Impact of COVID 19 on Bangladesh's environment and climate change trajectory and SDGs goals

Abstract

Human activities have long impacted the earth’s environment and climate. Whereas environmental impacts have been a part of policy concern for some decades, climate change (CC) concerns are a more recent phenomenon and have in recent years become the defining issue for humanity. The recent pandemic of COVID 19 has clarified how fragile the world is right now in terms of the environment and economy. This paper tries to tackle the burning question of how has COVID 19 impacted Bangladesh's environmental and climate change trajectory, especially in terms of our SDG goals. In the past two years, another crisis in the form of Covid 19 has dominated our news. For developing countries like Bangladesh, how has Covid 19 impacted the country’s environmental and climate change trajectory? In this thesis, I attempt to first assess what are the pathways through which Covid 19 pandemic can impact the environment and climate change. What do theories tell us about the possible direction of impacts? Then I assess if there has been an impact of Covid 19 on Bangladesh’s environment and climate change trajectory. Furthermore, more importantly, how can Bangladesh properly prepare for a twin crisis? Given that we are facing a dual disaster of Climate change and the Covid pandemic, which is the most serious issue of our time. In doing so I wish to identify recommendations for the future to better prepare for the dual crisis of Covid 19 and climate change. To answer the questions, the paper looks into the data pool of environment and CC of the country to assess the impact, build a bridge with the economy or assess the available pathway of the impacts of CC and economy with the pandemic. Therefore, the paper first analyzes the 20-year data of the environment and CC with the performance of the economy. Environmental pollution is usually an added pollutant to the natural environment, whereas climate change is a shift in climatic pattern and so has a more complicated and less visible set of contributing causes. We understand that COVID is a financial shock for developing countries. As Bangladesh is still the least developing country (LDC) it needs more time to get back on its feet compared to most countries. Thus, I look into anthropogenic impacts massive on the environment. The pollution has caused disruptions in the general reformation state of the earth and caused more heat by several harmful gases. These gases have damaged the ozone layer, severe damage in health for the animals and humans as well as the scarcity of resources by eliminating the natural producers. We see that a few key factors are impacting Bangladesh’s environment and climate change trajectory. The first is economic activity. Without any policies such as taxation of polluting industries, or regulation, increased economic activity is associated with increased production of pollutants. The lead theories include- Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), depicting the inverse relationship of economic activities and environment, and the theory of Externality, talking about the social benefit of one polluter's actions. An economic theory such as the EKC posits this to be true for developing countries such as Bangladesh. EKC theory predicts that as a country develops further and per capita income rises beyond a certain level that the extra income will then go into improving the environment. Thus, after a certain level of development pollution will go down. For Bangladesh though, given the level of development, the prediction is that pollution will increase with economic activity. With the interruption in economic activities brought about by the pandemic we see less pollution is some of the indicators, but more pollution in others from medical waste. Looking globally, while we see this is the relation predicted by EKC to be true for some pollutants and some countries, for climate change the polluting factors are greenhouse gas emissions, which are highest for developed countries. Moreover, a reduction in pollution in developed countries has also come about through moving the polluting industry overseas, usually to developing nations. The findings indicate there is no simple relation, but rather point to the importance of policy. Then the paper looks into the available major agreements of the country on the global platform and the local laws regarding CC and the environment. The hypothesis of the paper consists of a visible relationship of the pandemic with the economy and climate change. I look into the variables of Air Pollution, Water Pollution, Green House Gases, and Resource Constraints. Among these variables, the thesis selects a few sub-variables that are suitable for the study. Then the hypothesis is tested by establishing the trend in environment and CC in Bangladesh. The paper finds the hypothesis is partially true for the country as there are mixed results. Some sub-variables have no change, some positive and some negative. The paper next explains why there are mixed results. In explaining why there are mixed results, we hope to illustrate what we can do in the future. The first chapter introduces the environmental impacts I am assessing in the thesis, with a particular background on the new challenge of climate change. The second chapter looks at the pathways through which Covid 19 pandemic could impact a country’s environment and climate change trajectory. Covid 19 had brought about a halt in economic activities in Bangladesh. Therefore, the main pathway of impact has been through the interruption of economic activities. I thus review theories linking economic activities and the environment, including climate change. I then look at the impact of environmental policies particularly with the advent of the Sustainable Development Goals. In the next chapter, I present the variables that capture Bangladesh’s environment and climate change trajectory. Then I present the findings of how this trajectory has been impacted by the pandemic and different policies. I find that the pandemic impacted the country’s trajectory in environment and climate change through firstly the economic slowdown, secondly increased medical waste, thirdly lack of funds and human resources to tackle issues such as increased medical waste. Moreover, proper regulation around waste and emissions, along with implementation plays a big role. I conclude with a discussion on the findings and put forth future recommendations, highlighting available mechanisms through which to do so, as included in economic theory and international policies. Moreover, the paper discusses the SDG achievements in terms of CC and environment with gaps and ways of filling these gaps. The paper concludes by examining the nature of the two issues of CC or environment and COVID, physical resources, and policy reformations. By reviewing the laws and agreements the paper dictates the impact of COVID on the resources of the country as the country lacks human resources. Sudden health crisis made the country vulnerable to any shock and thus the country ended up in a big pit of poverty with an ever-growing environmental crisis. Going forward the paper ends with solutions that are based on development economic framework such as polluters pay principle, internalizing externalities, increasing funds for local eco-friendly products, and investments in research for eco-friendly innovations.