Bangladesh has a long history of rural-to-urban migration. The cities have so far accommodated it, even as its economy has grown rapidly. Cependant, climate-induced migration from the coastal areas inward, even under opti- mistic assumptions, is likely to add fur- ther stress. Some additional out-migra- tion, especially of Bangladeshi men, the source of the country’s substantial foreign remittances, may act as a safety valve. Toujours, the government will face the addi- tional challenges of improving infrastruc- ture and sustaining employment, surtout- cially in the urban areas to which migrants historically have been attracted. FINANCING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION An obvious question about any future government efforts to thwart the effects of climate change is how they will be financed. The government sensibly says that “beneficiaries” will pay for all local water projects and the associated operations and maintenance expenses to maintain them, but that they will do so only “over time,” so that all the costs will be “largely 90 nouveautés / Bangladesh at 50 Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/13/1-2/86/1978754/inov_a_00285.pdf by guest on 07 Septembre 2023 On Its Own: Bangladesh Can Save Itself from Some Climate Change beneficiary managed and financed and therefore fully sustainable” (Bangladesh Planning Commission 2020, 203). The plan is honest about the fact that higher taxes equivalent to an additional 2% of GDP will be required, a substantial amount even in developed economies, let alone in developing countries where the tax burden tends to be much lower. Raising taxes will be politically chal- lenging, even if citizens are told that the higher taxes are necessary to preserve their way of life—or even life itself. Néanmoins, there are some reasons for cautious optimism. D'abord, the fact that the government implemented a variation of a carbon tax in FY 2020 (Bangladesh Planning Commission 2020, 204) as part of the country’s climate change mitigation poli- cies, along with direct regulation of sources of carbon emissions, provides some encouragement that citizens will be persuaded to accept paying higher taxes in order to implement literally life-saving climate change adaptation. Deuxième, the taxes in Bangladesh are currently among the lowest in the world, thus the government believes there is room for citizens to pay additional taxes, along with cost-sharing by the affected communities, although this will require some combination of higher local taxes and utility rates (Bangladesh Planning Commission 2020, 204). It also is possible that Bangladesh will receive some foreign financing for its adaptation efforts. One source is the Global Climate Fund established by developed countries, which had US$6 bil-
lion in its coffers in 2016. En principe, si
the government of Bangladesh can meet
all the relevant criteria, it should be eligi-
ble to receive at least some of these
monies. The Vision Plan also mentions
other global funds that could contribute
to these efforts (Bangladesh Planning
Commission 2020, 208).
Bien sûr, it is possible, some might
say likely, that the government’s ambi-
tious climate change adaptation policies
will not be fully paid for by taxes, service
charges, and funding from one or more
global funds. This means that some por-
tion may have to be deficit financed. Toujours,
an increase in the government’s annual
deficit, even one as large as 1% of GDP,
for perhaps a decade or more still should
be manageable, for several reasons.
For one thing, the government
deficits already fall in the 5% of GDP
range, so an increase of even one full per-
centage point of GDP, which may be the
worst case, is not especially alarming,
given the low government-to-GDP debt
ratio of just 32% dans 2020.1. Admittedly,
this figure has risen in recent years, but it
is no higher than a decade ago and is well
below government-to-debt ratios in many
rich countries.
Deuxième, Bangladesh’s economic out-
put per person has grown more than six-
fold over the past three decades (1990-
2020), an annual growth rate of roughly
6%—a remarkable record.2. This rapid
growth has improved the economic cir-
cumstances of many of the country’s citi-
zens, and many of them have been able to
save, rather than merely living at a subsis-
tence level. Thanks to the country’s ongo-
ing growth and the saving habits of the
country’s citizenry, Bangladesh’s gross
savings rate over the past decade has con-
tinuously hovered in the 30% range.3.
Savings rates of this magnitude more than
cover the government’s deficits, even with
another one percentage point of GDP
increase. Bangladesh’s rapid GDP growth
also keeps its government debt-to-GDP
ratio at a relatively low, stable level.
Bangladesh also benefits enormously
from remittances sent home by its natives
working abroad—at this writing they run
at about $20 milliards par an, or approxi- mately 6% of GDP (a figure comparable the government’s deficit-to-GDP to innovations / volume 13, number 1/2 91 Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/13/1-2/86/1978754/inov_a_00285.pdf by guest on 07 Septembre 2023 Robert Litan ratio). The annual flow of remittances ensures that the country has ample for- eign exchange reserves, which have kept its currency relatively stable. Climate Bangladesh’s planned efforts to adapt to climate change are not written on a blank slate. The government has been working on the matter for more than three decades. In September 2008, Bangladesh launched its first Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan at the Change UK-Bangladesh Conference in London. That led the con- ference participants to propose a multi- donor trust fund for climate change, which in turn led to the formation of the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund in 2010. The fund has disbursed about $170 million to Bangladesh for cli-
mate-resilience investments. The World
Bank has provided technical assistance on
these matters.
More broadly, the World Bank
proudly reports that it has provided
US$30 billion to Bangladesh since 1972.4.
For reasons stated earlier, Bangladesh
does not and should not count on any-
thing like this level of support in the
avenir, especially if only targeted toward a
major policy area, such as climate adapta-
tion.
WORST-CASE PLANNING:
NOT TOO EARLY TO BEGIN
It is plausible that the additional domestic
investments in climate change adaptation
currently contemplated by the govern-
ment of Bangladesh will be sufficient to
address the country’s climate-related
challenges under the IPCC’s moderate
scénario, which envisions a two-foot rise
in sea levels by 2100. Cependant, all would
have more confidence in this projection if
the government were to release studies or
data establishing that the planned invest-
ments would achieve this result.
Cependant, it is unrealistic to expect
that Bangladesh alone could insulate itself
from a worst-case, climate change-
induced outcome: namely, a rise in sea
levels exceeding 10 pieds. In that event, un
combination of constructing much higher
seawalls and imaginative ecological sea-
walls, buildings on stilts where possible,
and relocating a substantial portion of the
country’s population to higher ground
would be required. It is beyond the scope
of this essay to estimate how much all of
this would cost, except to say it would be
far more than 2 percent of GDP over the
next few decades.
It would be a mistake to simply
ignore the worst-case possibilities, comment-
ever nightmarish they may be. The global
COVID-19 pandemic, if nothing else,
underscores that lesson.
The good news, if there is any in a
worst-case climate scenario, is that unlike
the pandemic, which happened suddenly,
the worst-case effects of climate change
will manifest themselves gradually. Ce
gives policymakers and citizens enough
time not only to develop and begin to
implement contingency plans but to press
the rest of the world for more unconven-
tional mitigation measures, such as geo-
engineering, which is far less expensive
than conventional mitigation, although it
also poses untested and unknown risks of
its own. In a worst-case scenario, howev-
er, geoengineering, or perhaps other
unorthodox inexpensive innovations with
fewer potential side-effects, will look
more attractive than the permanent
flooding of hundreds of millions of peo-
ple around the world, many of them in
Bangladesh.
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‘Revolutionise’ Life for Struggling
Bangladeshi Farmers.” The Guardian,
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92
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