The climate change crusader

SALEEMUL Huq looked out to the beach on a warm afternoon at Nusa Dua, a posh resort town on the enchanting Indonesian island of Bali, which was hosting the UN climate change conference. The ministerial segment of the conference was to kick off in a few days, with the participating countries deeply divided. The raging debate over the right to development and obligation to gradually reducing the consumption of fossil fuel became central to the issue of global warming and permanent change in weather patterns.
   The year 2007 had been eventful for Saleemul Huq, who has authored reports published by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the highest body that deals with the issue — which shook the world by proclaiming that climate change was indeed happening and not at all a figment of imagination of a few scientists that many had relegated it to be. Consequently, public pressure has grown on governments for a political response to the scientific findings.
   The last of the IPCC reports, the fourth assessment report, was launched in mid-November in Spain which caused much uproar as it called for massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to save the planet. Saleem was the co-ordinating lead author of the chapter on adaptation and mitigation of that assessment report.
   Bali was all about that political response. It was perhaps the satisfaction of knowing that he had been able to cause such a stir across the world that Saleem could afford his relaxed demeanour as he sat on a beach chair outside the Conrad Hotel, where his current organisation, the International Institute for Environment and Development was hosting a party. It had been a busy two days for Saleem, who currently heads the London-based policy research organisation’s climate change department.
   Although his current position and engagements see him off to all corners of the world rather frequently, Saleem has been travelling ever since he was a child with his father in the foreign service. Born in Karachi, he spent much of his childhood in such places as Nairobi and Jakarta, wherever his father’s job would take the family. Before graduating in biology with honours from the Imperial College of London in 1975, Saleem finished his A-levels in Karachi, before which he attended high school in Nairobi. Four years later he completed his PhD in plant sciences from the Imperial College and joined the University of Dhaka.
   Now, when Saleem has to meet and handle people from different parts of the globe, his travelling comes in very handy. ‘Different people mean different things although they are saying the same thing. It helps to understand what they really mean when you have been to those places and lived there for some time. I find it much easier to actually understand what people actually mean or what they might perceive being said from a certain statement,’ said Saleem. Given the nature of his work and as it is set to become all the more politically sensitive, such insight would certainly be great help, he agrees.
   A few years later in 1985, Saleem quit his job as an assistant professor and set up the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, and became its first executive director. By the time Saleem left this organisation in 1999, it had become one of the leading research organisations in environment and development. But when he started out, there was hardly any recognition of such work, says Saleem. ‘Besides, environment and development involved a number of crosscutting issues that still remain interdisciplinary which the government had no means to address.’
   Initially though Saleem wanted to keep the nature of the organisation fairly flexible so that it allowed them the leverage to become involved in whatever they thought was suitable, hence the accommodating nature of the very name of the organisation. It was not till the early 1990s that Saleem became involved in climate change research. It was among the first of its kind in Bangladesh documenting the impacts of a likely rise in sea-level. ‘There were subsequent studies, six as far as I can recall.’
   Those studies were followed by invitations to other countries to conduct similar vulnerability studies. In 1997 Saleem was chosen as the lead author for the IPCC’s third assessment report’s chapter on adaptation. ‘Till then there had been little discussion on adaptation.’ In fact, adaptation, which has now emerged as one of the main agendas for poor countries, including Bangladesh, was not even included as a topic related to climate change and development.
   He said referring to the two-day IIED event, ‘Even this event, which we used to call Adaptation Day, saw a motley crowd attending. We began with the fifth conference of parties at Bonn as a side event.’ Since then adaptation day has been growing. This year, at the 13th conference of parities to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, some 4,500 people turned up for the event that has now been renamed as ‘Development and Adaptation Days.’
   Saleem sees himself as an interface between climate change and development. ‘When I am among the scientific community, I try and explain the development aspect of the issue. When I am among general people, I try to explain to them the science of the matter.’ It is evident that Saleem’s work has paid off quite well. Development has indeed become the main focus of the discussions even at the highest forums of dealing with climate change and global warming.
   He has been living in London since 1999, when Saleem became an academic visitor at the Huxley School of Environment at the Imperial College, his alma mater. But he does visit Bangladesh several times a year. Although no one among his close family lives in his village home at Mullarhat in Bagerhat, incidentally a district badly hit by cyclone Sidr that is being considered as fallout of global warming, he does visit there off and on. He joined the research organisation he now works for in 2001 as the director of its climate change programme.
   With his extremely busy schedule, spending most of his time travelling, there is little time for leisure although in his student days Saleem used to be a frequent visitor to London’s theatres and a voracious reader. ‘Oh, I still read a lot but most of it is non-fiction. I still do read fiction whenever I get the time.’ There are no best books, he says. ‘It is difficult to name one or two books that I liked the most. You see your taste changes over time and there are several genres I have gone through in phases.’
   And the last time he visited a movie theatre? ‘I cannot really remember. But we do go to watch movies in cinemas whenever I am in London, which is not often. I remember we watched Brick Lane, which was quite good really. But I do watch most of the latest movies on board aeroplanes, which is quite often.’
   Evening had settled and a waiter announced closing of the bar. Saleem thought he should make a few quick rounds and see off his guests; after all, he was the host.
   Tanim Ahmed