Climate strike and Bangladesh - more in common than it seems

Last Saturday it happened again. Thousands of students* and activists in various Swiss cities have expressed their displeasure at the currently inadequate climate protection policy in Switzerland. They know: Our way of life is not sustainable and climate change is a direct consequence of this. You have been throwing politicians the necessary resources for years, but so far you have not taken a step in the right direction. That the need for action is enormous is also evident in the Horyzon project countries, among others.

One of them is Bangladesh, a country with 165 million inhabitants. Trapped between the two most populous countries in the world, each inhabitant of the country causes around 0.45 tons of CO2. A very small number compared to what the inhabitants of rich industrial countries emit per capita. For example, an American emits around 15 tonnes of CO2 per year (!), while the average Swiss emits 4.45 tonnes. It is the resource-intensive lifestyle of Western industrialized countries that is partly responsible for the fact that, for example, the annual total amount of rain in Bangladesh is continuously decreasing. It happens that even during the monsoon the rain does not fall for days or it only rains for 15 minutes instead of a few hours. These effects are particularly noticeable in agriculture: farmers no longer have enough water or have to buy water to irrigate their fields. This increases production costs and thus makes vegetables more expensive. A development that hits poorer classes hard.

Climate strike - well-known in Bangladesh

In addition, violent hurricanes in recent years have destroyed freshwater supplies in coastal regions. At the same time, the associated tidal waves flushed salt water onto the fields, rendering them infertile. It turns out that in countries like Bangladesh the negative effects of climate change are omnipresent in people's everyday lives. They cannot afford to wait any longer. As a result, Horyzon is also working within the framework of the HCD programme to encourage young women to learn to combat discrimination caused by climate change (more expensive vegetables, water scarcity), among other things, and to help raise awareness among other sections of society through demonstrations on environmental protection. Climate strike - no new phenomenon in Bangladesh thanks to Horyzon.