DHAKA: Left in the lurch for long following natural calamities, climate victims Saturday urged the developed countries to reduce the carbon emissions and pay the compensation immediately to save them from the threat of ruination.    

They also demanded necessary steps from the government to press home the demands and take action for sustainable development for the victimized people.

The demands came from a discussion on ‘Post-Copenhagen Climate Poverty Hearing’ on the occasion of the first anniversary of the devastating cyclone ‘Aila’, an eloquent poof of calamitous climate change, mainly blamed on global warming due to excessive spewing of Greenhouse gases by world’s developed nations.

To make the victims’ voice heard, the programme was jointly organized by Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihood (CSRL) and Oxfam at the National Press Club with CSRL convener Dr. Ahsan Uddin Ahmad in the chair.

Ahsan Uddin said people from home and abroad are now very much aware of the phenomenal climate change. “We have to compel the developed countries to reduce the emission of carbon as soon as possible and continue our pressure to press home our demands,” he added.
 
Jahanara Begum, one of the victims of the climate change from Haor area of Sunamgonj, urged the government to save them from destruction.

“We are destroying ourselves day by day due to climate change; please save us from the devastation,” she said in her cry for help, losing all her belongings in the recent flashfloods in the area.

Sarbanu Khatun, another victim and participant in the Copenhagen Conference of global leaders, also made a strongly worded plea for immediate realization of compensation from the rich countries.

“They are the main culprits for the climate change,” said the widow, whose poor husband was eaten up by a man-eater Royal Bengal tiger while collecting honey in the sprawling mangrove forests of Sundarbans in the southern coastal belt.

Ziaul Haque Mukta, Member-Secretary of the CSRL, and Manzurul Karim Palash, Staff Reporter of NTV, among others, also addressed the discussion meeting where victims from across the country gathered to make their demand.                                                         

BDST: 1535HRS, May 22, 2010
TSA/MMA/MUA