Saleemul Huq

One of the major outcomes of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change—agreed by all countries at the end of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Paris, France in December 2015—was that every country would prepare and submit their respective plans to take action to tackle climate change every five years, with the expectation that the level of ambition would be enhanced at each five-year cycle.

As we welcome the new year of 2021, we also enter a new decade that will culminate with 2030, a year that marks an end point for some very important goals and milestones for the world.

As we say goodbye to the terrible year of 2020 and enter not just a new year in 2021 but a new decade to 2030, it is time to look ahead with some sense of optimism for our country over the coming decade.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been a pioneer in terms of developing the Human Development Index (HDI), which is a more balanced way of measuring human development that goes beyond traditional, simple economic indicators of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

On December 12, 2020, it was the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the occasion was marked by a Climate Ambition Summit hosted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, who serves as the presidency of COP26 taking place in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021.

President-Elect Joe Biden of the United States of America recently announced his national security and foreign policy team including a significant new position of a “climate envoy” who would sit on the National Security Council, choosing former Senator John Kerry for that position.

At the time of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change which was approved by all countries in 2015, every country submitted it’s intended Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) in which they made pledges and commitments for mitigation by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

The election of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States of America has brought a great sigh of relief to everyone around the world who wants to see global action to tackle the threat of climate change.

The 26th annual Conference of Parties (COP26) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was supposed to have been held this week in Glasgow, Scotland under the chairmanship of the government of the United Kingdom.

The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), consisting of nearly 50 of the most climate vulnerable developing countries, which was set up a decade ago on the basis of their common vulnerability to climate change, has now evolved into a more robust group of countries who are no longer only emphasising their vulnerability but rather moving towards resilience.

The scale of the global climate change emergency that is emerging in 2020 has already made it clear that nothing short of a “whole of society” approach is needed if we are going to be able to tackle it effectively over the coming decade, which is the crucial time window we have left.

The historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which was agreed by all the countries that were part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2015, had two major outcomes.

The historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change, agreed at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris, France in 2015, was a major outcome that all vulnerable developing countries, including Bangladesh, strongly fought for.

In last week’s column, I proposed that the Bangladesh National Adaptation Plan (NAP) that is now being developed should be innovative and not just a business-as-usual (BAU) report that will gather dust on a shelf, as many such plans have done in the past.

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), all countries are supposed to develop their respective National Adaptation Plan (NAP) according to a prescribed format provided by international experts.

Last week, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon jointly launched the new South Asian Regional office of the Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA).

During July last year, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina hosted the Global Commission on Adaptation meeting in Dhaka attended by the co-chairs of the Commission, former Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon and Kristalina Georgiva, head of the International Monetary Fund.

In the international negotiations on climate change impacts under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the issue of loss and damage has always been a politically sensitive topic—it brings up issues of liability and compensation, which many developed countries regard as taboo topics.

The global Covid-19 pandemic is now just over half a year old and arguably still in its early stages.

In January 2021, the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh will be holding the 7th annual Gobeshona conference with an overall theme of starting a ten year journey to promote locally led adaptation towards resilience in Bangladesh, as well as in other vulnerable developing countries, including the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) countries.