Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s recent statements at the online two-day Climate Adaptation Summit (CAS) 2021 -- where she noted that global adaptation actions to climate change are not keeping pace with the scale of devastation due to a lack of finance and political will -- are extremely worrying, and bring to light the disconnect that continues to exist with regards to fighting climate change.
It is nothing but factual to state that, despite contributing very little to the problem of climate change, Bangladesh is among the most vulnerable countries to its effects.As such, it remains the solemn duty of the developed nations -- those who are most at fault for warming our planet in the first place -- to pay their dues and support countries who, through little fault of their own, are having to bear the brunt of the effects.
Sadly, this has not been the reality. While Bangladesh must be lauded for emerging as a global leader when it comes to locally-led adaptation measures -- undertaking close to 800 projects for $443 million from its own climate change trust fund -- the fact of the matter is countries like Bangladesh simply do not have adequate resources to be successful on their own in their adaptation measures.
To that end, there is no alternative but to put pressure on the developed world to do their part. First, by simply reducing their carbon footprint, and by paying for their share of damages caused. We must remember that we only have one planet, and we are running out of time to save it for our future generations.
