Alternative funding needed for climate action: speakers
Bangladesh has to find alternative sources of funding to increase its capacity of combating climate change, as member countries of the United Nations failed to reach any consensus on ways to implement the Paris Agreement in the latest COP-25 conference, speakers at a press conference said yesterday.
Coast Trust in association with several other organisations held the press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) in the capital.
Syed Aminul Haque, deputy director of Coast Trust, presented a keynote in the event where he spoke of COP25 in Madrid, which ended “with no solid outcome”.
“Major carbon emitters failed to show their action plan to decrease emission, and broke their promise of long term finance, which was necessary for vulnerable countries that will be deeply affected by climate change,” Syed Aminul Haque said.
On December 2-13 last year, the longest 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP25, was held with an aim to finalise the “rulebook” of the Paris Agreement, which outlines the rules for carbon emissions trading and other forms of international cooperation.
During COP21 in Paris in 2015, nearly 200 nations signed the climate deal which aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change.
However, the countries failed to reach consensus in this regard, pushing decisions into next year’s COP26 in Glasgow, UK.
“The existing divide and contention might deepen the crisis. So the government will have to take initiatives for negotiating alternative funding sources accordingly for COP26 in Glasgow,” Aminul said.
Speakers placed some recommendations for alternative funding to continue and strengthen ongoing climate action initiatives.
“Disputed issues of COP are too complex to formulate an acceptable global outcome in time; even from future COP conferences,” Atiq Rahman, executive director of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, said.
Ziaul Haque, representative of Campaign For Sustainable Rural Livelihood, said, “As Bangladesh will graduate to middle-income country status, it should focus on negotiating enough funds as a country that is highly vulnerable to climate change.”
The event was moderated by Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, executive director of COAST Trust. Md Shamsuddoha, chief executive of Centre for Participatory Research and Development (CPRD), addressed the programme, among others.
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