Bangladesh need to unlock the unbalanced environment to tackle climate change!

Rajon Md. Shahabuddin

Can you imagine ever?  When we need water we just switch on water pump and get water but that will not be the case in less than a decade. According to the United Nation, 1.8 billion people will face acute water scarcity by 2025.“Green” is a buzz word these days and the Green movement is very much prominent throughout the world. In United nation Climate summit 2014, emphasize were given on how to tackle global climate change.

Let us have a look at why it is so important to Go Green? Going green actually reduce carbon footprint and helping the environment. Green buildings are designed in such a way to reduce overall impact on environment and human health by reducing trash, pollution and degradation of environment. Efficiently using energy, water and other resources is at the core of Green building.

In the evolution of sustainable development, three mutually reinforced pillars have been the key- people, planet and profit. In the light of 2030 SDGs, 3P’s have been upgraded to 5P’s- People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership. All countries and stakeholders are to implement the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, with firm determination of taking necessary steps towards ensuring a steady, resilient, and sustainable development path.

In fact, it was a difficult challenge to bring the world to understand that human activity has a real impact on our environment. For many years, some scientists and leading people denied this fact. It’s true that climate has always changed through the billions of years of our planet’s life: 4000 years ago, the Saudi Kingdom was all green. And now it is a desert!

This is not the point. The point is that human activity has accelerated the pace of the change. Now this fact is admitted by all of us. But it took time to recognize and to address this issue.What we can say is that human activities generate so-called “anthropogenic” greenhouse gases, distinct from the greenhouse gases naturally present in the atmosphere. Those greenhouse gas emissions alter the atmosphere’s composition, causing the increased greenhouse effect that is leading to global warming.

If we notice under the current global emissions trends, the rise in average global temperatures should come to between 3.7°C and 4.8°C by 2100. To limit atmospheric concentrations by 2100 and achieve the goal of keeping global warming below 2°C, global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 40-70% by 2050 compared to 2010 levels, and to drop to levels close to zero CO2 emissions by 2100.

In this regard entrepreneur’s level are encouraged to invest in renewable energies – for example solar panels for their RMG factories, through the access given to funds with a very low interest, or through a contribution to the expenses by the state. Renewable energy reduces the consumption of electricity from National Grid which makes the environment healthier and sustainable. This is why our priorities should go for sustainable energy. If there’s one thing I hope we can all agree on, it is that clean, affordable energy is the key with which we can unlock a sustainable future.

Here as you know, Bangladesh is the first country of the world in terms of domestic solar solutions. It can be replaced by RMG industry.  Public and private national funds, as well as donor funds are mobilized in order to build solar power plants.

Surely banks have a key role to play, as they are responsible for funding this global move. Banks are also encouraged to move green by giving the priority to dematerialization in their relations with their customers and by funding projects to develop renewable energies at all levels. They have to encourage environmental friendly choices. Bangladesh Banks has already taken good initiatives for green financing.

English poet William Wordsworth rightly mentioned “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her” We have to love our nature if we want to be sustainable in business. Because Climate change and environment are such an important issues we can’t left it for our future generation. So true sustainability should come from heart not from head.

So now the matter is: how to alleviate this problem and tackle the climate change in order to live as part of our environment, rather than against our environment. In fact, we have no other choice, we must GO GREEN.