Date Time
Statement following visit of COP26 President-Designate Alok Sharma to Bangladesh
Foreign Minister of Bangladesh H.E. Dr A.K. Abdul Momen and COP26 President-Designate the Rt Hon Alok Sharma met on 02 June 2021 in Dhaka during the visit of COP26 President-designate to Bangladesh on 02-04 June 2021. They jointly reaffirmed their commitment to enhancing cooperation between Bangladesh and the United Kingdom in tackling climate change’s causes and adverse effects. They agreed to demonstrate sustained leadership to tackle the climate emergency bilaterally and globally.
The two countries agreed to exchange expertise, share technology, facilitate partnerships, and identify practical solutions to common climate challenges. They expressed their resolve to work together to contribute to ensuring all countries meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement, and improve the resilience of those most vulnerable to climate change.
The world is having to tackle three major emergencies at the same time. The first is obviously the Covid-19 pandemic that is still raging around the world, the second is climate change, which is also getting much worse every year, and finally, there is biodiversity loss, which will mean the loss of up to a million species if we cannot stem the tide.
What is being done and what more needs to be done, at both the global as well as national levels?
At the global level, for climate change, we have the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. For biodiversity, we have the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), and for Covid-19, we have the World Health Organization (WHO) and its COVAX vaccine initiative. Both the CBD and UNFCCC will be holding their respective annual Conference of Parties (COP) in the next few months.
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Last week, I wrote in this daily about the need for Bangladesh to take a whole of society approach to international diplomacy on tackling climate change globally, rather than depending on the annual Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which meets only once a year for two weeks.
Climate change is now a global emergency which requires actions every single day, from all sectors of society, if we are to have any hope of averting its worst impacts. This is equally true at the national level, not just for Bangladesh, but for every country, especially the most vulnerable developing countries.
One can argue that the issue of tackling climate change in Bangladesh has already achieved a whole-of-government approach, and is also rapidly moving towards a whole-of-society approach. However, our international diplomacy on tackling climate change also needs to develop both approaches.
What do these two terms mean, and how are they being rolled out? The whole-of-government approach means that not only ministries and departments, but also other branches such as local government, parliament, and even security and military apparatus, along with the judiciary, need to be involved. The whole-of-society approach means the additional inclusion of the private sector, media, academia, civil society and professional groups such as lawyers, doctors, planners and others.