Carbon tears

Bangladesh is one of the most affected countries by the impacts of climate change. According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2021, Bangladesh ranks 7th among the most impacted countries because of extreme weather events. 

Bangladesh is already experiencing the consequences of climate change through sea-level rise, cyclones, saltwater intrusion, erratic rainfall, floods, riverbank erosion, landslides in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and increased deaths due to lightning. 

These climatic factors and impacts of climate change affect people's accessibility to food, water, and energy as well as health and livelihood security, causing human displacement and migration.

Bangladesh is one of the top five populated nations in low-lying coastal areas. Unless the existing coastal embankments are strengthened and new ones are built, sea-level rise could displace millions of coastal people and have huge adverse impacts on livelihoods and long-term health conditions of the population.

I have traversed the entirety of Bangladesh for 17 years to understand the most profound impact of climate change. In my quest to highlight these impacts on land, people and livelihood, I utilise my documentary photography expertise and techniques. 

Photographed by me, here is a glimpse of the devastation faced by the country's most disaster-prone areas. A small part of his work has been published namely 'Carbon Tears' by the support of UNDP Bangladesh recently.

People moving from one place to another due to river erosion feel like they have just been separated from umbilical cords. Aslampur, Char Fashion, Bhola, February 15, 2016.

Gabura, a village in south-western Satkhira district, saw saline water trapped permanently after cyclone Aila (2009).

Muhammad Yasin (9) used to go to this school. The school is abandoned since 2015.

The deadly cyclone Sidr (2007) devastated one-third of the Sundarbans – the largest contiguous mangrove forest in the world and a UNESCO world heritage site. The same devastation was repeated in 2009 by cyclone Aila.

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh is now one of the world’s most populous cities. Around five thousand climate-induced internally displaced people get added to the city every year as permanent residents.

File photo. Photo: Noor-A-Alam/TBS

The island that emerged on the Bay of Bengal with the deposit of silt for the last 100 years, is already on the verge of extinction, triggered by the rise of the sea level due to global warming, Dhalchar, Cha.

The sight of “Jhulonto Para” beside the Shibsha river adjacent to Sundarbans may frighten everyone, 2018.

Din Muhammad Shibly has been working as a documentary photographer since 2003. His prime area of interest in photography encompasses environmental and socio-political issues. Shibly is the founding principal of "Chhaya Institute of Communication and Photography" and the editor of a photography-based newspaper "Aalo".