POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE | The Daily Star

  • 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.

  • How Least Developed Countries can become leaders in tackling climate change

    The group of Least Developed Countries (LDC) has been negotiating under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for many years and has continuously taken leadership roles at key points. For example, the push for and successful inclusion (against great odds) of the long-term global temperature goal of 1.5 degrees Centigrade in the Paris Agreement in 2015.

  • Making polluters pay for loss and damage

    The recent devastation in Mozambique due to two successive hurricanes (Aida and Kenneth) of unprecedented severity for southern Africa, are a clear indicator that we are now living in a climate changed world. And that the huge loss and damage sustained by the people of Mozambique is due to human-induced climate change and not just natural causes.

  • How the Green Climate Fund can be more effective

    It has now been well over five years since the Green Climate Fund (GCF) was set up with its headquarters in Songdo, Korea to support both mitigation and adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries. It received an initial contribution of around USD 10 billion and is now undergoing a review of its performance in anticipation of a major replenishment of funds from 2020 onwards.

  • Children are at risk due to climate change, but they are also sources of solutions

    A recent report from Unicef mentions that 19 million (or one in three) children in Bangladesh are at risk from the effects of climate change.

  • Time to enhance global support to the most vulnerable communities

    The massive cyclone Idai that devastated Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe last week has destroyed 90 percent of Beira, the second biggest city in Mozambique.

  • How children are educating adults on climate change

    Over the last two decades or more, the global scientific community has been raising the alarm about climate change, through the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which were then considered by the governments of the world at the annual Conference of Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

  • How refugees, migrants and climate change are related

    At the global level there has been a recent set of decisions in the different fora dealing with refugees, migrants and climate change to bring the three issues together and plan better so that we can avoid potential future crisis.

  • Climate change, Floodwater

    A talking point for COP25

    The topic of loss and damage from human-induced climate change has been a highly politically sensitive issue in international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for many years with vulnerable developing countries, including Bangladesh, arguing in its favour and the rich countries arguing against it.

  • Why we should set our sights on climate diplomacy

    Over the last two decades, the issue of global climate change has shifted from being primarily an environmental issue to a global security and diplomatic issue as well. Hence many countries have shifted responsibility from the ministry of environment to the foreign ministry as the focal ministry to handle the issue.

  • Environmental challenges that can't be ignored

    It is now well over a year since nearly 700,000 Rohingyas were forced out of Myanmar and Bangladesh opened its borders to them and gave them shelter in the Cox's Bazar region.

  • Climate change, a global security threat

    In the last week of January, the United Nations Security Council in New York held a special session on climate change as a global security threat.

  • Aligning climate plans for a greater impact

    Bangladesh has a long tradition of national development planning under the aegis of the General Economics Division (GED) of the Planning Commission, through the seven Five Year Plans prepared since we became an independent country.

  • Bangladesh starts its journey towards climate resilience

    At the beginning of January 2019 Bangladesh started to take the required steps to become a climate resilient country by 2030 by achieving transformational adaptation to climate change impacts.

  • Changing the climate narrative

    As we start the new year of 2019, we have 11 years to 2030 which is an important year to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the climate change goals of mitigation as well as adaptation under the Paris Agreement.

  • 2018: A tipping point for climate change

    As 2018 comes to an end, it can be said that the year has proved to be a major tipping point for the issue of climate change globally as well as in Bangladesh.

  • COP24: Successes and failures

    After a time extension of an extra day, the Rulebook for the Paris Agreement was adopted at COP24 in Katowice, Poland on December 15. It is a significant achievement as it will enable all countries to implement all the different elements of the Paris Agreement in a manner that can be measured, reported and verified in a uniform manner.

  • Why we need a policy framework for displaced people

    In more than 50 countries around the world, some 40.3 million individuals have been uprooted from their homes and displaced in their own countries as a result of conflict or human rights violations. Natural disasters, meanwhile, have caused the displacement of millions more.

  • COP24 gets political after first week

    The first week of the two-week 24th Conference of Parties (COP24) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

  • Understanding the art of negotiation at COP24

    Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) all the countries meet each year at the annual Conference of Parties (COP) held in December—moving from continent to continent each year to review progress and agree on any new decisions.

  • Making climate budgeting transparent

    Bangladesh is among the world's most at-risk countries in relation to climate change and the Government of Bangladesh has recognised climate change as one of the most serious threats to poverty reduction and development, and as such has made a number of ambitious commitments to tackle it.

  • Why we must plan for urbanisation now — and fast

    The third annual conference on urban resilience was just held in Dhaka with well over 300 participants from home and abroad, including government officials, mayors, NGOs, researchers, the private sector and the media.

  • Making the Rule Book for implementing the Paris Agreement

    In December 2015 in Paris, at the 21st annual Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 174 countries, including the United States of America under then President Obama, agreed to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change

  • Measuring the global goal on climate change adaptation

    In the Paris Agreement on climate change, which was agreed on in December 2015 at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

  • Challenges for the new Global Commission for Adaptation

    Last week in the Hague, the Netherlands a new Global Commission for Adaptation to Climate Change was launched with the former Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, Bill Gates, and Kristalina Georgieva, head of the World Bank as the three heads.

  • It's worse than we thought

    The United Nation's scientific body on climate change, namely the Intergovern-mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has just released a special report which is a scientific as well as political report of great significance and could be a game-changer in galvanising enhanced action to tackle climate change.

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