Biodiversity and climate are interrelated and integral part of the environment. Climate change is widely recognized as the most serious environmental threat to our biodiversity, ecological balance and as entirely to our planet. Left unchecked, it could have an increasing adverse effect on the global environment resulting in natural calamities by affecting millions of people worldwide. Climate change has become the greatest threat to the mankind in the 21st century. The world of climate change is shifting rapidly with surprises as well as asserting its severity on the earth. Thus climate change has little controversy over the severity of impacts upon the biodiversity of the environment. The challenges of climate change are multidimensional, multi-sectoral, immediate as well as long-term. The causes of climate change are global in nature while the impacts are felt locally, often extremely. Though Bangladesh has contributed the least for the global warming but the impacts are expected to be the worst. Bangladesh has been identified by the world scientists as one of the most vulnerable and severely impacted countries by climate change resulting in the degradation of biodiversity and ecological imbalance. It is high time to appreciate the gravity of this phenomenon so as to implement the provisions and recommendations put forward to resolve the issue.

The global climate is changing far more rapidly than anticipated earlier. Over the last few years, weather related extreme events such as floods, droughts, cyclones, heat stress and wild fires have affected all parts of the world. Even the silent ice caps of the arctic are melting faster. The mountain glaciers are retreating at an unprecedented rate. Climate change impacts have been already visible across the world in various forms. This is demonstrated through recent extreme climatic events around the world. The current century is expected to see warming due to many anthropogenic activities quicker than at any time in the past 10000 years. It seems that we cannot prevent climate change today and it will affect the basic elements of human life including food, water, health, fodders and fuel. Climate change will have adverse impacts on human, social and natural systems and sub-systems in different ways and magnitudes. The developing and poor countries including Bangladesh would be the most vulnerable to the adversities of global climate change due to its Geo-physical location, poor socioeconomic development and lack of capacity to address the impacts. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report warns us about the devastating impacts of climate change and identified the following key impacts for the Asian and African regions:
• In Africa, by 2020, between 75 million and 250 million people will be exposed to increased water stress. Agricultural production and access to food will be seriously compromised.
• In Asia, by 2050, decreasing fresh water availability in most areas could put more than a billion people at risk. Increased deaths and illness are expected from diarrhoea diseases due to flooding and drought and also from cholera due to higher sea temperature.
• In the small island and developing states, rising sea level and increased storm surges will threaten the homes and livelihoods of communities, forcing some to mitigate permanently.

Bangladesh is facing various climate changes impacts and climate related extreme events due to its location and being a nascent extremely flay delta. The country is located between the great Himalayans Mountains in the north with large river systems and the Bay of Bengal in the south. Recently the country is experiencing various climate related natural disasters and extreme events like prolonged and repeated floods in the northern and central parts, severe cyclones and salinity in the coastal districts and drought in the northwest parts. These are affecting physical environment, ecosystems and natural resources bases severely almost every year.
The climatic events have deadly consequences on agriculture and food security; water, human health and human security. The super cyclone Sidr and the frequent and prolonged floods of 2007 are the obvious recent examples of such extreme events. The country experienced 30% - 40% loss of crops last year and majority people are facing food insecurity now due to severe flood and Sidr.
Bangladesh experiences over flow of water causing floods in the monsoon and scarcity of water in the dry season due to change in the hydrological patterns, rainfall and regional water flow patterns. These have been linked with global warming and climate change. This situation will be aggravated as climate warms further resulting in severe droughts, cyclones and increasing floods as well as sea level rise in the south.

It is apprehended that the possible sea level rise will affect the country by inundating coastal areas of Bangladesh. A 30-45cm sea level will affect the coastal ecosystems, water, and agriculture and food production. But this will also dislocate about 35 million people from coastal districts by the year 2050. For a 30cm sea level rise it is anticipated that next 30 year’s development investment would be wiped out in Bangladesh. These may create severe problems in rural livelihoods, local, regional and sectoral development as well as in sharing scarce resources (land, water, forest and fisheries) and thus it will enhance rural to urban migration and social conflicts in near future. The emerging climate refugees will put enormous pressure on urban economy and infrastructure i.e. housing and communication as well as on basic services such as water supply, power, health and sanitation.
Climate change and its associated events will affect the natural resources and common property resources such as fisheries, mangroves and other forests, which provide livelihood supports for the common people and the poor. This will increase poverty and today’s poor will be turned into extreme poor tomorrow if we do not take appropriate and urgent measures now. The non-poor people could be thrown into poor due to climate extremes as demonstrated by Sidr and floods.

The experts suggest the following measures to check up the imminent perils on biodiversity caused by climate change:

Bangladesh is one of the lowest contributors of Green House Gas both as a nation and on per capita basis. We are not at all responsible for the global climate change, but we are mainly victims. We, as a country can do very little to tackle the causes of problem. Hence, we have to work collectively with the world community. The UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol under the convention give us the scope and structure to work together and raise our voice to the global community and influence global decision-making in our favor. However, Bangladesh has to work with the alliance of Group-77 and LDC to achieve good results from the Conference of the Parties (COP) negotiations to reduce GHG emission and lower the risk from the impacts of climate change on people, society, economy, biodiversity and ecosystems.

The urgent response to address climate change would be to build greater awareness about the causes, impacts, vulnerability and consequences of climate change at different levels including community people, local actors, national government and relevant departments, policy and programs, private sectors, NGO’s and development partners. There are two main approaches addressing the climate change and its impacts. These are mitigation i.e. drastic reduction of GHG emission for halting dangerous climate change and adaptation to address its impacts. Mitigation is the main response measure to prevent future impacts of climate change and consists of acts such as switching from using coal to petroleum to natural gas (the least polluting fossil fuel). One of the most important tasks is to integrate climate change issues into relevant policy, programs and sectoral development process so that the impacts of climate change can be reduced in a great extent.

Bangladesh’s future survival and development depend on its capacity to confront and reduce the risks of climate change. Otherwise the biodiversity will be perished. The time for action is now. We must master all efforts to make climate change a priority in our foreign and economic areas. At the same time we must do our level best both in adaptation and mitigation. The impacts causing on the biodiversity due to climate change is vibrant and alarming simultaneously. We do firmly believe that the earnest desire, concerted effort, consciousness and the proper implementations of the recommendations can ensure a hygienic environment to live in within an enriched biodiversity.

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