Let me start with a classic example of Venezuela -- the country officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Hugo Rafael Chávez was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Venezuela has experienced a marked deficit in the generation of electrical energy.
There may not be a clear-cut answer to this question: “What is causing Venezuela's energy crisis,” and different people provide differing interpretations.
However, the immediate cause of the energy crisis was a prolonged drought that caused the water in the reservoir of the Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant to reach very low levels.
Also pointing the finger at weather changes, President Chávez said: “It's El Niño,” (a periodic phenomenon in which warming in the Pacific gives rise to unusual weather patterns) partly to be blamed for this crunch.
The El Niño is blamed to have resulted in a lack of rainfall and the cause of water shortages. These shortages in turn have starved Venezuela's hydroelectric dams, which provide approximately three quarters of the nation's electricity.
It is important to mention here that President Hugo Chávez had been in power for more than 10 years, during which time he had deflected numerous electoral challenges, a recall effort, a coup d'état and even an oil lock out.
A politically adroit statesman, he demonstrated enormous staying power throughout all these political crises.
Yet, Chávez's leadership was finally threatened by the devastating El Niño-linked drought, when the government was forced to undertake conservation measures for water and electricity.
He finally urged citizens to cut back showering time as the country's electric and water supply problems mounted, passionately encouraging Venezuelans to quell personal consumption by taking shorter showers, saying that wasting electricity or water “is a crime.”
Throughout the Pacific Basin, El Niño is normally linked with extreme weather like droughts and floods. With the El Niño dry spell, there is a probability of a shortage of water to generate the rated capacity of the power stations.
So, the dry spell is likely to seriously affect both the water and power sectors in Bangladesh.
The power problem in Bangladesh is nothing new and, certainly, even without El Niño, Bangladesh has already suffered the severe effects of the power shortage.
So, there is no question about it. What is important here -- the forthcoming El Niño may further aggravate the problem of the power crisis.
Concerned agencies of Bangladesh should, therefore, strive to find an answer to how much influence the ongoing/forthcoming dry spell of El Niño has on the water and power crisis in Bangladesh for which the country might experience the worst suffering in the forthcoming summer and winter.
While further research is needed, climate change could make El Niño more intense and frequent in the future; the public officials in charge of forecasting, planning, and constructing new water and power plants should also think about the role of this periodic El Niño/La Niña event in implementing any future projects.
Dr Md Rashed Chowdhury is a Climate Scientist - currently affiliated with Arizona State University, USA (Email: [email protected]).
