Bangladesh News

Bangladesh is on top of the global climate risk index as the country was most affected by extreme weather events cyclone Sidr and floods in 2007.

International NGO Germanwatch has prepared the index of 170 countries styled Global Climate Risk Index 2009 and released it yesterday at the conference centre of UN climate change summit in Poznan, Poland.

Bangladesh is on top with climate risk index (CRI) score 3.00, while North Korea got the second position with 10.33 and Nicaragua third with 12.25.

Bangladesh tops the position with a death toll of 4,729 last year due to natural calamities with an additional absolute loss of property worth more than $10 billion.

Pakistan is another country from South Asia that is also among the top 10 countries with the fifth score of 13.17.

Speaking at the index release presentation, Sven Harmeling, senior adviser for climate and development of Germanwatch and author of the report, said: “Bangladesh, despite last year’s impacts, is also one of the outstanding examples of countries, which have invested significantly and effectively in developing disaster reduction and adaptation strategies.”

Harmeling also praised the adaptation strategy of Bangladesh and told The Daily Star the recent ‘Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan’ of Bangladesh can serve as a model for many other countries and deserves support of international community.

Based on the information of NatCat service of Munich, German and from the government of Bangladesh, they prepared the index taking into account the indicators of total number of deaths, deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, absolute losses in million purchasing power parities and losses per unit gross domestic production (GDP).

Among the top ten nations Oman got fourth position, Bolivia sixth, Papua New Guinea, seventh, Vietnam eighth, Greece ninth and Tajikistan tenth position.

But analysing the data of the last one decade from 1998 to 2007, the average position of Bangladesh is second with a CRI score of 10.92 following Honduras with 6.75.

Though average death toll of Bangladesh in the last one decade was 1,093, average death toll per 100,000 inhabitants was .70, which in Honduras is 8.5.

But in Honduras the average number of death toll in the last one decade is only 579, almost half of Bangladesh.

The average loss of property in Bangladesh due to natural disasters was shown more than four billion US dollars.

Among other South Asian countries, India is on the seventh position among the countries most affected in last one decade with a death toll of 4,532 on average.

Christoph Bals, executive director of Germanwatch, and Maarten Van Aalst from International Red Crescent Climate Center, were also present at the presentation of the report.