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Need for investment in climate change research

Saleemul Huq and Clare Stott
THE recent publication of the fifth assessment report (AR5) of all three Working Groups of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has brought the science of climate change up-to-date. The report of Working Group 2 (WG2) focuses on "Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation." Released in Yokohama, lapan, last month, the report contains a lot of new information that is relevant for Bangladesh, South Asia and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
Main findings of the IPCC AR5 WG2:
The report focuses on the impacts of climate change, the probable effects of these impacts and the current status, challenges and future directions for adaptation for Bangladesh, South Asia, LDCs and the rest of the world. It verifies without doubt that climate change impacts are already occurring and will become more severe over the next two decades. Whilst the report also indicates that over longer time frames the worst impacts can still be avoided, it stresses that this will require a significant enhancement in efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions through mitigation.
Many emerging lessons on the planning and even implementation of adaptation around the world are cited. However, there are also clear limits and barriers to effective adaptation, which will lead to inevitable loss and damage for affected nations. Finally, the report highlights that some of the most innovative adaptation actions are occurring in the poorer rather than the richer countries. It emphasises that there is much need to accelerate the research on such actions and share learning across the globe on how best to tackle climate change impacts.
Since the release of the AR5, the third "Adaptation Futures” conference has been held in May 2014 in Fortaleza, Brazil. Here, over six hundred scholars and researchers (including some from Bangladesh) came together to share the latest scientific outputs on adaptation to climate change. Such conferences help to keep the scientific knowledge base for adaptation updated, associated debates fresh and critical decisions reliably informed.
Climate change research in and on Bangladesh:
Based on a preliminary authorship analysis of the report produced by Working Group 2, we have developed an understanding of the status of current climate change research in and on Bangladesh. There are around 150 references to Bangladesh in the report and, of the associated citations, there are over 80 different papers that have a specific focus on climate change in Bangladesh. Just shy of 250 authors have contributed to these papers, including over 70 different first authors. Our analysis found that the majority of these first authors are from international institutes (most of which are based abroad), while only a minority are from Bangladeshi institutes. We conclude from this that, although much research on climate change is taking place in Bangladesh by researchers working within
Bangladeshi institutions, national institutes are less often publishing research in international scientific peer reviewed journals. It is these journals that are relied upon by the authors of the IPCC reports. As such, the findings of national institutions are less often recognised by the IPCC and so have less chance of being used by national and international policy makers. We interpret these publication constraints to be, in part, a result of limitations in the quality of research being produced.
In order to address this issue of research quality, a new initiative, called “Gobeshona" (Bangla for "research") is being set up by a consortium of universities in the public and private sectors alongside national and international research institutes, government and non-government agencies, based in Bangladesh. We have already identified over a hundred universities and research institutes around the country that are doing research on climate change and are excited to come together through Gobeshona to address this issue and seek support through collaboration.
To achieve its aims, Gobeshona is involved in several activities. Firstly, a web portal is being launched (www.gobeshona.net). The web portal will detail completed publications and ongoing research specifically focusing on Bangladesh and climate change. It will also list upcoming events to inform people of what is going on, and opportunities available for interested researchers. In addition, the Gobeshona initiative will provide mentoring for young scientists on how to do good research and publish in international peer reviewed scientific journals.
From 2015, an annual “Climate Change Research Conference" will be convened every January, offering the opportunity for new and experienced, national and international researchers to present their research, engage in critical discussion and push for positive action in response to climate issues in Bangladesh. Through these activities, Gobeshona ultimately seeks to ensure that research being conducted on climate change in Bangladesh is more effective.
Conclusions:
Tackling climate change is a long-term issue for a country like Bangladesh. It is also a knowledge intensive issue where new knowledge on impacts, vulnerability and especially adaptation, needs to be continuously generated and fed into decision making at both policy as well as practice levels. Bangladesh needs to invest more strategically and with a higher emphasis on the quality rather than the quantity of relevant research on climate change impacts and effectiveness of different adaptation actions forthe coming decades. One of the significant findings in the development literature based on experience over many decades is that investment in appropriate research capacities at the national scale is one of the best longterm investments that a nation can make.
The writers are Director and Visiting Researcher, respectively at the International Centre for Climate Orange and Development (www.icccad.org) at the Independent University, Bangladesh.