Dhaka seeks global support on climate change at Lima

LIMA, (Peru) Dec 11 (UNB): Environment and Forest Minister Anwar Hossain called upon the global community, particularly the developed countries, to take the lead in enabling the most climate vulnerable countries like Bangladesh to carry forward the activities on adaptation and mitigation.
The minister made the call while addressing the plenary session at the UN climate conference COP20/CMP10 here on Wednesday.
"We require substantial and guaranteed and additional flow of resources to meet the adaptation needs of the country. For the last two decades we spent more than 10 billion US dollars for addressing climate change with our own resources," said the minister.
In this context, Bangladesh's action on the ground towards adaptation and mitigation would seriously be affected if the provision of support was not met, he added.
"Bangladesh has constructively been participating in the negotiations with high hopes and aspirations that Lima COP must deliver the critical issues aiming to realise the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention," he said.
Anwar Hossain said the recent EU Ministerial Declaration on climate change, US-China Announcement on emission reductions, pledges to the Climate Fund by a number of countries as part of initial capitalisation created much optimism and added an impetus to take the process forward towards achieving the desired outcome at Paris. "We've to maintain this political momentum in our journey towards Paris," he added.
"Due to rising sea levels and storm surge, one-fourth of Bangladesh may go under sea permanently. This may cause displacement of 37-40 million coastal population. We need to act before such displacement takes place," said the minister.
He said in the face of such looming catastrophes, Bangladesh joined hands with the global community to combat the climate change.