As an assignment to MOOC at Coursera for Citizen Engagement: A Game Changer for Development

1. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN
BANGLADESH:
RESPONSE TO CLIMATE
CHANGE ISSUES
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2. CLIMATE CHANGE AND BANGLADESH
Bangladesh has been described
by ADB as the world’s most
vulnerable country to climate
change related risk factors.
This vulnerability is due to its
disadvantageous geographic
location, flat and low-lying
topography, high population
density and reliance of so
many communities on
agriculture and fishing, which
are vulnerable to changes in
the environment, for their
livelihoods. With rates of
malnutrition in Bangladesh
running at around 35%, the
threat to agricultural
production from climate
related events could have
devastating impacts on
populations already
vulnerable to food shortages
and poverty.
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3. 1. A rise in sea levels could inundate a
significant portion of low-lying coastal
areas of Bangladesh. Roughly 25% of
landmass is likely to be inundated
permanently if sea level rises by 89 cm
which might create 18 million climate
refugees including Sundarbans, the
coastal mangroves that straddle the coasts
of western Bangladesh & India,.
2. More intense storm surges & Severe
droughts in drier seasons.
3. Increased precipitation and a potential for
drier conditions during the dry season
(winter), which could make droughts
worse.
4. Climate change is associated with hotter
summers and colder winters,
Temperatures in Bangladesh have
increased by about 1°C in May and 0.5 °C
in November between 1985 and 1998, and
further temperature increases are
expected.
SEVERE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON
BANGLADESH
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4. WHY PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Public participation is particularly significant in the environmental decision-
making process for two reasons. Firstly, there has been growing public
concern about the relationship between environmental health and human
well-being. Secondly, there is increasing demand from the international
community for good governance, which generally includes use of
participatory dialogue process between the government and civil society. This
Article examines whether the government of Bangladesh (“GOB”) has
managed to ensure public participation in climate change matters.
Environmental matters affect an entire nation and public participation in
such matters enhances governmental accountability and acceptability,
thereby leading to less litigation, fewer delays and generally better
implementation of decisions.
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5. BARRIERS ON PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
1. Psychological-cognitive barriers : How an individual internally processes information about
climate change may motivate or demotivate him/her to engage on it more deeply. For example,
individuals may deny the threat, believe that they are not at risk or it won’t happen here or in
their life time. They may engage in wishful thinking or rationalization that the problem will go
away on its own is less severe than believed, or that silver-bullet solutions will be found. They
may also displace their attention on other, maybe more immediate, issues. This type of reaction
is common among those who may identify as “environmentalist” but who may simply feel
disempowered vis-à-vis the problem itself. Common responses are that global warming is just
too big, too overwhelming for them to deal with. They may feel trapped, be fatalistic or nurture
a form of “capitulatory imagination” i.e., in thoughts and images of the issue and the future that
lead to giving up. These types of cognitive and emotional responses are particularly common in
response to scary, overwhelming issues. Among the leading mal adaptive responses to threats
which are particularly scary, ill-understood, difficult to control, overwhelming, and in which
people are complicit – such as global climate change–is psychic numbing or apathy.
Communication efforts that disregard such emotional responses are likely to fail.
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6. BARRIERS ON PUBLIC PARTICIPATION CONTD.
2. Social barriers : Whether or not we engage in expressly civic action, we are social being. We are
embedded in social networks, for social identities, engage in social interactions and in doing so,
adhere to varying degrees to social norms that tell us whether it’s appropriate behavior or not. If
engaging in civic action on climate change portrays a particular social identity, and our own does
not conform, or overtly conflicts with that identity, we are unlikely to engage in this particular type
of civic action. Closely related is the observation that civic engagement on a particular issue (and in
a particular way) can produce a social stigma that may not be acceptable. For example, if someone
considers joining a social movement, doing so may involve adopting a “movement identity” which
may conflict with how that person wants to be seen by his peers. Importantly, civic engagement
also takes time, resources, may be inconvenient or too demanding given other daily concerns and
obligations. Considerable lethargy and apathy may have to be overcome and even those who feel
sympathetic to a cause or are inclined to partake in civic action face huge demands competing for
their limited time and attention. Finally, individuals – deeply embedded in society through
socialization, institutions and modern-day activities – may simply agree with the existing social
norms, which allow and support emission-generating behavior, and by implication disagree with
the social norms that suggest alternative behavior. Communicators interested in civic engagement,
i.e., in a deeply social activity, would do well not to dismiss the social dimension in which
individuals live and decide to act – or not act.
