The Paris Agreement on Climate Change adopted at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in December 2015 is the road map for all countries to tackle climate change by 2030. However, the rule book for the countries to follow will have to be agreed at COP 24, to …

In the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), every word used can be contested between countries (sometimes they even argue for hours about a coma!). Hence every term has to be accepted by consensus by all the countries for it to be adopted in any UNFCCC decision. Under these circumstances the accepted term under the …

At the 19th Conference of Parties (COP19) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Warsaw, Poland in 2013, there was a breakthrough agreement to set up the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) on Loss and Damage with its Executive Committee having equal representation from developed and developing countries. Bangladesh was also made a member of the …

Under Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), all countries are supposed to ensure awareness, education and capacity building to tackle climate change with the developed countries also promising to support these efforts in the developing countries. Each year, at the annual Conference of the Parties (COP), there is a negotiating track to review progress …

The 196 countries that are signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meet each year around December at the annual Conference of Parties (COP) to review progress on implementing the decisions. The COP moves to a different continent each year as each continent hosts it in turn. The last (23rd) conference, known as COP23, was the …

In 2009 Bangladesh developed and released the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) which was the first of its kind at that time. It was a remarkable document for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was developed entirely by Bangladeshi experts with Bangladesh government’s own funds, rather than by international consultants funded by a developed country or UN …

A recent report from the World Bank has looked at the potential number of people who will be displaced and become climate migrants due to the adverse impacts of climate change around the world by 2050. The report estimated the number to be around 140 million across Asia and Africa, with 40 million in South Asia. Of them, a significant …

The prime minister, the government and the people of Bangladesh can be justly proud that the country will now be able to graduate out of the Least Developed Country (LDC) status within the next few years. However, this graduation comes with both risks as well as opportunities. The first risk is that we will lose our duty-free access to the …

Many oil-rich countries like Norway, United Arab Emirates and Brunei have put billions of US dollars into Sovereign Wealth Funds through which they invest in interest-bearing assets around the world, either enhancing the amount in the fund, or for subsidising costs of selected services for their own citizens. Bangladesh has the potential to develop its own sovereign wealth assets over …

Bangladesh and India should build solar farms, not coal plants, on both sides of the border By- Saleemul Huq and Daniel M Kammen Last week, Bangladesh’s Power Development Board (PDB) and India’s National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) announced that they will form a committee to decide whether to build a large coal plant or solar farm in India for additional …