British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Robert Chatterton Dickson has said there is an 'enormous' amount of work to do and follow up ahead of the COP27 making sure that commitments made on the climate front are now 'turned into action' on the ground, reports UNB.
He also termed Bangladesh a 'credible and important' voice in climate space.
"There's a real sense of hope for what we're able to achieve at COP26 and in particular, the growth of trust between nations," he said, focusing on the priority climate actions that all need to be taken before the COP27 in Egypt, now in just eight months' time.
The 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) to the UNFCCC will take place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt in November this year.
High Commissioner Dickson was addressing a webinar titled 'Building on the outcomes of COP26: Priority Climate Actions Ahead of COP27' held on Friday.
Additional Secretary (Climate Change Wing) at the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Md Mizanul Haque Chowdhury, International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) Director Prof Dr Saleemul Huq, its Deputy Director Prof Dr Mizan R Khan and Independent Consultant, Environment, Climate Change and Research Systems Dr Haseeb Md. Irfanullah joined as discussants at the webinar moderated by UNB Director Nahar Khan.
The British envoy said the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina played an 'enormously important role' in Glasgow in shining the spotlight on the urgency of tackling climate action for vulnerable nations and a crucial role in raising global ambition.
"And we obviously very much hope that Bangladeshi input into the negotiations and discussions will continue because I think Bangladesh is an enormously credible and important voice in this space," Dickson said.
UNB Director Nahar Khan said climate change is already impacting every corner of the world, and much more severe impacts are in store if they fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and immediately scale up adaptation.
She said COP26 was eventually held last November following a delay due to the pandemic but a number of incremental steps were achieved that they can build upon in the run-up to the COP27.
Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change and by 2050, with a projected 50 cm rise in sea level, Bangladesh may lose approximately 11 per cent of its land, affecting an estimated 15 million people living in its low-lying coastal region, she said, quoting the Environmental Justice Foundation.
Mizanul Chowdhury said delivering the promised $100 billion by the developed countries is a matter of 'building trust' among nations for further fruitful climate negotiations.
He said developed countries and larger emitting nations must update their nationally determined contributions (NDC) with more ambitious mitigation targets before the COP 27 to reduce the existing gap so that the rising global average temperature can be limited to 1.5 degrees.
Chowdhury also laid importance on transfer of clean, green and advanced technology to the most vulnerable, developing countries for addressing the issue of loss and damage.
Saleemul Huq highlighted three key areas - the COP26 outcomes and how they will take that forward; the actual impacts of climate change, which are now a reality around the world; about possible avenues of further collaboration building on a very strong foundation between Bangladesh and the UK to tackle climate change.
Talking about implementation of the Glasgow decisions on loss and damage, he said there were two decisions - to create a setup and get it up and running as quickly as possible something called the Santiago network on loss and damage. "This is a very good development, a very excellent outcome of the Glasgow discussions. We need to take that forward."
The second one is the Glasgow dialogue on finance for loss and damage. "This is something of a disappointment, I must say because the CVF countries under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina actually asked for a Glasgow facility on finance for loss and damage," Prof Huq said.
Prof Mizan Khan said they find a serious disconnect between global climate science and climate policy, both internationally as well as nationally.
He said their responsibility should be to make the climate fears visible so that the citizens feel the pain of the context. "We need to put global climate diplomacy on a different level from other kinds of diplomacies where national interest gets precedence over the collective interest."
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