Separate wing to deal with climate change issues

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A separate wing in the Environment Ministry will soon be opened to exclusively deal with the climate change and its adverse impacts on the country for which Tk 7.0 billion (700 crore) has been earmarked in the current year's budget, reports UNB.
This was decided at a meeting of the Climate Change Trustee Board Fund, presided by Finance Minister AMA Muhith. Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan, State Minister for Environment and Forest Dr Hassan Mahmud, representatives of civil societies and relevant officials attended the meeting.
Coming out of the 2-hour meeting Hassan Mahmud told that the climate change wing would be headed by an additional secretary. The wing and certain NGOs would be asked in a couple of days to prepare project papers to deal with the climate change issues.
"The projects will mainly focus on adaptation, rather than creating awareness building tasks about the climate change," he said to a questioner.
He also said that Tk 4.62 billion or 66 per cent of the budget allocation to the Climate Change Trust Fund would be spent on projects and the rest would be invested. The projects would be designed to strengthen the country's adaptation capability on climate change, he added.
Hasan Maahmud said that the government was giving emphasis on addressing the climate change issues.
Meanwhile, Danish Ambassador to Bangladesh Einar H Jensen hoped Sunday that a big deal would be made in the Copenhagen Summit on climate change this December that will help the countries like Bangladesh.
"I am still hopeful that a deal will be made, one that will be helpful for Bangladesh… secure package for adaptation for countries like Bangladesh," he said at a programme organised by the Action Aid Bangladesh.
The ambassador was addressing the closing session of the two-day national conference on 'Sharing on Community-based Climate Change Adaptation' at the LGED conference room at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in the city.
Ambassador Jensen said climate change is a difficult problem and adaptation has to take place. "Many countries will be affected by this (climate change) and Bangladesh will be one of the most affected countries."
He thanked the Bangladesh government for taking national adaptation plan to face the adverse effects of climate change, saying "Bangladesh is one step ahead of many countries."
The envoy also thanked the people of Bangladesh and the government for meeting the need of food for around 150 million people despite having limited resources. But, he emphasised the need for further increasing the production level in the country.
He expressed the hope that the Copenhagen Summit would be successful in reducing the emission of carbon dioxide in the developed countries, as the heads of state of different countries would be there.