Traveling to the Maldives a few weeks ago, I was thinking about possible climate change mitigation efforts there. If the sea level rises even a matter of inches, there will be a dramatic effect on some of the low-lying islands in the Maldives — many of which are essentially glorified sandbars or coral atolls barely above current sea level. If technological fixes were to be developed to combat rising sea levels, e.g. some kind of locks or dike system, they would most likely originate in richer and/or more populated areas — since that is where the money and impetus would come from. I immediately thought of Venice — and so did the Triple Bottom Line blog, in a post which looks into the effects of climate change on Venice and Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Yet Dhaka and Venice have one big thing in common: Both are low-lying coastal cities that have long suffered from periodic flooding and are now threatened with massive destruction due to rising sea levels associated with climate change. As such, they represent the bleeding edge of a problem that will ultimately impact billions of people. With over 60 percent of the world’s population living within 100 km of its seacoasts, the problems faced by these two cities will eventually threaten most of us.
Venice and Dhaka provide quite a contrast to each other. Venice, where rising sea levels have long been on the political agenda, has created a massive, expensive, and potentially ineffective locks system. Few people actually live in Venice, but Italy and the world cares about it for historical and economic reasons. As such, I imagine we will see more top-down intervention in the geoengineering department. Dhaka, on the other hand, has a population of 11 million (compare to Venice’s ~275,000 people), is as vulnerable to rising sea levels as Venice if not more, yet lacks Venice’s international sympathy and the technological or financial resources for massive geoengineering efforts.
Will Dhaka’s huge population of presumably self-interested citizens actually prove an advantage over the relatively abandoned Venice? Will creative solutions such as mangrove reforestation to prevent coastal erosion prove more effective than a massive system of locks? What will the two learn from each other’s respective approaches? I’m sure the Maldives is carefully watching both Venice and Dhaka as climate change test cases to see what mitigation efforts will be most applicable to their own vulnerable region.
