The roundtable was organised by Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) at a city hotel to outline the agenda for the ninth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held in Milan, Italy from December 1 to 12.

The Bangladesh delegation comprising top government officials, different NGO representatives and environmentalists will present its view from the perspective of the least developed countries in the face of global warming.

"Fund for adaptation to climate changes should be increased but not at the cost of mitigation measures," said BUET Professor Ijaz Hossain.

Mitigation is a global efforts to bring down the emission of hazardous gases while adaptation implies some local measures to adjust with whatever damage has been done to the climate, he explained.

"Bangladesh, as a low-lying and disaster prone country will present technical and scientific perspectives of climate changes at the conference," said Mahfuzul Haque, deputy secretary of the environment and forest ministry.

"COP-9 is an opportunity to present the concerns of Bangladesh over its climate change," said Claudia Schaerer, project coordinator of CARE Bangladesh.

The Country Representative of the IUCN Ainun Nishat said the experience of COP-8 in New Delhi showed that people are shifting their attention from mitigation to adaptation in climate change management.

"We intend to table the need for assessment of people's vulnerability to climate changes in the local and regional spheres," said Mozaharul Alam, a research fellow of BCAS.

"The COP-9 aims at capacity building of the stakeholders in mitigating and adapting climate changes," said Moinul Islam Sharif, another fellow of BCAS.

Secretary to the environment and forest ministry Sabihuddin Ahmed presided over the roundtable.