VZCZCXRO1291
PP RUEHAST RUEHBC RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDE RUEHDH RUEHGI
RUEHJS RUEHKUK RUEHLH RUEHNEH RUEHPW RUEHROV RUEHTRO
DE RUEHKA #0350/01 0970850
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 070850Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY DHAKA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8576
INFO RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHHMUNA/USCINCPAC HONOLULU HI PRIORITY
RUCNISL/ISLAMIC COLLECTIVE
RUEHGO/AMEMBASSY RANGOON 2812
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 2043

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 DHAKA 000350 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR: USAID, SCA/RA, SCA/INS, S/SECC, EEB, OES 
PLEASE PASS TO PEACE CORPS 
KATHMANDU FOR JOHN ADAMS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAID ECON EAGR SENV SMIG TPHY BG IN
SUBJECT: BANGLADESH, A CLIMATE CHANGE FRONT LINE STATE 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1.  Already faced with numerous environmental challenges, Bangladesh 
is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change.  With an 
area the size of Wisconsin, Bangladesh supports a population of 150 
million in a deltaic landscape at the confluence of the Ganges, 
Brahmaputra and Meghna River systems.  South Asia's monsoon climate 
brings extreme periods of wet and dry, each of which presents a 
series of problems, including flooding, ground water contamination, 
siltation of rivers and salinization of coastal soils.  Most 
Bangladeshis live at an altitude of less than ten meters above sea 
level, presenting an ominous scenario given climate change and the 
associated rising sea.  Current climate trends, including 
temperature rise, sea level rise, expanding salinity, and 
increasingly erratic monsoons suggest the situation will get worse. 
 
¶2.  At the United Kingdom-Bangladesh Climate Change Conference in 
London last September, the Government of Bangladesh (GOB) unveiled a 
Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) to 
address several themes related to climate change, including food 
security, social protection and health, disaster management, 
infrastructure, research and knowledge management, carbon mitigation 
and capacity building.  On a recent visit to Bangladesh, the State 
Department's Regional Environmental Officer for South Asia met a 
number of key figures concerned with climate change, including 
several directly involved in the BCCSAP.  There is a consensus the 
GOB and donors should focus on community adaptation to climate 
change. 
 
ENVIRONMENTAL OFFICER HIGHLIGHTS NEW EMPHASIS 
---------------------- ---------------------- 
 
¶3.  The Regional Environmental Officer, based at U.S. Embassy 
Kathmandu, recently visited Bangladesh and exchanged views with key 
Bangladeshi officials and institutions, including a member of the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the 
Indo-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission, officials from the Ministry 
of Water Resources and the Ministry of Environment and Forests 
(MoEF), several engineers, climate scientists and NGO 
representatives.   He highlighted the new U.S. administration's 
emphasis on climate change, illustrated by the appointment of 
Climate Change Envoy Todd Stern.  Discussions also focused on 
trans-boundary water resources, disaster mitigation and awareness 
building. 
 
OVERVIEW FROM CLIMATE CHANGE EXPERT 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  Dr. Qazi K. Ahmad, a well-known economist, is a member of the 
IPCC, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.  He is chairman of 
Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad (BUP), a development NGO, and has 
written extensively on environmental and water resource issues in 
South Asia.  He briefed the REO and EmbOff on the overall challenges 
facing Bangladesh, highlighting food and water security, both of 
which are directly related to climate change.  He also emphasized 
the need to address climate change comprehensively, both among 
domestic institutions, and with neighboring countries.  BUP 
advocates a community approach to flood management.  Small amounts 
of money can make a big difference, and people must be involved in 
the adaptation process.  He explained his perception that 
Bangladesh's climate was becoming more erratic.  Bangladesh 
traditionally had six seasons based on weather patterns and crop 
cycles, but in recent decades, he claimed, the seasons had started 
to blur, as weather patterns became less predictable. 
 
TRANSBOUNDARY WATER SHARING 
--------------------------- 
 
¶5.  Of the 54 rivers flowing into Bangladesh from India, the two 
largest are the Ganges and Brahmaputra, known in Bangladesh as the 
Padma and Jamuna respectively.  In India, just upstream from the 
Bangladesh border, the Farakka Barrage controls the flow of the 
Ganges River.  A 1996 treaty between India and Bangladesh stipulated 
a formula for allocating water to each country based on the overall 
flow at Farakka, to be monitored by the Indo-Bangladesh Joint Rivers 
Commission.  With increasing demands for irrigation in both 
countries, flow levels have decreased in recent years.  In February 
of 2008 and 2009, flow levels were about ten percent below the 
forty-year average for February established between 1949 and 1988. 
The treaty does not address changes brought on by river use 
activities further upstream in India.  The Brahmaputra River has not 
yet been altered by infrastructure, but talk of proposed irrigation 
projects in Tibet, where the river originates, raises concerns 
downstream. 
 
DHAKA 00000350  002 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶6.  India has proposed major river-linking projects, where water 
would be transferred from one river to another to mitigate excessive 
or deficient flow levels.  Some claim these projects will benefit 
Bangladesh by reducing seasonal variability in the river flow. 
However, annual flooding is part of the natural cycle vital to 
Bangladesh's soil fertility.  While Bangladesh does not yet have 
sufficient data to establish with certainty a case against Indian 
river-linking plans, early indications from a study by the Institute 
of Water and Flood Management at the Bangladesh University for 
Engineering and Technology (BUET) suggest river linking upstream 
would be detrimental to Bangladesh by depriving it of these natural 
processes and altering its environment. 
 
