POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE | The Daily Star

  • Promoting South-South cooperation to tackle climate change

    As Bangla-desh prepares to graduate from the Least Developed Countries (LDC) category in the next few years, we need to plan our relationship with other LDCs in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

  • Time for a new direction as Bangladesh moves to take the helm

    The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) currently consists of 48 vulnerable developing countries from all the different groups of ...

  • What lies ahead for climate change

    As we enter the new year of 2020, we are in fact making a very significant transition when it comes to the issue of climate change.

  • Highlights from 2019 and the path ahead

    As this is my last column for 2019, I am going to share some of its highlights and also my verdict on the year as well as some reflections on the next year and the next decade.

  • Declare a ‘climate emergency’ to protect children

    Nero fiddles, while Rome burns” is an apt metaphor for the 25th world climate summit, called the Conference of Parties (COP25), which just ended in Madrid. Government representatives from 200 countries ended their meeting, copping out from agreeing on a pathway to implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming, carbon emission targets and other related measures.

  • COP25: Long but barely fruitful

    The 25th Conference of Parties (COP25) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) started on December 2 and was due to finish after about two weeks, on December 13 (Friday).

  • The political dimension of COP25

    The 25th Conference of Parties (COP25) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) being held in Madrid

  • COP25 off to a good start

    The 25th annual Conference of the Parties (COP25) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) opened in Madrid, Spain on Monday with a high-level event of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF).

  • Rich countries must pay for climate loss and damage

    The global negotiations on how to tackle climate change take place in December at the annual Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

  • Climate emergency, planetary emergency and our survival

    The Bangladesh parliament has declared a planetary emergency in a resolution adopted a few days ago. This is indeed a major initiative and the parliamentarians should be applauded for it.

  • How can insurance play a role in tackling climate change?

    The 15th annual global microinsurance conference was held last week in Bangladesh for the first time with the theme of “Coping with climate risk”. It was inaugurated by the

  • Developing more towns - Key to climate resilience

    Bangladesh is facing two global megatrends with significant national repercussions. The first is the rapidly urbanising world we live in, where half the global population is

  • We need to declare a planetary emergency

    Humanity has made a “tragic, desperate mess” of the planet, said Sir David Attenborough, the 93-year-old naturalist and documentary filmmaker on announcing his new series of documentaries called “Seven Worlds, One Planet” due to be broadcast on the BBC.

  • Real development needs nature-based solutions

    We are all immensely proud of the economic development being achieved by Bangladesh and looking forward to our graduation from Least Developed Country (LDC) status to middle income country status within the next few years. However, as we move our development pathway forward we are facing a very significant fork in the road ahead and we will have to make some brave choices that will determine the quality of our development over the coming decade or more.

  • The challenge from Greta Thunberg on tackling climate change

    Last week in New York, the United Nations Secretary General (UNSG) Antonia Guitteres held a Global Action Summit where he invited world leaders from selected countries only to come with “plans not speeches” to raise the level of ambition to tackle climate change.

  • Coming transformation on climate change in the US

    We have known about the denial of climate change by president Trump of the United States and that he has decided to withdraw his country from the Paris Agreement and is also actively undermining efforts in the US to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

  • Climate crisis: ‘Dorian’ brings home new urgencies

    The devastation caused by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas over the last week or so has illustrated quite clearly that even though the Caribbean has a well-developed early warning system for hurricanes and is also a part of the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), that deals with the residual impacts of such hurricanes,

  • Global Climate Week: A clarion call to address climate emergency

    This month, from September 20 to 27, the world will observe a Global Climate Week with events taking place all over the world. The key events will take place in New York, USA around the Global Climate Action Summit called by the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

  • Supporting climate adaptation should be a priority

    The developed countries of the world had agreed under the Paris Agreement to provide USD 100 billion each year, starting from 2020 onwards, to support mitigation as well as adaptation projects in developing countries.

  • The links between climate change and viral infection

    Climate change is one of the most complex challenges of this century.

  • How Bangladesh can improve access to climate funding

    Under the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), rich countries have promised to provide, collectively, USD 100 billion every year to support the developing countries tackle climate change, both by mitigation and adaptation.

  • Climate change: UAE and Russia eye geopolitical and commercial mileage

    Climate change, much like war, could prove to be a geopolitical and commercial gold mine. At least, that is the take of DP World, Dubai’s global port operator, and Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.

  • A developing partnership between Bangladesh and the UK to tackle climate change

    Earlier this month, during the London Climate Action week, my organisation, the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, together with the UK’s Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and the Bangladesh High Commission in London, organised a major event with several hundred Londoners, including many British Bangladeshis, themed “Learning lessons from Bangladesh”.

  • Vulnerable countries merit greater attention

    This year marks a clear break with the past in terms of the climate change problem now becoming a “climate change crisis” with the adverse impacts of human-induced climate change getting visible across the world.

  • Climate change diplomacy is now the challenge

    Last May, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was invited to the annual leaders’ high-level meeting in Munich, Germany, to speak on the growing concern about the global security threats due to climate change.

  • Environmental migration and non-migration: A new scientific discourse

    People migrating from one place to another—whether within the same country or across international borders—is a complex phenomenon, in which pull factors (such as job-seeking) and/or push factors (such as environmental degradation) can play important roles. Recently, the impacts of climate change have been included in this hypothesis, as a major environmental push factor, which has drawn a great deal of interest from political as well as scientific circles.

  • At the intersection of conflict, climate change and energy access

    With the advent of the 21st century, there has been a steady rise in energy access all around the globe. For the first time ever, the total number of people without access to electricity fell below 1 billion in 2017 according to the International Energy Agency.

  • Time to ramp up investment in adaptation to climate change

    2019 is proving to be a game-changing year with regard to the issue of global climate change in a number of ways.

  • Graduating out of LDC status

    The Least Developed Countries (LDC) group constitutes 47 countries, mostly in Africa and some in Asia (including Bangladesh), officially recognised by the United Nations (UN). Countries belonging to the group are entitled to duty-free access to developed country markets for their goods and are recognised under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as the most vulnerable countries to climate change. At the same time, they are also eligible to receive Official Development Assistance (ODA) from developed countries bilaterally as grants.

  • Bangladesh shines at Geneva meeting

    Last week the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) meeting was held in Geneva, Switzerland with more than 4,000 delegates from all over the world and many different stakeholders including government, UN agencies, private sector, civil society, women’s groups, indigenous peoples’ groups, youth groups, groups related to people with disabilities, and many others.

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