Dr Saleemul Huq was a climate and environmental thinker from head to toe. As a pioneer, Huq always looked at developments through the lens of climate change. Throughout his life, he fought for climate-vulnerable nations across the world through his distinctive eco-friendly development paradigm. His thinking transcended national borders, making him a pioneer of inclusive development.
Mr. Huq is no longer with us. He left us on October 28, 2023, due to a cardiac arrest.
His life was full of actions that encouraged many people like me to be climate activists, realising the devastating impacts and consequences of climate change. He was a pioneer in the climate movement. His insights reached the far-reaching impacts of climate change and how it drives our lives from bad to worse.
I never got a chance to meet with Dr. Huq. I have come across him through different social media and was influenced to do something for the planet to make it sustainable. His distinctive writing, lectures, theses, and presentations on climate change persuaded thousands of people at the national and international levels, including myself.
So much of the climatic disasters or correlation between extreme weather events, climate change, humanitarian crises, and man-made disasters that have become familiar among us is the unparalleled contribution of Mr Huq.
I came to a close with this crucial scenario-extreme weather events, their causes and effects-through reading articles and watching different lectures on climate vulnerability, adaptation, and mitigation, community resilience, and all other visible and non-visible triggering factors working behind this climate crisis. Mr Huq initiated the movement and told us we had to keep it burning and work to make our planet safe and more resilient for the next generation. We have to walk a long, uneven path. We have to retain the role model of our country in the field of disaster risk management (DRM).
It should be our commitment destination to avoid the planet from imminent climatic catastrophe.
Mr. Huq was a bargaining institution for the least developed countries (LDCs) like Bangladesh; he negotiated with the UN and other global climate platforms to pay for the poor nation to enhance their adaptability.
The bad effects of climate change are not rational, even extremely disproportionate, as the main polluters (the countries that instigate this climate change) are less likely to be victims. Mr Huq was a voice for our country by making the rich countries accountable and paying attention to the poor ones.
His point of view was focused on the vulnerable people, who are mostly the costs of climate change within the country and beyond the borders. Very few people might know of his contributions to our country from the perspective of climate-related hazards for what he was in voice till his last breath. He was conferred with the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by the UK government for his outstanding contributions to combat climate change worldwide. Also, he was acknowledged and awarded a lot of prestigious and honorary degrees globally in recognition of his unmatched achievements.
The question still pains us about how to award him nationally. Why are we unable to pay due retribution for this climate legacy that represents our core issues around the globe?
He negotiated on global platforms to pay justice for the nations or countries that fall prey to the climate-induced disaster crisis globally.
He was always vocal with his expertise, research, and knowledge in representing the international climate forum.
He raised issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, usage of fossil fuels, plastic pollution, and extreme weather events such as floods, waterlogging, drought, wildfires, and sea-level rise because of climate change, which is now a most crucial and pressing crisis that is engulfing the whole planet.
All these he did with his versatile academic and technical perspectives, and like me, hundreds and thousands of people, particularly youth, were inspired to assemble against climate change with fact-based information and motivated to form different social movements to conserve the environment from the collapsing ecosystems and biodiversity, which is a common phenomenon for our country.
Dr. Huq was a voice and a blessing for us since Bangladesh is a highly disaster-prone country worldwide. The lives and livelihoods in the coastal belt and the landscape of the Sundarbans and mangrove forests are worsening day by day. Dr. Huq always influenced and advocated for the government to adopt eco-friendly policies by presenting evidence-based facts and findings.
His works paved the way to achieving inclusive participation, youth-led actions, a community-based decision-making approach, and a safe future for all.
We should be more committed and equipped with advanced knowledge to save our country by building a resilient community that contains our voice for stepping up transformative actions to tackle the climate crisis, mitigating loss and damage, establishing accountability for polluters, and strengthening the legal framework to curb environmental pollution. We should stand all together for a brighter Bangladesh by representing ourselves at lobbies and national forums and tabling the issues with the leadership, researchers, academicians, and knowledgeable people like him.
We miss a man like Dr Huq, an academician, a voice, a legacy, and a leader for climate justice, justice for humanity, sustainable development, a greener planet, and a livable world for all. His enthusiasm and motivation for climate justice will stimulate us to save the planet from the verge of extinction.
In the end, we pray to the Almighty for his eternal peace. The writer is a climate activist and humanitarian worker