¶7.  Southwestern Bangladesh has suffered from the reduced flow of 
the Ganges, caused in part by upstream irrigation and dam projects. 
Many rivers and streams, including the Gorai River, the largest 
estuary in the region, become stagnant and lifeless in the dry 
season.  In the coastal areas, salt water from tidal flows 
increasingly intrudes on fresh groundwater, raising salinity levels 
in the soil and making it unsuitable for traditional crops. 
Suspended sediment in the Bay of Bengal at the mouths of the Ganges 
also washes inland with the tides, creating further siltation.  To 
mitigate these effects, the Bangladesh Water Development Board 
(BWDB) has proposed a new barrage to be built on the Padma (Ganges) 
River to divert more water into the Gorai River.  To address the 
siltation problem, the GOB has proposed a plan to open patches of 
coastal land, on a rotating basis, to river and tidal deposits, a 
plan it claims has won acceptance from local residents who 
understand the benefits of these natural processes.  These are among 
a series of proposals by the Ministry of Water Resources under the 
BCCSAP. 
 
FORECASTING CAPABILITIES 
------------------------ 
 
¶8.  Other water management proposals include projects to improve 
embankments and other flood control infrastructure, and to enhance 
flood forecasting capabilities.  BWDB already has a sophisticated 
Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (FFWC), which provides daily 
online data, accessible to the public, on current and forecast river 
levels at more than one hundred gauging stations around the country. 
 Proposed further enhancements include the development of more 
accurate digital elevation models to help predict the spatial extent 
of anticipated flooding.  FFWC's approach to flood management 
increasingly emphasizes adaptation to natural processes rather than 
intervention, focusing attention on flood forecasting, erosion 
prediction, environmental monitoring and watershed management.  FFWC 
is in the preliminary stage of developing models for future 
scenarios based on satellite data.  It has no access to Indian data, 
which makes the task more difficult. 
 
¶9.  The SAARC Meteorological Research Center is concerned with more 
long-term climatic forecasts.  Here, scientists from BUET and other 
South Asian institutions have created long-range temperature and 
precipitation forecasting models for the region.  While the models 
predicted only a slight increase in temperature in Bangladesh over 
the next several decades, predictions for the Himalayan region 
showed a rapid increase of several degrees Celsius by 2050.  Though 
highly uncertain, the models seem to corroborate the rapid depletion 
of glaciers and snow cover already evident in the Himalayas. 
 
ADAPTATION AND AWARENESS 
------------------------ 
 
¶10.  Dr. Rezaur Rahman heads the Institute of Water and Flood 
Management at BUET.  He announced that BUET, a highly respected 
institution and the leading domestic source of Bangladesh's 
scientific talent, would soon inaugurate a Climate Change Studies 
Cell.  This unit would provide inter-disciplinary training on 
climate change for water development professionals, including 
project planners, agro-scientists, economists and water engineers. 
Dr. Rahman estimated Bangladesh had about 2,000 to 3,000 such 
professionals at the district and upazilla (county) level, and would 
benefit from further capacity building. 
 
¶11.  The Department of Environment, within the MoEF, established a 
Climate Change Cell in 2004 to promote inter-agency awareness and 
response to climate change.  Through its Comprehensive Disaster 
Management Program the Cell develops training programs and 
publications for local level stakeholders, addressing the 
implications of climate change in a variety of areas, including 
agricultural adaptation, human health and disaster preparedness. 
The Cell has six adaptation projects underway, involving risk 
reduction assessments and climate change response action plans.  The 
 
DHAKA 00000350  003 OF 003 
 
 
Cell collects information on best practices and has access to 
research data, placing it in a good position to advise communities. 
 
USG MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION INITIATIVES 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶12.  USAID, long a supporter of rural electric cooperatives in 
Bangladesh, currently supports a renewable energy project training 
village women in the assembly and maintenance of solar energy 
systems.  Twenty training centers have been established and fifteen 
more are planned, in an effort to reach up to 100,000 trainees by 
¶2015.  The GOB and USAID are also putting in place a portfolio of 
forest and wetland conservation projects, with a minimum value of 
$25 million, by 2011.  With these projects Bangladesh would be able 
to earn carbon credit, to be marketed to high carbon emitting 
countries to offset their excessive emissions, thereby enhancing the 
economic value of protected areas. 
 
¶13.  The USG also promotes climate change adaptation through 
disaster management, risk reduction and natural resource management 
projects.  USAID has funded 245 multipurpose disaster shelters and 
4000 small-scale mitigation structures, such as embankments and 
raised homesteads.  Following Cyclone Sidr in 2007, USAID initiated 
a $75 million reconstruction, recovery and livelihoods generation 
program in the affected area.  Future cyclones, likely to increase 
in frequency due to climate change, will require similar efforts. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶14.  Given the growing emphasis on climate change, both in the U.S. 
and globally, Bangladesh is likely to attract more attention as one 
of the front line states.  The vast number of people potentially 
affected by climate change in Bangladesh has major implications for 
food security, migration, environmental refugees and urbanization. 
Awareness of the problem is certainly growing, and Bangladesh's 
institutional response structures are starting to take shape, 
although considerable bureaucratic streamlining is still needed. 
Internationally, a major obstacle is the fragmented approach to 
climate change by different nations sharing the same environment. 
Increased regional cooperation will be vital, not just within the 
subcontinent but with China and other Asian countries as well. 
 
PASI