Consider This from NPR - Lessons From A Country On The Front Lines Of Climate Change

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

The United Nations says time is running out to avoid the worst effects of climate change. At the same time, countries like Bangladesh have no choice but to adapt to an already changing climate.Bangladesh is prone to flooding from rising sea levels and melting glaciers. And it is in the path of some of the world's most powerful cyclones.NPR's Lauren Frayer reports from northern Bangladesh on how the country is becoming a hot spot for climate solutions.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. A recent UN report warned the Earth is on track for a catastrophic warming, and the window to do something about it is rapidly closing. We have never been better equipped to solve the climate challenge, but we must move into warp-speed climate action now. We don't have a moment to lose.

That was UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaking on the day that the report by top climate scientists from around the world was released. The climate time bomb is ticking. But today's IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time bomb. It is a survival guide for humanity. A survival guide that lays out the many, many ways that world leaders can slash greenhouse gas emissions. NPR's Rebecca Herscher spoke to a number of experts about how to prevent catastrophic climate change. This is Ho Sung Lee, a lead author of the U.N. report. We are working when we should be sprinting. And this is what the report said sprinting would look like.

No more new power plants that burn coal, oil or gas. No more subsidies to extract fossil fuels from the ground. And lots of investment in solar and wind. Plus, big changes to how we farm, how and where we build homes and how we warn people about extreme weather. Here's Patricia Romero-Lancow, a climate scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. There are many available, cost-effective and affordable solutions to reduce emissions in transport, in industry, in housing, in our daily activities. So the United Nations is urging world leaders to step up efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions immediately in order to save lives. Inger Andersen is the head of the UN Environment Program. Nations is urging world leaders to step up efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions immediately in order to save lives. Inger Andersen is the head of the UN Environment Program. Climate change is throwing its hardest punches at the most vulnerable communities who bear the least responsibility. Here in the U.S., as well as all around the world, poor people, indigenous people, and people of color are especially

vulnerable to rising seas, stronger storms, and deadly heat waves. So consider this. The UN says time is running out for the world to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change. And at the same time, many countries have had no choice but to think proactively and adapt to an already changing climate, along with more frequent and more severe climate disasters. After the break, we hear how Bangladesh, a country that's in the path of some of the world's most powerful cyclones, is now becoming a hotspot for climate disaster solutions. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Tuesday, March 28th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies.

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It's Consider This from NPR. Bangladesh lies just to the east of India, south of the Himalayan mountains. It's vulnerable to flooding as glaciers melt and sea levels rise, and it's hit with some of the world's most brutal cyclones. But Bangladesh only contributes a tiny fraction of the Earth's carbon emissions, making the country what many call a climate victim. Bangladesh has had no choice but to adapt to all this, and that has made it a hotspot for climate solutions, as NPR's Lauren Freyer reports from the country's north. Right now it's the dry season and I'm on a roughly 25-foot wooden boat making my way

through like a web of capillaries that covers northern Bangladesh. Narrow, muddy, tiny rivers. There's some water buffalo fishing boats, some children running along the riverbank waving. But in the wet season, this just becomes a shallow sea. A shallow sea that last June swept away the house that Majida Begum had lived in for 60 years. She squats in the mud where her kitchen used to be, scaling fish with a dull blade. Seasonal floods are part of life here, but they've gotten increasingly erratic, and last year's were the worst Majida had ever seen.

Pretty soon we'll be living in the tops of trees, she says, or the land will be strewn with our bodies. I tell my American friends, you know, you send your skeptics to Bangladesh. The awareness of climate change is the highest in the world. Climate scientist Salimul Haq says that while Bangladesh contributes only a tiny fraction of global carbon emissions, everyone here feels their effects. This country is basically a giant river delta that gets inundated as Himalayan glaciers melt,

as monsoon rains come in spasms now, and as sea levels rise. But Haque says, We have gone through the doom and gloom phase. That's yesterday's news in Bangladesh. Now it's all about solutions, using satellites to track cyclones, buoys with solar-powered sensors to measure sea level, and 4G cell phone service in areas that might not even have electricity or plumbing. So that when something happens, almost everybody on land gets the message, gets to shelter and survive. It's not the technology. It's social capital.

It's people knowing what to do. That is Bangladesh's biggest asset. Majida Begum, whose house washed away, she knew when to flee. Because of a warning sent out by this man hundreds of miles south in the capital Dhaka. Parto, P-A-R-P-H-O. Parto Prothim Barua is an engineer at Bangladesh's Flood Forecasting and Warning Center. Last June, he noticed an unprecedented amount of rain forecast for the Himalayan foothills, an area that's been deforested in recent years. There is no grass or no trees on

the hills, so the water just rushes downstream. Downstream to low-lying Bangladesh. So he called up his colleague Nazma Akhtar in the far north of the country near the Indian border. She's a housewife with a side job reading a gauge in her local river. This with the numbers on it, it's like a scale showing the river level. It looks like a yardstick in the riverbank. She checks it five times a day and sends readings to Dhaka by text message on her indestructible old Nokia brick phone. Bangladesh has hundreds of people like Nazma, regular folks, not scientists, who monitor water levels on the front lines of climate change. Last June, Nazma's readings were 15 times higher than normal, a sign of massive rainfall to the north even before it began

raining here. So Nazma says she knew what was coming, some of the worst flash floods ever to hit her country. And she felt a duty to warn people. Back in Dhaka, Parto, the engineer, got Nazma's data from the north, plugged it into his hydrological model, and totally freaked out. It broke the records of the last 100 to 150 years. So he grabbed a little microphone attached to his desktop computer and recorded this message on June 19, 2022. Assalamu alaikum. Warning people in the north of the country to evacuate.

We try to keep it as simple as possible and as short as possible. And then he holds his breath and hopes people get it in time. That message went out on Bangladesh's emergency warning system as a smartphone push notification, but also as an analog recording, accessible even on old Nokias like Nazmus. Meanwhile, up north, Majidah Begum was in her kitchen scaling fish and watching the sky cloud over. She lives two hours boat ride from the nearest road and farther still from any flood shelter. She does not have a phone, neither does her neighbor, Noor Jahan, but Noor's nephew does. I don't know what kids do with those fancy phones, Noor says, but somehow that day we got the scientist's warning. It was actually two days after Parto had sent it out and the nephew got the message that the warning spread by word of mouth through this village,

and the river was already lapping at the edge of Majida's kitchen. We took refuge on a boat and went three days without food, she recalls. But everyone in their village survived. Old Bangladeshi folk songs celebrate seasonal rains as bringing life rather than trauma. A group of musicians in this village have been reviving those songs, and also writing new ones, with lyrics encouraging people not to chop down trees or toss litter. Because music, too, is a timeless rural tool for spreading awareness and staying safe. Since last June's devastating flood, neighbors here have been rebuilding raised houses atop sandbags

and fortifying the foundations with local indigenous materials. This one is newly built. It's still a mud floor, but it's also mixed with cow dung. And they seal the floor so that when this house does flood, it doesn't become a muddy mess. It sort of acts like a varnish. Majida also built herself something handy. A cook stove that's portable instead of being fixed to the ground. So that the next time she has to evacuate, and she's sure there will be a next time, at least her family won't go hungry.

That was NPR's Lauren Frayer. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.