Today’s column is in response to the thought-provoking series of articles in The Daily Star on “What makes a great university” by Dr Syed Saad Andaleeb, Dr Ahrar Ahmad, and Dr Halimur R Khan. I would suggest not changing the entire university sector in Bangladesh, but rather to develop a world-leading effort in research and teaching to tackle climate change – not …
Time to make climate funds part of mainstream finance
The problem of global climate change has already gone through two eras and has now entered the third era. The first was the era of mitigation; the second was the era of adaptation; and now we are in the era of loss and damage from human-induced climate change. Mitigation and adaptation are still prevalent issues, and now we have to …
More heatwaves are coming our way. Are we prepared?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently completed its sixth assessment report (AR6), with the Synthesis Report coming out in March. The Synthesis Report carries some key messages about the impacts of climate change and the actions needed to avert the worst of them. The first new message in the AR6 report came from Working Group I, according to …
Closer to making polluters pay
Last week, at the general assembly of the United Nations in New York, a resolution was adopted by consensus to ask the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an advisory opinion on whether impacts of human-induced climate change are a violation of international human rights. This resolution was put forward by the government of Vanuatu with the support of the …
The who’s and how’s of allocating loss and damage funds
During the negotiations on funding for loss and damage in COP27 in Egypt last November, representatives of developed countries had a lot of reservations about such a proposal. My answer to them was that, while their questions were quite legitimate, they would only get answers after we received a political commitment from their leaders to establish the funding mechanism in …
Bangladesh takes another step in leading global climate adaptation
On December 11, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina formally launched the new Global Hub on Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) in Dhaka along with the foreign minister and environment minister, and Ban Ki-Moon, head of the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA). The new Global Hub on LLA will be located in the Dhaka office of the GCA, which is located in the …
What Bangladesh must do now as a global climate leader
The recent agreement by all countries to establish a new fund for loss and damage from human-induced climate change at COP27 was a simple recognition of an unfortunate reality that has existed for a long time. The reality is that the impacts that are now scientifically attributable to global temperature rise are now happening every day around the world, and …
The story behind the loss and damage fund at COP27
COP27 ended a day overtime on November 20 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt with the historic achievement of a new fund for addressing loss and damage in vulnerable developing countries. Today, I want to tell the story of how this was achieved. The demand for rich countries to shoulder their responsibility for historic pollution – which has raised the global temperature …
Negotiations going strong at COP27
As we near the end of the two weeks of intense negotiations at the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (Conference of Parties – COP27) here in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, things are certainly heating up. The biggest and newest issue is that of loss and damage finance, which was finally accepted as an official agenda item in a COP …
Forget COP27, the youth should hold an ‘Accountability COP’
We are running out of options to ensure COP pledges are actually fulfilled
With the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as 27th Conference of Parties (COP27), set to begin in Egypt next week, it is important to look back on the progress that has been made around the world, by government and private actors, civil society, youth and the media. Much of the pledges of actions to tackle climate change …
