Bangladesh would need $5.7 billion by 2050 to reduce the impacts of extreme weather events including increased risk of cyclones and inland monsoon floods, said a World Bank report on Thursday.
It said that the country would require climate-smart policies and investments to make it more resilient to the effects of climate change.
The report on ‘The cost of adapting to extreme weather events in a changing climate,’ was jointly unveiled by the World Bank and Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund at a city hotel.
The report said that total flooded area would increase by four per cent, inundation depth would rise and at least 21.1 million rural people would be at risk of increased inundation depths.
By 2050, it said, Bangladesh would need an estimated $3.3 billion to protect roads, railways, river embankments and drainage infrastructure from the increased depths of inundation during monsoons due to the impacts of climate change.
It forecast that an additional 14.6 million people would be exposed to floods of more than three-meter depths and another 18.5 million people would be exposed to flooding of more than one meter in depth unless further adaptation measures were taken.
The report said that Bangladesh would need $2.46 billion to build additional polders and cyclone shelters to protect its coastal population.
Speaking on the occasion, environment and forest minister Hasan Mahmud said that climate change was no longer an environmental issue and that it became a development issue.
He described Bangladesh as an innocent victim of climate change and hoped that the WB report would sensitize policy makers, climate experts and researchers to make plans for overcoming the problems.
WB country director Ellen Goldstein, said adaptation was essential for countries across the world, particularly Bangladesh for tackling the increased risks from climate-induced weather events.
The study provides an analytic framework for understanding the challenges ahead, he said.
He said that the study expresses World Bank’s broader technical and financial commitment to support a climate-resilient future for Bangladesh.
BRAC University vice chancellor Ainun Nishat said that coordinated action plan of the related ministries and donors was vital for facing, in the future, increased intensity and frequency of weather events.
Environment and forest secretary Mesbah Ul Alam, joint secretary Mohammad Nasiruddin, and environmental economist Susmita Dasgupta also spoke.
The World Bank conducted the study in collaboration with the Institute of Water Modeling and the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services with financial support from the Dutch government and Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund, supported by Denmark, the EU, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.