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7. BARRIERS ON PUBLIC PARTICIPATION CONTD.
3. Political barriers : People may be generally disinterested in political matters, prefer to
leave political activism to others, and/or may feel deeply disenfranchised from political
process. Election campaigns serve as good reminders of why this general political
disengagement is such an ominous obstacle: what issues get played up, which are
neglected, how they are framed and discussed in televised debates, and which constituents
organizers go after to gain the edge on the votes, all speak volumes of the challenge of
mobilizing certain sections of the electorate. Sometimes “special interest politics”, harking
on very narrowly defined, but hugely emotional issues, or focusing on the more tangible,
local can help break through these forms of political apathy. They may help explain why
many much rather focus on matters of personal concern, impact, and influence.
4. Structural, economic, institutional, and technological barriers : Even if the internal
psycho-cognitive and external social and political barriers could be overcome, a person
may still face overwhelming barriers to taking action. These commonly undermine efforts
to encourage individual behavior change, but can equally hinder civic engagement. The
barriers I refer to are structural in nature: an alternative technology is not yet available or
exceedingly in convenient or expensive to employ; existing laws and regulations may
prohibit an alternative course of action; public infrastructure is not in place to allow
switching to alternative fuels; political institutions and electoral processes are heavily
controlled by vested interests, leaving little room for reform, much less deeper shifts in
political control over decision-making processes.
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8. THE POTENTIAL ROLE FOR COMMUNICATION IN FACILITATING
CIVIC ACTION
1. Problem framing and (social and political) agenda setting.
2. Widening the circle of the engaged: education and persuasion.
3. Demonstrating the failure of existing institutions and the need for political change.
4. Crossing boundaries across social divides
5. Sustaining and managing civic engagement
6. Building community and countering isolation
7. Developing an engaging, morally compelling social vision
8. Establishing and spreading new social norms.
In summary, civic engagement depends critically on effective communication. Communicators frame the issue
of concern; mobilize social, political actors and their opposition; and the solutions. They can help build
a movement, sustain and manage it through challenging times, cross social divides, and assist in the
deeper societal transformation. The nature of climate change makes these communication tasks
particularly challenging.
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9. Communication Strategies to Overcome Barriers to Civic Action
on Climate Change
The fundamental challenge of effective communication for social change is this. For communication
to be “effective”, i.e., facilitate an intended social change, or – in the case here, mobilize people
for civic action on climate change– it has to achieve two things: first, elevate motivation to get
involved and secondly, lower the barriers/resistance to that engagement or change in behavior.
The main communication strategies to deal with these challenges can be pointed as below:
1. Increase the sense of urgency
2. Link climate to everything else not only as an environmental issue but also as a social,
economic, educational, security problem.
3. Take control over the framing cause it is always more powerful to define the frame than
respond to someone else’s.
4. Don’t hide uncertainty and don’t hide behind it
5. Be very, very careful with alarmist messages
6. Don’t get hung up on words, create meaning instead
7. Don’t try to persuade everyone, just focus on the critical few
Contd.
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10. 8. Use “people like us” and reach across social divides ---“People like us”
(or PLUs as Julian Agyeman has called them) are important for our
personal comfort, identity, and group-internal norms and cohesion.
Often, PLUs (especially if we know them personally) have greater
credibility and legitimacy than someone who does not know our
circumstances as well.
