At the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow last November, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, speaking on behalf of 55 vulnerable developing countries under the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), put forward a demand to set up a facility to finance loss and damage from human-induced climate change. This demand was included in the draft of the Glasgow …
A decade ago, developed countries pledged to provide developing countries with USD 100 billion each year, from 2020 onwards. The year 2020 came and went and the USD 100 billion was not delivered even in 2021. At COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021, the developed countries apologised for their failure to keep their promise and pledged again to fulfil it. …
During the negotiations that led to the historic Paris Agreement at the 21st UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in 2015, the climate vulnerable countries argued for and succeeded in getting the global goal on mitigation of staying below two degrees Celsius—and if possible, below 1.5 degrees Celsius. This was indeed a remarkable achievement for the vulnerable countries at that time. …
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a United Nations (UN) body set up to commission major assessments of the state of science on climate change and issue their assessment report every five or so years. It has three Working Groups (WGs): WG I is for climate science, WG II for vulnerability impacts and adaptation, and WG III for …
There are two major outcomes and messages on adaptation to climate change that have been mentioned in the recently published Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of Working Group II (WG2) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The first one says that the impacts of climate change are evident all around the world—in both poor countries and rich—necessitating a much …
The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) was launched over 10 years ago, by then President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, and has been operating since then with a different head of government in charge of it for a two-year tenure. The current chair of CVF is Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, whose term is scheduled to end later this year, …
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a global body under the United Nations (UN), has been conducting periodic reviews (every six or seven years) of the state of scientific knowledge on climate change for the last 30 years. The agency is currently in the process of publishing its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) in three parts. The first part was …
In the last few weeks, three separate cyclones hit the island of Madagascar and then Mozambique, causing loss of life and damage to infrastructure. Even in the UK, Storm Eunice caused much damage. These are just a few examples of the loss and damage attributable to human-induced climate change, and in every such incident, it is the victims who are …
The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) was set up with its headquarters in the Netherlands a couple of years ago, and has already developed into a major platform focusing on supporting countries to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. It has already set up regional centres in China and Africa, and is about to launch the regional centre …
One of the positive outcomes of the COP26 held in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021 was a universal acknowledgement of the failure of developed countries to deliver climate finance to developing countries, and even of developing countries themselves to actually deliver to the most vulnerable communities within their own territories. While it is good that countries acknowledged their failure and …