Climate change is a global challenge. Bangladesh has answers.

When Cyclone Remal gathered force off the Bay of Bengal in late May, Jahidul Bepari had everything to fear.

Living in a makeshift home of tin and discarded planks of wood on the outskirts of Sarankhola, along the banks of the Baleshwar River, the teenager and his family had lost their livelihoods from extreme weather so many times they don’t keep count.

This time, though, the storm was particularly fierce – one of the most intense to hit coastal Bangladesh, and the millions of people who live there, in recent years.

“It started with drizzling rain; then the wind started to become heavy with heavy rain. Even though it was a low-tide time in the morning, the water level began to rise more and more. I became very afraid. I was standing on the road in front of our home,” he says. “As the road is basically a riverbank, and erosion happened, I fell in the water. I am a very good swimmer; I came back.”

His family immediately sought shelter. But after three days of pounding rain and flooding as the river breached its banks, they lost their house, which was crushed and blown away by the wind. They lost their stores of rice and a small well they used for fish farming. The 30 pigeons that they bred and sold for the equivalent of $2 apiece flew away. They lost their chicken and ducks, too. But when he is asked about the storm, his thoughts first race to the family’s goat. She was pregnant when she drowned.

“We’re really struggling with the post-Remal situation,” he says.

Low-lying Bangladesh offers a glimpse of the world’s future

Situated at the head of the Bay of Bengal, low-lying Bangladesh is considered one of the most climate-affected countries in the world – exposed to cyclones, heat waves, and floods. It is also, according to many climate experts, a glimpse of the world’s future.

This is partly because of what the country reveals about extreme weather. But Bangladesh also demonstrates what that extreme weather means for young people like Jahidul, and how governments, families, and individuals are adapting and transforming all aspects of life in the face of spectacular climatic uncertainty that has spared no part of the world.

“What we’re seeing over the last couple of years is extremes that we don’t expect,” says Rebecca Carter, director of climate adaptation and resilience for the World Resources Institute’s global office. “Five years ago, people were saying, ‘You want to find a safe place? Move to the Pacific Northwest. ... It’s not going to get too extreme there.’ We know that’s not true.”

That is why for much of 2023, the Monitor traveled around the world to talk to young people – the generation coming of age on a warming planet, the ones who will live through the more powerful cyclones, the deeper floods, and the longer droughts. We called this the Climate Generation, and it remains in our thought – including now as this year’s global climate summit, known as COP29, is occurring in Baku, Azerbaijan.

What we found was that from Portugal to the United States, from Namibia to Barbados, these young people are reimagining how to live, eat, work, and find purpose. They are suing their elected leaders to demand change, building climate advocacy from the ground up, building small businesses harnessing cleaner energies, creating food systems that are more sustainable, and shifting their lifestyles to fit this global challenge.

They have no choice.

Extreme weather events cause billions of dollars in damage

Since we published the seven-part series, the world has watched more communities struggle through weather-related disasters, forever changing in the face of them.

As we started writing this article, flash flooding swept away roads and cars in the U.S. state of Connecticut after what meteorologists called a 1-in-1,000-year storm. We began editing it as Hurricane Helene, which had intensified rapidly because of warmer than ever water in the Gulf of Mexico, devastated the southeastern U.S., flattening whole communities with its floods and landslides.

Those were just two of the dozens of superlative weather events causing billions of dollars in damage around the globe.

Heat waves across South Asia, from Bangladesh to the Philippines, killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people, shuttering schools across the region. Two Indian cities in Andhra Pradesh exceeded all previous records with temperatures logged at 46.3 degrees Celsius, or 115 degrees Fahrenheit. A heat dome in Mexico, a naturally occurring phenomenon that scientists say is intensified by climate change, killed more than 100 people, as well as wildlife, across the affected region.

This summer, extreme heat reached even the rarest corners of the world. Several communities in the far north of Canada, above the Arctic Circle, recorded their hottest temperatures ever. And wildfires raged from Greece and Turkey to Canada’s Jasper National Park.

It was the type of summer that many of the young people we interviewed said they both feared and expected to become more common.

