CLIMATE change threatens the lives of over 19 million children in Bangladesh, according to a new report by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef). 

Twenty of Bangladesh’s 64 districts, the report finds, are exposed to the most hazardous effects of climate change such as cyclones, flash floods, droughts, etc. 

“The effects of climate change are pushing families in many of the country’s poorest communities over the edge, leaving them unable to keep their children properly housed, fed, healthy and educated,” Unicef Bangladesh representative Edouard Beigbeder writes in the report. 

The organisation heard “troubling accounts of child migrants driven out of their homes and schools as a result of devastating floods or widespread riverbank erosion. 

“For many children and young people, especially those who lack basic skills, survival in these harsh surroundings means taking on low-paid, hazardous, exploitative work. For girls, it may mean becoming a child bride or even a sex worker.”

The report notes the “impressive progress” the Bangladeshi government has made “towards building climate resilience.

“But much more can and must be done to avert the real danger that climate change poses to Bangladesh and its long-term development goals.”

“In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its most extensive warning yet about the imminent dangers that rising global temperatures pose to humankind.

“In Bangladesh and around the world, we must put the needs of children squarely at the centre of our response to those dangers – before the most destructive effects of climate change are unleashed.”

Global Witness’s senior climate campaigner Adam McGibbon told the Star how British banks’ funding for fossil fuels plays a large part in the ecological omnicide. 

“There has been a blatant disregard for vulnerable communities around the world impacted on by global climate breakdown – and this is seen nowhere more starkly than at the hands of banks. 

“Thirty-three global banks have funded $1.9 trillion in fossil fuels since the Paris climate agreement was negotiated four years ago – and British banks are a big part of this.
 
“HSBC’s ‘coal policy,’ for example, is full of loopholes that lets it fund coal plants in Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh – three countries where the effects of climate change and air pollution are already killing tens of thousands of people. 

“Our own report this week revealed how the Indonesian coal industry is a dodgy business, which should be a warning sign for British banks like HSBC that are still considering funding coal plants in the region.
 
“Britain is a major financial centre – we can’t stop climate breakdown unless British banks take some responsibility and end their support for fossil fuels.”