Bangladesh is yet to build a strong negotiator group to send to the United Nations Climate Change Conference-COP, said Barrister Shamim Haider Patwary, MP.
He stressed that Bangladesh urgently needs to create a negotiator group comprising at least one thousand members from different spheres of the society to raise their voice at the COP.
Shamim Haider Patwary on Thursday said this at a day-long capacity building and strategy workshop at the BRAC Center Inn in the capital.
The workshop on ‘Facilitating Media Engagement at COP 27 and Beyond’ was jointly organised by ActionAid Bangladesh, AOSED, Climate Action Network South Asia, Center for Participatory Research and Development (CPRD), Christian Commission for Development in Bangladesh -CCDB, ChristianAid, Concern Worldwide, COAST Foundation, Diakonia Bangladesh, Development Organisation of the Rural Poor-DORP, European Climate Foundation-ECF, HEKS/EPER, Helvetas, International Centre for Climate Change and Development- ICCCAD, Islamic Relief, Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), NETZ Partnership for Development and Justice, Practical Action, SDS (Shariatpur Development Society), WaterAid, and Young Power in Social Action (YPSA).
The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly referred to as COP (Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC), will be the 27th United Nations Climate Change conference, to be held from 6 to 18 November, 2022 in Egypt.
In his speech as the chief guest at the event he said Bangladesh sets up a nice pavilion in the COP, which ironically remains underutilized. Hence, he demanded making the pavilion open for all the international CSOs for arranging events on the COP.
As a key speaker of the workshop, Shamsuddoha, Chief Executive of CPRD talked about the significance of the program in order to facilitate media engagement with the COP process within Bangladesh and beyond.
He added that there’s a growing need for communicating the climate change issues to the policy stakeholders and make people conversant about global climate politics; journalists can play a vital role in disseminating and demonstrating the ground realities of climate change in Bangladesh.
“I do believe, this capacity-building event would instill an articulate understanding about the ongoing climate change issues and global climate politics among the media personnel and they can further share their learnings with their peers,” Shamsuddoha added.
Dr. Golam Rabbani, Chair of Climate Bridge Fund of BRAC explained the climate science and ongoing climate change scenario to the participants. Besides, he discussed the dimension of climate change impacts according to the latest scientific evidence quoting IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).
Two young researchers from CPRD, Md. Akib Jabed and Sheikh Noor Ataya Rabbi conducted the subsequent session, where they shared the theoretical aspects and ground evidence of climate change-induced non-economic losses and damages, and their implication for human rights violation.
Dr. Fazle Rabbi Sadek Ahmed, Deputy Managing Director of PKSF shared his thoughts about the upcoming COP 27, where he shed the light on the expectations from and challenges to be faced at COP 27, including the issue of loss and damage, finance, phasing out of fossil fuel etc.
Among others Khodeja Sultana Lopa, Country Director of Diakonia, Hasin Jahan, Country Director of WaterAid Bangladesh, Asif Saleh, Executive Director of BRAC Bangladesh, and Shaheen Anam, Executive Director of Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) also spoke at the event.
