*Climate change* It is a languid, sunny afternoon in Bangladesh's Sirajgonj district, almost four hours north of the capital of Dhaka near the banks of the mighty Jamuna River. Boys play cricket by the roadside and a long wooden boat drifts in a wide lake.
But the serenity is deceptive. The 'lake' is the remnant of devastating floods this summer. The rain-swollen Jamuna River that courses across India into Bangladesh inundated villages that were home to thousands who farmed, fished and made hand-loom textiles. Today, 75,000 villagers in the district are homeless and many are jobless. Bangladesh is not alone in suffering the effects of extreme weather. The country and neighbouring India share major rivers such as the Ganges and Jamuna. Both are dependent on monsoon rains for farming yet are vulnerable to extreme flooding . In India, 31m were affected and 1,500 killed by this summer's monsoon floods. There is no proven link to climate change, but experts say that India and low-lying Bangladesh are highly vulnerable. Coastal cities such as Kolkata in eastern India and heavily populated "mega-deltas" in Bangladesh are at greatest risk from increased sea and river flooding, said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world's top authority on climate change. A three- to four-degree increase in global temperatures could cause floods that would displace 70m people in Bangladesh, according to a UN Development Programme (UNDP) report. Yet the world's "least developed countries" generate just a fraction of global emissions linked to climate change. India, the world's fourth-largest emitter, generates 1.2 tonnes per capita, compared to 20.6 tonnes in the US and 9.8 tonnes in the UK, according to the UNDP. How fast-growing India and China plan to curb emissions and tackle global warming is a topic of debate at the UN summit on climate change under way in Bali. Representatives from 185 countries are negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Under the Kyoto Protocol, developing countries � unlike rich ones � do not have emissions-reduction targets. But India, growing at 9 per cent annually and expected to double energy consumption between 2005 and 2030, is coming under pressure to take action. Manmohan Singh, Indian prime minister, this summer convened an advisory board to come up with a plan to tackle climate change. But the council has yet to report its conclusions and India has not taken up any formal policy. India's vulnerability to climate change and its growing contribution to emissions means decisive action needs to happen soon. While talks are taking place in air-conditioned luxury hotels, thousands in India and Bangladesh will bear the harsh toll of inaction.
