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”. The speakers included myself; Saida Muna Tasneem, High Commissioner …

Finding solutions to the global problem of climate change Last week, Bangladesh hosted a major global climate change meeting in Dhaka, hosted by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina with Ban Ki-moon, former secretary general of the United Nations, Chief Executive Kristalina Georgieva from the World Bank, and President Heine of the Marshall Islands present. The visiting dignitaries all praised the role …

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. The most recent manifestation of it was the unprecedented heatwave in Europe, which was several degrees higher than normal. This also means that all countries …

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. On July 10, Bangladesh will be hosting President Heine of the Marshall Islands who heads the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF)—which is a group of nearly 50 of the …

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 …

Climate change affects the least developed countries the most The nearly 200 countries that have ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meet every December at the annual Conference of Parties (COP) to review progress and decide new actions. The COP moves from continent to continent each year with last year (COP24), being Eastern Europe’s turn, the …

2019 is proving to be a game-changing year with regard to the issue of global climate change in a number of ways. First, we are seeing the unequivocal attribution of incidents starting from hurricanes, wildfires, floods—such as in the mid-Western states in the US—to human-induced climate change repercussions. From now onwards, it is fairly safe to say that the severity …

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 …

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. I had been invited to …

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. As …