Climate change is the biggest existential threat that our planet is currently facing and Bangladesh is one of the countries most vulnerable to its adverse effects.
It is no big secret that climate change is directly correlated to the vigorous early industrialization of developed nations, mostly in the West, which has severely impacted the growth prospects of developing and least developed countries.
The recent announcement of France signing an agreement with Bangladesh to finance climate-change adaptation and loss and damage in the first half of the coming year can then be considered a great first step in attaining some semblance of justice for the setback that countries in the same position as ours have been subjected to by developed nations.
According the reports, the French Development Agency will be contributing $1.1 billion in investment, while the IMF will be extending up to $1bn worth of special drawing rights -- IMF’s reserve asset -- in new loans under this new agreement, while also extending 20-year loans at near-zero interest rates to finance climate action and pandemic preparedness in the poorest countries.
As a country on the frontlines on the war against climate change, this is exactly the kind of commitment that developed nations should be making.
Bangladesh has taken remarkable measures on its own to protect itself and its citizens from the effects of climate change, from the continuous efforts towards making the RMG industry, the veritable engine of our economy, more sustainable to locally-led adaptation measures which seek to bolster our climate resilience measures.
The onus of paying for climate change has always been on developed countries and it is abundantly clear that these nations must move beyond mere rhetoric and actively engage climate-vulnerable nations so that we can collectively dispel this global crisis within the coming years.
