The theme of today’s World Environment Day, “Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care,” highlights the importance of ensuring sustainable development.
It is wrong to think of economic growth and protecting the environment as contradictory. Richer and more industrialised countries may create huge greenhouse emissions, but they are also more able to invest in measures to reduce them and tend to be more successful at implementing conservation measures.
As a country with one of the world’s largest populations at risk from climate change, Bangladesh needs to be environmentally conscious in all aspects of national policy. Raising living standards is vital to build resilience and improve our population’s ability to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change.
Some current policies such as IDCOL’s success in spreading millions of solar home systems directly support the twin goal of improving living standards while reducing environmental impacts.
The government needs to ensure that other policies, notably the costly subsidies given to gas and oil which encourage waste and do not deliver either energy security or sustainability, move in the same direction and help boost investment in renewables.
In addition, it must urgently tighten enforcement of our own conservation and environmental laws to allow authorities to reduce the more visibly damaging impact of unchecked pollution and irresponsible development that afflicts our rivers and forests.
Ensuring proper enforcement of environmental protection laws is essential not just to punish environmentally irresponsible activities, but to support and encourage businesses and industries which are acting to reduce their negative environmental impacts.
