Dhaka Tribune

As climate change increasingly pressures Bangladesh's insurance industry, a start-up based in Silicon Valley has developed a new climate insurance program known as Total Weather Insurance. This program offers full-season coverage for farmers based on precise data. There are now talks to introduce a similar insurance scheme in Bangladesh.

On the 6th anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza building, which killed over 1000 people, the author analyses what actions were taken in response. He further discusses how (un)prepared Bangladesh would be if an earthquake were to hit the country.

Considering that female-headed households in Bangladesh spend three times as much as male counterparts on climate expenditures, microfinance can help facilitate adaptation and empower women through its versatile uses. With the looming impacts of climate change, microfinance needs to mainstream climate change and DRR to help vulnerable communities.

As Dhaka has recently witnessed many devastating fires, urban experts have warned that multiple buildings are at risk of incineration and earthquake damage, in part due to the violation of building codes. Retrofitting or destroying at-risk buildings, as well as better empowerment of relevant government agencies, will help prevent disaster.

River deltas, such as the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta, are particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise and the associated risks of it. Sea-level rise is projected to continue until 2300 under both 1.5°C and 2°C warming scenarios in the delta system, with 1.5°C resulting in medium global rise of 0.9 metres while 2°C would result in 1.2 metres of global sea-level rise.

With development on sand-filled land in recent times, Dhaka has been consistently named one of the riskiest cities in the world for an earthquake. The second most densely populated city in the world, Dhaka has very few earthquake resilient buildings. To increase resilience, the city needs to start enforcing already existing building codes.

When a earthquake shook Bangladesh on April 25 last year, grade-X student Nuri Yashfi Karim panicked and forgot how she was supposed to respond in such events, reports the Dhaka Tribune. Yashfi, who studies at a Mohammadpur school, has been reading about disaster management – since grade-III. But, neither she nor her classmates followed the instructions...

Agricultural lands are gradually losing their top soil fertility in fighting adversity of climate variability, reports the Dhaka Tribune. Pumpkin production through technical strategies demonstrated by Islamic Relief Bangladesh has shown a way of sustaining food security with diversification in this crucial time of climate changes. The poor people of the wetlands are getting financial and nutritional support for cultivating sweet pumpkins and it is gradually gaining more popularity...