PM stresses unlocking carbon markets to ensure climate justice

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has underscored the need for unlocking the carbon markets to ensure climate justice alongside finding solution to the losses and damages caused by natural calamities.

She came up with the importance in her article headlined “Forging Dhaka-Glasgow CVF-COP26 Solidarity” written in famous Diplomat magazine.

The magazine in its April, 2021 issue carried the article where Sheikh Hasina also urged all to take a united stand to effectively fight the war against nature.

In the article she wrote, “We want to see international carbon markets unlocked for transnational climate cooperation and solutions found to our profound loss, damage and climate injustice.”

Sheikh Hasina, also the incumbent president of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), said that like Bangladesh, every CVF nation has an irreversible climate loss and damage story to tell.

“But they contributed little to global emissions. It is time to address this climate injustice,” she continued.

Calling upon all to remain united in the war against nature, the prime minister said, “In our war against nature, we’ll lose unless we unite.”

She said that humans are consciously destroying the very support systems that are keeping us alive.

“What planet shall we leave for the Greta Thunbergs or those at the Bangladesh Coastal Youth Action Hubs? At COP26 we must not fail them,” she said.

She went on saying, “We want to see climate financing unleashed, not only towards a low-carbon economy, but also for the promised $100 billion, and 50% dedicated to climate resilience building.”

To this end, she added that the CVF represents over one billion of the world’s most vulnerable communities, whose very survival is threatened by the slightest sea level rise, frequent hurricanes or rapid desertification.

She mentioned that for Bangladesh, often referred to as the ‘ground zero’ of natural disasters, climate change is a survival battle braved by millions of our resilient people whose homes, lands and crops are lost to the recurring wrath of nature.

The premier in her write up also said every year, 2% of a country’s GDP is lost to extreme climate events, adding that by the turn of the century, it will be 9%.

By 2050, more than 17% of its coastlines will go underwater displacing 30 million, she continued.

She said six million Bangladeshis have already become climate displaced and yet the country continues to bear the 1.1 million Rohingyas from Myanmar at the cost of environmental havoc in Cox’s Bazar.

“Who will pay for this loss and damage?” she questioned The prime minister opined that international cooperation on climate had been de-prioritised by the US for several years and international climate finance was falling far short of the $100 billion pledged at Paris.

“The G-20, accounting for nearly 80% of global emissions, lacked the political will to finance transactional carbon markets to support low-carbon projects in vulnerable countries. Loss and damage remained a far cry,” she continued.

And then, she said Covid-19 hit us like a bolt from the blue, triggering the triple perils of climate, health and nature.

A rude awakening finally forced the world to heed to my warning that the climate crisis is indeed an emergency, she also said.

Mentioning that any recovery had to be green, nature-based and resilient, the premier said therefore, my first act as CVF President was to declare climate change a “planetary emergency” and call upon all to be on a ‘war footing’ to arrest global temperature rise at 1.5oC.

The prime minister said, “By Autumn 2020, I’d seen very few NDCs [Nationally Determined Contributions], and COP26 was postponed, so I launched the “Midnight Survival Deadline for the Climate” initiative at the CVF Leaders’ Summit.”

She opined that US President Joe Biden’s returning to the Paris treaty was also inspiring.

“But those who failed to meet CVF’s midnight deadline, I urge them to submit ambitious NDCs ahead of COP26. CVF’s most vulnerable members pledged no less than a net-zero by 2030, including Barbados, Costa Rica and the Maldives,” she wrote.

About Bangladesh, she said that Bangladesh, the CVF member with the largest population, also submitted interim NDC updates with additional pledges over and above Paris to reduce methane emissions.

For Bangladesh and the CVF, climate adaptation and financing is a prime ‘survival’ priority as we relentlessly struggle to protect our populations from recurrent extreme climate events, she further said.

Sheikh Hasina also wrote, “Realistically, my climate survival philosophy has been a common sense one. ‘Help thyself’ and wait for no one to rescue. Because climate change is not going to spare us for our inactions.”