Bangladesh has been striving for years to shift its narrative from being climate vulnerability to resilience. Over the years, it has managed to build itself as one of the climate-resilient countries, despite the geographical vulnerability, through building efficient early warning systems, community-led disaster management, and women’s leadership in resilience efforts. However, communities in Bangladesh continue to face existential crisis due …

Back in the early 1990’s the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, a founding member of the Alliance of Small Island States AOSIS, called on what would become the United Framework Convention on Climate Change: “help us pay for addressing the impacts from sea level rise.” Essentially, the first global call for finance to address loss and damage. Back then, when …

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guitterez, has been holding an annual Climate Action Summit on the margins of the UN General Assembly in September each year. He invites world leaders to come and share what they are doing to tackle climate change, the biggest human-induced global crisis. Over the years, his language to describe the situation has become …

One of the outcomes of the COP26 held in United Kingdom’s Glasgow in November, 2021 was a decision to hold a series of three annual Glasgow Dialogues on funding to address Loss and Damage, with each dialogue to be held in Bonn at the annual pre-COP event. I just attended the second annual Glasgow Dialogue, which was held over the …

The litmus test of success for the U.N. climate summit will be the creation of an urgently needed fund to help the most vulnerable people. Open letter to the incoming president of the COP28 U.N. climate summit Dear Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Let me thank you for inviting me to join the Advisory Committee for the COP28 Presidency, which will …

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 …

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 …

A conversation from COP27 on inclusive locally led adaptation. When it comes to climate change adaptation in affected communities, top-down approaches where international- and national-level decision-makers drive interventions do not work. In recognition of this, efforts to promote locally led adaptation (LLA) have been growing steadily and in August 2022, over 100 organisations endorsed eight core principles to strengthen the …

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 …

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed 30 years ago at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by all the governments of the world. The first annual Conference of Parties (COP1) was held in Berlin, Germany, with the then Environment Minister of Germany, Angela Merkel, as COP President in 1995. Since then, there …