Tag: Bangladesh
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Bangladesh takes another step towards tackling global climate change
During July last year, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina hosted the Global Commission on Adaptation meeting in Dhaka attended by the co-chairs of the Commission, former Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon and Kristalina Georgiva, head of the International Monetary Fund. During the bilateral discussion between the Prime Minister and Ban Ki-moon, she offered…
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Changing dynamics of livelihood dependence on ecosystem services at temporal and spatial scales: An assessment in the southern wetland areas of Bangladesh
Highlights • Rural livelihoods are intrinsically connected with seasonal climate fluctuations. • Rural livelihoods get more economic benefits from the local ecosystem services (ES) during monsoon and post-monsoon months. • Livelihoods of ES dependent are vulnerable in the pre-monsoon season. • Communities are increasingly diversifying their livelihood strategies to non-ES sectors. • Non-ES dependent livelihoods…
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Bangladesh can lead the way
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…
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Climate change, environmental stress and loss of livelihoods can push people towards illegal activities: a case study from coastal Bangladesh
This paper aims to understand how environmental stressors influence people’s livelihood options in the coastal belt of Bangladesh. We argue that environmental stressors such as cyclones, riverbank erosion, salinity intrusion, and floods have negative impacts on people’s lives by reducing their livelihood options. Twelve in-depth interviews (Livelihood Histories) and twelve Focus Group Discussions (FGD) based…
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How Bangladesh can achieve SDG 13 and climate change goals
At the turn of the century, under the United Nations, all countries agreed to try to achieve a set of ten Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Bangladesh was relatively successful at achieving most of them. Since then, all countries have negotiated and agreed upon a set of seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be…
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Are the haor floods caused by climate change?
The haor basin in the northeastern part of Bangladesh is currently experiencing severe flash floods, causing considerable hardship to people, and destroying crops and other infrastructure. Some people are asking if this flood can be attributed to human-induced climate change. Firstly, it is important to distinguish weather events (like rains, cyclones and floods, etc.) from…
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Time to go back to the drawing board
ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE Apart of the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change, agreed in 2015, was the pledge by developed countries to provide a minimum of USD 100 billion a year from 2020 onwards, to assist developing countries tackle climate change through both mitigation and adaptation. They also created a new funding body called…
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Getting climate finance to where it is needed most
Over the last decade, developed countries have contributed tens of billions of US dollars in climate finance to developing countries to support both mitigation actions (to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change), as well as adaptation (to tackle the adverse impacts of climate change). Most of the funding has gone to support…
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As the climate changes, will Bangladesh change too?
As the climate changes, Bangladesh is also changing. This is most obvious in terms of biophysical changes — stronger hurricanes, harder rainfall and more salinity — but it is also affecting the government’s budget, institutional systems, and the way it manages its finances. The question is as climate change accelerates, can Bangladesh change fast enough?…
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Paris Agreement and tasks for us
The Paris Agreement (PA) on climate change which was achieved at the 21st conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris in December 2015 was historic in several ways. Firstly, it, unlike its predecessor the Kyoto Protocol, which only required developed countries to take actions to reduce…
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Unleashing the power of the private sector
Over the next two to three decades, there are two major overarching trends that Bangladesh will have to deal with, and therefore have to plan for as well. The first trend is a positive one, which is our desire, and indeed commitment, to graduating out of Least Developed Country (LDC) status within less than a…
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Can we count on the GCF?
Assessing the GCF’s performance on funding adaptation for the most vulnerable countries By the end of this year, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) — the main international fund designated to help countries address climate change — will have been active for six years. At this point, it would be a good time to reflect back…