On Its Own: Bangladesh Can Save Itself from Some Climate Change

the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2021) in mid-2021 aggravate these worries. Although the panel did not materially change its central projection from earlier reports—that in the absence of substantial change in policies and climate-improving technologies, global temperatures are projected to rise by at least three degrees centigrade above 1900 levels by the end of the century—the 2021 report expressed much less uncertainty about that outcome. A three-degree increase may not sound like a lot, but in the world of climate change, where changes in weather and melting ice respond in a highly nonlinear fashion to warming temperatures, a temperature increase of that magnitude portends catastrophic effects. When those effects will materialize depends on how quickly that increase occurs. It takes time for ice to melt, and the longer it takes global temperatures to rise—a scenario made more likely by gradual global changes in emissions and carbon-capture technology—the higher the ultimate increase in sea levels will be. Paradoxically, a faster increase in global temperatures that then levels off—a scenario associated with short-run delays in climate change policy and technological ON ITS OWN: BANGLADESH CAN SAVE ITSELF FROM SOME CLIMATE CHANGE