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 …

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). A landmark agreement, …

The words refugees, migrants and climate change are increasingly becoming connected to each other, but sometimes causing more noise than shedding light! The three terms have very distinct origins and global fora for discourse which were quite different and siloed in the past. However over the last year all of them have recognised the need to connect with each other. …

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 on two Participatory Rural Appraisal …

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. It was not the first time such a session had been held but it was by far a much more alarmist session as we now acknowledge that human-induced climate change is already responsible for …

Programme Researcher, John Magrath, describes the process of applying ‘participatory scenario development’ to explore how Bangladesh might achieve zero hunger and zero carbon emissions by 2041. It is tempting to assume that the future will follow much the same trajectory as the past. Imagining alternative futures can be dismissed as dreaming, or science fiction. And if we do imagine the …

A cornerstone of the Paris climate agreement The recently concluded COP 24, in Katowice, ended with the member states parties’ adoption of the rulebook for the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement at the national level. To accelerate the efforts for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change adaptation several key factors need to be realized, mainly: Identifying, planning and …

The latest from COP24 The transfer of innovative technologies is a central issue for developing countries, allowing them to act on climate change. With institutional challenges on the national and local levels, and complex set of vulnerabilities, developing countries often lack the capacity to assess and address critical risks in specific sectors and territories. Bangladesh is one of the countries …

Addressing one of the UN climate talks’ most contentious issues Wildfires burn in North America, hurricanes and cyclones decimate countries in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Least developed countries and the small island states deal with the irreversible loss and damage to their states and communities on a frequent basis. Meanwhile, the Conference of Parties (COP24) is held in Katowice, …

Insight into the UN climate talks 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. It is a two-week-long event with the first week dedicated to technical …