'Climate Package' won't benefit Bangladesh

The recently concluded global climate change conference, COP24, has failed to achieve the major goals in checking climate change causes, like carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, green activists said yesterday.

As a result, the projection of keeping global warming under 1.5 degree Celsius by the end of the century will not be possible, they said at a press conference.

EquityBD, an alliance of non-government organisations, arranged the press conference on “COP24 and its outcome review” at Jatiya Press Club in Dhaka.

Expressing frustration over COP24, held in Poland's Katowice from December 2 to 14, they said the conference also failed to protect interests of countries that are extremely vulnerable to climate change, like Bangladesh.

Syed Aminul Hoque, secretariat coordinator of EquityBD, said an agreement called “Katowice Climate Package” was adopted at the conference to implement the Paris Agreement, a framework to combat climate change, but it will not work effectively in this regard.

“The Climate Package was formulated by avoiding the interests of extremely vulnerable countries. It will only benefit the developed countries that are mostly responsible for climate change,” he said in a keynote paper.

Qumrul Islam Chowdhury, chairman of Forum of Environmental Journalists of Bangladesh, said the country will now have to be self-reliant to mitigate and adapt to the climate change impacts as the Climate Package will enable developed countries to evade paying compensation.

Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, chief moderator of EquityBD, said the climate change conference has turned into a platform of “talk shows” which end without any result. Bangladesh and other victims of climate change will have to raise their voices to ensure their own interests, he added.

Md Shamsuddoha, chief executive of Centre for Participatory Research and Development, and Badrul Alam, president of Bangladesh Krishak Federation, also spoke.