Govt nominates six NIAs to draw BD share from $100b annual global climate fund

The government has nominated national designated authority (NDA) and national implementing authorities (NIAs) on projects to be executed with money from the proposed US$100 billion revolving global green climate fund (GCF), said officials.
Under the arrangement, Economic Relations Division (ERD) as NDA will select the projects while six state entities as NIAs implement those through drawing Bangladesh's share from the GCF funds.  
They said the ERD under the Ministry of Finance, with the help from the NIAs, will submit funding proposals for the country's potential green projects to the GCF, an operating entity of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change's (UNFCCC's) financial mechanism.
Bangladesh would be allowed direct access to the GCF through the accredited NIAs, as per the rules governing the annually-renewable global fund.
The NIAs include Bangladesh Bank (BB), Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL), Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) and the Department of Environment (DoE), a senior DoE official told the FE Saturday.
The GCF fund can also be accessed through multilateral implementing entities, such as accredited multilateral development banks and UN agencies like the World Bank (WB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Bangladesh is working to finalise its position paper for the upcoming Ad-hoc working group on Durban Platform (ADP) session in Bonn, Germany.
The paper would be the basis of negotiation for the upcoming and future negotiations at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to be held in Paris.
"The Ministry of Environment and Forests is also working to finalise the intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) of Bangladesh to be submitted to UNFCCC by October 01, 2015," said the official.
Sources said parties are optimistic about achieving a legally binding agreement in Paris at COP 21, which will be applicable to all parties to keep global warming below 2°C.
The UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol held the developed countries responsible for climate change.
"Bangladesh along with other least-developed countries (LDCs) is seeking special considerations to stay out of any kind of mitigation obligation in post-2020 period," the environment official said.
Among others, adaptation and loss and damage, mitigation, technology transfer, capacity building and finance are the key negotiating issues to be discussed during the session.
Parties are expected to engage in intense negotiations on finance, where they would discuss the mobilisation of US$100 billion annually by 2020 under GCF.
The LDCs are expected to press for preferential treatment for allocation of funds from the green-climate fund.
During the 2009 UN climate conference, also known as Copenhagen Summit, the 195 member-countries had pledged to establish the GCF to release $100 billion every year from 2020 for climate-change adaptation and mitigation.
Bangladesh along with other developing countries has succeeded in ensuring at least 50 percent of the 100 billion dollars for adaptation activities.
But the challenge remains regarding the source of the US$100 billion fund, they added.
Developing Countries are insisting that the major sources of the fund should be public sources of developed countries, while developed countries are interested to mobilise the fund from market mechanism along with partial mobilisation from public sources of developed countries.
Adaptation and loss and damage and finance are expected to be the most important agenda items for the upcoming negotiation for Bangladesh, among other issues.
mazizur.rahman@outlook.com