Bangladesh must be saved, UK Parliament told
Sunday, 8 November 2009
LONDON, Nov 7 (bdnews24.com): A senior British politician told UK's Parliament this week that worldwide action was needed to rein in climate change and save the most at-risk countries like Bangladesh.
The Labour MP and former health secretary, Frank Dobson, terming it "the most vulnerable" country, said Bangladesh could only be saved by supporting long-term climate adaptation plans on a "vast scale".
"Nothing else will do," Dobson said during a five-hour debate on climate change in the House of Commons Thursday last.
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband admitted in the debate that the 15th UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) at
Copenhagen in December was unlikely to produce a legally binding way forward on curbing global emissions and tackling climate change.
He said "political agreement" was a more likely outcome, which he hoped would drive forward "a very clear timetable, to a legally binding treaty".
Miliband told the Commons: "I think an agreement without numbers is not a great agreement. In fact it's a wholly inadequate agreement."
In the Barcelona climate talks this week, held in preparation for COP15, the poorest African countries walked out of talks in protest that rich nations were not prepared to pledge the required cuts in emissions to avoid significant global warming.
China, India and Indonesia have all recently published plans for emission cuts, but political wrangling among industrialised nations and emerging economies over details of the agreed proposals looks set to continue.
Bangladesh, meanwhile, fears rising seas will displace 200 million people by 2100, and has been at the forefront of the least developed countries (LDCs) in pressing for global climate adaptation funds and a climate refugee plan at international forums ahead of the Copenhagen summit.
The Labour MP and former health secretary, Frank Dobson, terming it "the most vulnerable" country, said Bangladesh could only be saved by supporting long-term climate adaptation plans on a "vast scale".
"Nothing else will do," Dobson said during a five-hour debate on climate change in the House of Commons Thursday last.
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband admitted in the debate that the 15th UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) at
Copenhagen in December was unlikely to produce a legally binding way forward on curbing global emissions and tackling climate change.
He said "political agreement" was a more likely outcome, which he hoped would drive forward "a very clear timetable, to a legally binding treaty".
Miliband told the Commons: "I think an agreement without numbers is not a great agreement. In fact it's a wholly inadequate agreement."
In the Barcelona climate talks this week, held in preparation for COP15, the poorest African countries walked out of talks in protest that rich nations were not prepared to pledge the required cuts in emissions to avoid significant global warming.
China, India and Indonesia have all recently published plans for emission cuts, but political wrangling among industrialised nations and emerging economies over details of the agreed proposals looks set to continue.
Bangladesh, meanwhile, fears rising seas will displace 200 million people by 2100, and has been at the forefront of the least developed countries (LDCs) in pressing for global climate adaptation funds and a climate refugee plan at international forums ahead of the Copenhagen summit.