A Nonprofit & Nonpolitical Organization, Under Societies Registration Act 1860.

ENVIRONMENT & CLIMATE CHANGE

Awareness and preparedness program on severe weather events:

It is very likely that the global mean surface temperature in the 20th century has risen by about 0,6 °C. The 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 was the warmest year on record. This century is expected to see warming quicker than at any time in the past 10,000 years, the modern history of humankind.  It is likely to lead to a rise in sea level, more droughts, floods, heat waves, water shortages, and increased threats to human health. Climate change will disproportionately affect developing countries, and poor people within all countries. A country may be hit by drought one year and floods the next. Every government and National Society should assess the range of risks and plan to reduce vulnerability accordingly.

The impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and poor persons within all countries. This in turn will exacerbate existing inequities in health status and access to adequate food, clean water, and other resources. Millions of people on small islands and along low-lying coastal areas are at particular risk from sea level rise and storm surges. It is important that disaster preparedness and health programs pay attention to local knowledge about trends in risks and vulnerabilities. Older people remember how weather patterns have changed over the years, which developments may have left the community more vulnerable and which coping mechanisms have worked best. 

It is quite obvious that Bangladesh has already experienced climate change and impacted severely on physical, ecological, economic, social environment and the country has been identified as one the worst victims of climate change. Observations of 32 years of monthly maximum and minimum temperatures over Bangladesh for the period 1961-1992 (Choudhury et al.,1997) show increase of temperature in most of the selected stations by around 0.11-0.33°C during the observational period varying over the seasons. The annual precipitation has been found to increase at a range 4-5 mm/year. The study by Quadir et al. (2004) has shown that Bangladesh and the adjacent areas experienced warming with maximum at Dhaka (0.037 °C/year) during the period of 1961-1990. 

The coastal region of Bangladesh covers 19 districts and about 20% of total land area and over 30% of the cultivable lands of the country. It includes highly diverse ecosystems e.g. the world’s largest single tract of mangroves (the Sundarbans), beaches, coral reefs, dunes and wetlands. Tasauf Foundation has taken initiative to work on the following core areas to meet the global threats posed by climate change:

1. Promotion of humanitarian values
2. Disaster response
3. Disaster preparedness
4. Health and care in the community