Bangladesh Confronts Climate Change

Bangladesh shows how to adapt, innovate and live in a world affected by climate change.

Severely threatened by climate change, Bangladesh is showing the world how to take an active role in adapting to this situation. Learning from its own experience in coping with floods and cyclones, Bangladesh is taking the lead in international climate change negotiations and attempting to persuade the industrialized world to curb emissions.

Living in a low-lying and densely populated country on the front line of climate change, Bangladeshis are taking a lead in adapting to rising temperatures and campaigning to limit climate change. Global warming will worsen this country's existing environmental problems – causing a rise in sea level, more flooding and stronger, more damaging cyclones.

Bangladeshis know what is coming, and how to respond, because they are already effectively combating environmental and social challenges. Cyclone shelters and warning systems have cut the fatality rate dramatically; new varieties of rice have raised nutrition levels; women's education has slowed population growth; land is being raised to respond to sea level rise. Bangladeshis will keep their heads above water, but at huge costs. Will the industrialised countries curb their greenhouse gas emissions and pay for the damage they have already done?