Those fears and expectations are rooted in climate science. We know that Earth is getting warmer. We also know that much of this increase in temperature is because of human behavior, such as burning fossil fuels and sending heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And because of the greenhouse gases we have already put into the air, we know the heating will continue throughout the lives of young people like Jahidul.

Jahidul was a young teen when we met him last year, and he did not talk about climate change as an issue, or even as a concept. But he shared the story of the last time his house had washed away, four years ago in a ferocious nighttime storm. He still had trouble sleeping, he said. When he saw cracks in the riverbank, he knew something terrible might happen.

A year later, Jahidul’s experience seems even more reflective of what young people globally might face during their lifetimes.

From Bangladesh to London to Florida, a shared challenge

For sure, at first glance, Jahidul’s daily experience looks nothing like that of a teenager in the U.S. or Europe. Like a quarter of his nation, he lives below the poverty line. And that affects how harshly his family is impacted by severe weather. As many who work in the field of climate disasters will explain, the impact of climate change has less to do with supercharged weather events themselves than with the intersection between extreme weather and vulnerability.

But it is no longer just the poorest communities bearing the intense consequences of climate change. Jahidul and his family and his country have one particular collection of risk factors. But vulnerabilities exist across geography and socioeconomic levels, from the shores of Bangladesh to the mountains of North Carolina.

Those on the more progressive side of the political spectrum tend to focus on those risks that come with socioeconomic disparity, whether geopolitical or domestic. Lower-income Americans of color, for instance, are more likely to suffer the effects of urban heat islands – those paved areas of cities where temperatures spike higher than in surrounding areas. They’re also less likely to have the financial means to deal with that heat. Lower-income countries, such as Namibia and Barbados, have less money in government coffers either to improve infrastructure ahead of extreme weather events or to repair after them. This is why many policymakers in the Global South, led by Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, are pushing for a reimagining of the international financial system.

But those living in London or Florida or Vermont are not free from vulnerability, either. And while it’s certainly true that those with fewer means have less ability to shield themselves when heat waves or floods or wildfires hit, it’s also true that nobody can avoid these extremes, which are hitting at unexpected times and in unexpected places.

Experts are quick to say that doesn’t mean the situation is hopeless. Humans still have a lot of agency regarding how much the planet will warm, and a lot of science suggests that every fraction of a degree matters when it comes to extreme weather events and sea level rise. But equally important, a growing number of experts point out, is how societies will adjust to prepare for this new, warmer reality.

Bangladesh holds lessons for the rest of the world

Bangladeshis have shown resilience at every level. The country has been cited as one of the most climate-adaptive countries in the world, helping keep thousands more alive today during natural disasters than in previous generations.

“The first step should always be [to consider], What are my vulnerabilities now and in the future?” says Libby Zemaitis, senior manager for resilience programs and policy at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “And that can be done at a community level, at a resident level, at a business level.”

Jahidul’s family knew the cyclone was coming. An intercom system, run by the government’s disaster preparedness committee, warned them two days prior. Such committees operate across the country, run by locals trained to identify and monitor weather risks and spread the news via cellphone, via intercom, or any way they can.

After Jahidul fell in the river, his family fled to the local elementary school where he studied until grade five. That school serves as the local shelter during natural disasters. It is one of thousands that the government runs as part of a cyclone preparedness program for the 40 million people who live across a 710-kilometer (441-mile) coastal plain. This climate resilience program has received international accolades – and has saved thousands of lives. That preparedness training has increased here in Sarankhola district since 2007, after Cyclone Sidr killed some 3,500 people.

Jahidul’s family stayed for almost three weeks. After all, the river had flooded their land, and they had nowhere to go until the water receded. His was one of 150,000 homes destroyed in the wake of Cyclone Remal. But he, and his family, had survived.

“The U.S. and Bangladesh are very different countries, but Bangladesh is well regarded as a leader in climate change adaptation,” Dr. Carter says. “They have no choice.”

This story was produced as part of the Monitor’s Nov. 4 issue of the Monitor Weekly. Visit your local library or a Christian Science Reading Room to purchase a copy of this expanded issue dedicated to the Climate Generation. Subscribe today to receive future issues of the Monitor Weekly delivered to your home.