Climate change is the biggest battle that our planet faces at this point, with Bangladesh being one of the nations at the frontlines.
Helping mitigate the effects of climate change not only helps in retaining global efforts but it is absolutely important for Bangladesh to do so given our country's climate vulnerability. To that end, a good place to start would be an increased focus on hitting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Over 660,000 Bangladeshis have their livelihoods compromised because of climate-induced displacement, which is unfathomable given that Bangladesh is on the verge of shedding its Least Developed Country status within the coming years. Make no mistake, climate change has a very real economic impact in addition to its human impact.
A reinvigorated commitment towards hitting global goals such as the SDGs, the Paris Agreement, and more is, therefore, the need of the hour.
However, while international cooperation is absolutely the fulcrum upon which the global fight against climate change will turn, equal importance must be given to the idea of climate reparations. Climate change is the result of developed nations foregoing caution and industrializing way too vigorously in the past, and it is absolutely important that they are made to pay a Loss and Damage fund for growing economies which had no part to play in climate change yet are being made to pay the biggest price.
Given the wave of protests that the world has witnessed in the past few years urging governments the world over to do something about climate change, it is clear that time has come. No longer can the world bury its head in the sand and keep avoiding this fight.
Time is of the essence.