Amidst the escalating climate crisis, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh has voiced a pressing need for immediate climate funding and action, particularly for countries most vulnerable to climate change, like Bangladesh. In a recent article for Context, a Thomson Reuters Foundation media platform, the Prime Minister highlighted the urgency of the situation and the slow pace of global response in critical areas such as mitigation, finance, and adaptation.
During the COP28 summit, PM Hasina underscored the necessity of making considerable strides in maintaining the global warming limit to 1.5C, ensuring the Global Stocktake leads to increased ambition, and swiftly mobilizing financial resources for countries severely affected by climate change. Despite contributing a mere 0.47 percent to global emissions, Bangladesh ranks as the seventh most susceptible nation to the impacts of climate change. The country has experienced extreme weather conditions, including soaring temperatures, severe heatwaves, power outages, school closures, and catastrophic floods that have led to significant loss of life and displacement.
Bangladesh has been proactive in its approach to climate adaptation, aligning with its economic growth ambitions. The Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan, as outlined by PM Hasina, includes a series of transformative steps towards climate resilience. These include increasing renewable energy capacity, promoting sustainable agriculture, and upgrading energy infrastructure. The country has also invested in building flood defenses, sea walls, planting mangrove forests, and employing advanced satellite weather tracking systems, crucial to its national adaptation strategy.
However, adaptation efforts require substantial investments beyond environmental measures, including affordable solar technology, revised taxation on inverters, and attracting foreign investment. Despite pledges at COP28 totaling $169 million to the Adaptation Fund, this amount falls significantly short of the $300 million annual goal. PM Hasina calls for affluent nations to step up and fulfill their responsibilities towards climate financing.
With time running out at COP28, the Prime Minister urged the world’s largest carbon emitters to present more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and for developed countries to achieve the $100 billion per year financing target, with an eye on higher post-2025 climate finance goals. Hasina emphasized that climate finance must satisfy criteria of adequacy, consistency, and accessibility to handle the impending challenges for countries like Bangladesh.
As the climate crisis intensifies, PM Hasina stressed the need for collective and decisive action, calling for global solidarity in line with the latest scientific findings. She emphasizes the crucial role of international collaboration in confronting these challenges and the high costs of further delays.