2024-02-17 13:46:58
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has presented six proposals to world leaders to waive climate finance for affected countries and divert funds to combat climate change, calling for an end to the meaningless arms race.
He said the pointless arms race must be stopped and instead resources should be allocated to raising much-needed funds to combat climate change. We have to remember that when the existence of humanity is threatened, following the path of protecting narrow interests will not bring any benefit.
He made the comments in a panel discussion titled ‘From Pocket to Planet: Scaling up Climate Finance’ at the Munich Security Conference 2024 in Germany on Friday.
Presenting his first suggestion while outlining the six recommendations, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh said, “We need to find a solution to de-allocation of climate finance to keep us on the right track.”
He reiterated that developed countries must comply with their commitment to pay USD 100 billion every year in the two years up to 2025 based on the plan.
“By the end of this year, we must all agree on a new post-2025 climate finance target of over $100 billion based on scientific evidence,” he said.
In her second proposal, Sheikh Hasina said the world must rid itself of war and conflict, illegal occupation and the brutal killing of unarmed civilians, especially women and children, that the world is witnessing in Gaza and elsewhere.
He said the impact of sanctions and counter-sanctions was felt far beyond the sense of conflict.
In his third suggestion, he said the current level of adaptation financing needs to be at least doubled to address the acute funding imbalance for climate mitigation and adaptation.
To this end, he thanked French President Macron for pledging 1 billion euros to Bangladesh for adaptation assistance.
In a fourth suggestion, he said, the long-standing issue of facilitating access to developing countries from existing international climate funds should be addressed with opportunities to invest in their capacity.
In the case of Bangladesh, we have only two eligible institutions and two more are in the process of receiving funding from the Green Climate Fund, he said.
In her fifth suggestion, Sheikh Hasina said that reforms in the management of global financing should show meaningful results, especially in order to remove the debt burden of climate-prone countries by increasing the opportunities for them to get grants and concessional loans.
In the last and sixth suggestion, the Prime Minister said, governments need to invest in proper planning, policies and measures for private capital flows for climate programmes. In addition, international financial institutions need to develop innovative, blended financing mechanisms to attract private capital for projects.
He said it is clear that without the participation of the private sector, the huge climate finance gap cannot be effectively addressed.
Sheikh Hasina said everyone recognizes the need to significantly increase the current level of international climate finance to invest in climate mitigation and adaptation.
Sadly, promised climate finance is still seriously inadequate, he said. This is further complicated by the absence of an internationally agreed definition of climate finance and its accounting methods.
The Prime Minister said she attended a closed-door meeting of leaders during the COP-15 in Copenhagen in 2009 to find a last-minute solution and realized that securing international climate finance would be difficult.
After returning home, he initiated the creation of the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund to undertake adaptation projects locally.
He said Bangladesh is now considered a laboratory of locally driven climate adaptation.
He further said that Bangladesh has so far implemented nearly 800 projects at a cost of US$ 480 million, all from its own resources.
He said, however, this is still insufficient compared to the 7-8 billion dollars needed every year to implement our National Adaptation Plan.
To put things into perspective, mitigation is estimated to require about US$6 trillion in funding until 2030, according to the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), he said.
He said adaptation would require $215-387 billion annually by 2030. It is clear that the huge financing gap is exacerbating the global climate crisis.
Sheikh Hasina said that the COP-28 in Dubai has started a positive journey by launching the Loss and Damage Fund.
He said, “We are pleased that the $792 million has been committed to the fund.” We hope that additional pledges will be made to the fund.
He said, the Governing Board of Loss and Damage Fund has now been formed with full responsibility for financing decisions.
He emphasized the need for the fund to be governed by the principles of the Paris Agreement.
He said the fund must receive new and additional money beyond ODA and other forms of climate finance. Importantly, the Loss and Damage Fund does not provide much-needed funding for climate adaptation.
He said the next task of the fund is to start releasing money for viable projects. Funding should reach those who need it most.
He said that the money exemption process should be made simple and flexible. We hope that the Board of Directors of the Fund will give due consideration to the views of LDCs and SEEDS representatives.
He also said, I would definitely like to see Bangladesh as the first recipient of the Loss and Damage Fund assistance.
Regarding Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina said, although our contribution to global carbon emissions is negligible (less than 0.47% of global emissions), her country ranks seventh among the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world.
It is estimated that, between now and 2050, our annual GDP loss due to climate change will be 2%, and at this rate by 2100, the loss will be up to 9%. It is also estimated that about 13.3 million people in Bangladesh may be internally displaced due to climate change.
The Prime Minister said Bangladesh now spends about 4.6 percent of its annual budget and 0.74 percent of GDP on climate adaptation and resilience, of which 75 percent comes from domestic resources.
Mentioning that Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund was formed in 2009 from its own resources, he said that the fund has so far implemented more than 800 projects with an investment of about 480 million US dollars.
Source: Bass