Spend less on defence, more on climate crisis
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen yesterday urged developed countries to divert five to 10 percent of their defence expenditure to initiatives for stopping climate-induced displacement.
The minister said each year, 6,50,000 people are uprooted from their homes in Bangladesh.
He made the remarks in a policy dialogue organised by International Organization for Migration (IMO) on "Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Change: Towards a Common Narrative and Action Pathway", held in the capital.
"I raised the issue at Munich security conference. The world order will break down if we don't act on this now," said Momen.
"In my home-town Sylhet, you will see that five out of 10 people working as rickshaw-pullers came from coastal areas. Around 40 percent of the coastal population took refuge in Sylhet, after becoming victims of climate-induced displacement," he added.
Saber Hossain Chowdhury, chair of the standing committee for environment, forest and climate change ministry, said, "It is high time we moved from dialogue to action."
Climate expert Prof Saleemul Haq said they would request IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change) to conduct thorough research on internal displacement in Bangladesh.
Caroline Dumas, special envoy for migration and climate action at IOM, and Golam Rabbani, head of Climate Bridge Fund Secretariat, shared a detailed overview of human mobility in the context of climate change.
Ugochi Daniels, IOM deputy director-general; Gwyn Lewis, UN resident coordinator in Bangladesh; Farhin Ahmed, secretary of environment, forest and climate change ministry; and Abdusattor Esoev, chief of IOM mission in Bangladesh, among others, spoke at the event.
Comments