The Paris Agreement to tackle climate change which was achieved at the 21st Conference of Parties in Paris, France last December has been ratified by well over fifty-five countries accounting for over 55% of global emissions (the two thresholds that need to be achieved for the agreement to go into force as international law). It thus went into force on …

(Originally published here) In the last week of April, nearly two hundred international participants from over forty countries, along with a hundred participants from Bangladesh, attended the 10th International Conference on Community Based Adaptation (CBA10) at the Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) in Dhaka. The four-day conference was preceded by three days of field visits by the international participants to see community-based …

(Originally published here) Over the last decade in Bangladesh, we have spent almost a billion US dollars on several hundred projects and activities to tackle climate change. Most of these projects have been on adaptation but a few have also been on mitigation. As tackling climate change is a new issue for us, there is no pre-existing methodology to follow, …

(Originally published here) Investors should consider how an aspirational 1.5C limit on global warming affects their portfolios, a top UN envoy said on Monday. Shareholders are already pressing fossil fuel majors to recognise the risk greenhouse gas emissions curbs could dampen demand for their products. To date, most analysis has focused on a 2C threshold. Rachel Kyte, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All, …

(Originally published here) Bangladesh is about to lose $50 million (about Tk400 crore) of climate funds because of tension between the World Bank and donors, and a lack of commitment on the government’s part. Even as the government is grappling to find funds for dealing with the climate change impacts, the donors have decided to pull the plug on Bangladesh …

(Originally published here) As Bangladesh and the world enters post-2015 era with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Sendai Action Plan on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) – all meant to be achieved by 2030 – it is time to think out of the traditional ‘development box’ and do some innovative thinking and planning going …

(Originally published here) A high official yesterday complained that the release of global climate fund (GCF) meant for supporting the adaptation projects in vulnerable countries remains slow, hindering the implementation activities. “It needs to be expedited. The approach should not be like a banker,” said Dr Nurul Quadir, joint secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, giving a reference …

(Originally published here) The next head of the U.N. process to tackle climate change should come from one of the world’s poorest countries, which led an ambitious drive to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the new Paris deal, a leading expert has proposed. With Christiana Figueres stepping down as executive secretary of the U.N. climate change convention …

(Originally published here) As the implications of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change of 2015 become clear, financing of actions to tackle climate change on both the global and national level in every country will play a key role. These will, in turn, be influenced largely by the global and national political economy. In this article, I will try to …

(Originally published here) Money for fighting climate change was in focus at the closing session of Gobeshona – an annual Conference for Research on Climate Change in Bangladesh. The conference provided the opportunity for international and multi-stakeholder participants to engage with a wide range of Bangladesh-specific climate change research. John Timmons Roberts, Ittleson Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at …