Set ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions and implement: HPM Sheikh Hasina at COP26

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called on the developed countries to set ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions and implement plans to stop the warming of the planet.

Countries are obliged to submit Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change under the agreement signed in the 2015 Paris climate summit.

“The major emitters must submit ambitious NDCs, and implement those,” she said in her first proposal, out of four, in her address to COP26, the 2021 edition of the UN climate change summit, in Glasgow on Monday, BSS reports. Some 120 leaders of developed and developing countries have joined the summit.

Bangladesh compromised its development needs to update its NDC, scrapping 10 coal-based power plants projects involving $12 billion foreign investment and setting a roadmap to have 40 percent of the country’s energy from renewable sources by 2041 alongside various other measures, according to the prime minister.

The UK is hosting the COP26, from Sunday to Nov 12, with heads of state, delegates and campaigners all set to negotiate a coordinated response to the climate emergency under the UNFCCC.

Hasina, also chair of the 48-nation Climate Vulnerable Forum, or CVF, and V20, The Vulnerable20, demanded developed countries fulfil their pledge to provide $100 billion annually to help the poorer nations adapt to and mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change.

She sought the transfer of the developed world’s clean and green technology at affordable costs to the most vulnerable countries, which she said also need development.

“The issue of loss and damage must be addressed, including global sharing of responsibility for climate migrants displaced by sea-level rise, salinity increase, river erosion, floods, and droughts,” she said in her fourth proposal.

Although Bangladesh contributes less than 0.47 percent of global emissions, the country is among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Despite all odds, it established the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund in 2009 and doubled climate-related expenses in the last seven years, Hasina said. Currently, the government is preparing the National Adaptation Plan.

The prime minister said her government is going to implement the “Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan”, a journey from climate vulnerability to resilience to climate prosperity.

“We are also trying to address the challenge of climate impact because of 1.1 million forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals or Rohingyas,” she said.

As the chair of the CVF and V20, Bangladesh is promoting the interests of the 48 climate-vulnerable countries as well and “we are also sharing best practices and adaptation knowledge regionally through the South Asia Office of the Global Center of Adaptation”, she said.

On behalf of the CVF, Bangladesh is also pursuing to establish a Climate Emergency Pact, she added.