An open letter from Bangladesh to the American people With Trump turning his back on climate change, the US can turn to Bangladesh to adapt: Dear friends in the United States of America, I am a researcher in Bangladesh working on adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change, especially on the poorest and most vulnerable countries and communities. In light of the recent executive order signed by President … Read More
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 mitigation actions in a few … Read More
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? There are many changes from … Read More
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 decade. The second, more negative … Read More
Achieving a global adaptation goal for climate change One of the important aspects of the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change achieved at the 21st conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 2015 was the inclusion of a global goal for adaptation. This was mirrored on the previously agreed global goal for mitigation, which was to keep the global long … Read More
The conference for a climate-resilient Bangladesh #Gobeshona3 Day 1: Research into Use Inaugural Session of Gobeshona3 Great start to 4-day #Gobeshona3 conference on #climatechange in #Bangladesh with @SaleemulHuq @Gobeshona @ICCCAD pic.twitter.com/ahZZ700ntM — Dr. Farhana Sultana (@Farhana_H2O) 8 January 2017 Inaugural session of the Gobeshona Annual conference on Climate change 2017. #gobeshona3 @SaleemulHuq @ICCCAD @MakameMahmud3 @cnazmul78 pic.twitter.com/olkmz8CUXE — Tasfiq Mahmood (@MahmoodTasfiq) 8 January 2017 "Gobeshona, a platform for … Read More
Making a solution out of a problem Bangladesh has just hosted a big international conference on migration as the co-chair, with Germany, of the Global Forum on Migration and Development. While the focus of the Conference was mostly on the current problems related to international migration there was some discussion of the possible impacts of climate change on migration in the future. There was also the launching … Read More
Role of parliamentarians in tackling climate change I have just been to Geneva, Switzerland where I was invited to speak at the General Assembly of the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) on the role of parliamentarians in tackling climate change. The IPU is the oldest and biggest union of parliamentarians from all the world’s parliaments and its current President is Bangladeshi parliamentarian Saber Hossain Choudhury. There are four … Read More
Adapting to climate change: Lessons from Colombo Earlier this month, the fifth Asia Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum was held in Colombo, Sir Lanka. This year’s theme was “Adapting and Living below 2C.” This is because the UN climate treaty — the Paris Agreement, which goes into force next week — set a upper temperature limit of 2C warming above pre-industrial temperatures. Given that Bangladesh is a … Read More
Paris Agreement On Climate Change Approaching the 55/55 threshold The original article was published as Paris Agreement On Climate Change at Daily Star, an Op-Ed by Dr. Saleemul Huq. The historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change that was agreed at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Paris, France last December, was a major … Read More