9. Begin building a positive vision worth fighting for
10. Be kind and fare. We here on spaceship Earth are all in this together.
Those who today may be the movement’s opponents will still share this
one planet tomorrow. Global warming will not be solved by a few, but by
cooperation among the many. It is in the hands of every movement
member to either make this cooperation harder through hostility or –
the firm commitment to the issue notwithstanding – a little easier
through basic decency and kindness. There are more than verbal ties
between our common future, communal struggle, and communication.
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11. CONCLUSIONS
One could argue that the costs and procedural technicalities of participation
procedures may become a concern and excessively technical and
bureaucratic procedures for public involvement can be a major hurdle for
fruitful consultation. However, it has been observed that one way to
overcome this problem is to shift the onus from the general public to the
GOB to initiate and ensure participation. This type of vertical dialogue
initiation process is already in place in some environmental legislation. For
example, in New Zealand’s Fisheries Act 1992, the Minister is required to
initiate consultation with such persons or organizations as the Minister
considers are representatives of those classes of persons who have an
interest in the effects of fishing on the aquatic environment in the area
concerned, including Maori, environmental, commercial, and recreational
interests. In this regard, the Director General’s office in Bangladesh under
BECA could be used as the dialogue initiator between the GOB and the
public.
Contd.
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12. In the context of Bangladesh Flood Action Plan, it has been observed that if people
have been involved in planning, for example, an embankment, they would have
been inspired by a sense of ‘ownership’ to come forward to protect or maintain it
once it is built; but this sense of ownership is unlikely to develop if the
bureaucracy does not transfer some degree of actual ownership to the people.
This is equally true for the prevailing climate change scenario. The climate
change issue has thrown Bangladesh at a cross-road on which its substantial
existence rests and what the government now needs is the political will to share
power and engage in a meaningful vertical communication with the people.
Basically this: Communication plays critical role in mobilizing people for civic
engagement; on an issue so deeply affecting the very workings of society –
through its potential impacts and the societal transformation required to address
solutions, civic action on climate change, and the communication that will
facilitate (or hinder it), can play an important role in rejuvenating the political
process in Bangladesh.
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13. RESOURCES & LINKS
1. http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/Environment-chapter3.pdf
2..http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTGOVANTICORR/0,,contentMDK:22675075~menuPK:7430607~pagePK:2100
58~piPK:210062~theSitePK:3035864,00.html
3. Public Participation in Environmental Decision-making, Benjamin J. Richardson and Stepan Wood (eds), Environmental Law for
Sustainability (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2006): 165-194 (principal co-author, with Jona Razzaque) at p. 166
4. Ibid.
5. See ADB report Addressing Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific, March 2012, at paragraph 13. This report can be
downloaded at http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/pub/2012/addressing-climate-change-migration.pdf
6. Climate Change Impacts and Responses in Bangladesh, Note of Policy Department Economy and Science, DG Internal Policies, European
Parliament. The Note can be downloaded at www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/.../download.do?file
7. Environment Cost for Climate Change, at p. 3, December 2008, Climate Change Cell, Department of Environment (DoE), Ministry
of Environment and Forests, Government of Bangladesh; See also Climate Change Impacts and Responses in Bangladesh, op
cit., footnote 6; Climate Brief 3, Bangladesh and Climate Change: Need for a Comprehensive Adaptive Strategy, Centre for
Trade and Development, retrieved from http://centad.org/climate_change/Climate%20Brief%20-%203.pdf
8. United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change and Kyoto Protocol, Report prepared by the Department of Environment
(DoE), Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of Bangladesh.
9. The Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan 2009 can be downloaded from
http://www.moef.gov.bd/climate_change_strategy2009.pdf
10. Public Participation in Environmental Decision-making, Benjamin J. Richardson and Stepan Wood (eds), Environmental Law for
Sustainability (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2006): 165-194 (principal co-author, with Jona Razzaque) at p. 193
11. Section 12(1) of the New Zealand’s Fisheries Act 1996
12. Participation and Policy Development: The Case of the Bangladesh Flood Action Plan, Suzanne Hanchett, Development Policy
Review, Vol. 15 (1997), p. 277-295
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14. THANK YOU
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