During the short visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Bangladesh, he wanted to take a boat ride on the Turag River and also meet with certain individuals to discuss what to do to tackle climate change. I was privileged to be one of four individuals selected to spend nearly an hour with Macron on the boat ride. The others …

I had an opportunity to address a meeting of Bangladeshi parliamentarians, under the leadership of Speaker of the House Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, organised by the UNDP, on the outcome of COP27 and the role of parliamentarians going forward. Let me share some of my remarks to the parliamentarians and also some of the outcomes of the event. The main …

The year 2022 was indeed a critical year for tackling climate change at global, national, and local levels. Let me start at the personal level by acknowledging two major events for me. The first was at the beginning of 2022 when I was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by the British Government and later given the medal …

Bangladesh is set to graduate out of the Least Developed Country (LDC) category in the next few years, and then become a developed country by 2041 while achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. We have even developed the Delta Plan 2100. This will require us to transition as quickly as possible from a labour-based economy to a knowledge-based …

Executive Summary In recent years, the just transition to a low carbon economy, supporting climate resilient development has become an issue of global concern for all the right reasons. The response measures to address climate change through switching to a cleaner energy mix and enhancing the adaptive capacity of society – businesses, workplaces and communities will entail significant disruptions particularly, …

The Ganges Delta has always been exposed to extreme weather events. Bangladesh has made remarkable progress towards becoming climate resilient. More will be needed since global heating is getting worse. Due to its geographic location and high population density, the entire country is a climate hotspot. Common issues include heat waves, erratic rainfall, flooding, droughts, cyclones, river bank erosion and …

After the publication of the third assessment report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001, the world came to realize that adverse impacts of human- induced climate change would become inevitable and unavoidable and hence all countries had to prepare for those adverse impacts through adaptation. A corollary of that finding was that while all countries, both …

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 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 …