Experts at a session on Saturday stressed need to increase reliance on renewable energy for sustainable development.
The remarks came in the inaugural session of the two-daylong ‘2nd National Renewable Energy Debate Competition’ organized by Oxfam in Bangladesh at Presidency University in Dhaka.
Former governor of Bangladesh Bank Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed participated on the opening day as chief guest of the inaugural session and Vice-Chancellor of Presidency University Prof. Dr. Abdul Mannan Chowdhury of Presidency University was present as special guest.
Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed said, ‘We need to increase our reliance on renewable energy to save our environment. Policymakers talk a lot about it, but mostly corporate-oriented. They will work accordingly. We have lots of action plans to reduce carbon emissions and increase the use of renewable energy, but a few of implementations".
Dr. Mohammad Imran Hasan head of the Climate Justice and Natural Rights department of Oxfam in Bangladesh presented the keynote, where he focused on carbon emissions by RMG sectors, workers’ job security and equality, fossil-fuel phase-out, etc.
The keynote showed that the average Fashion Sales Assistant job pay in the USA per hour is USD11.58 or USD 4000 per month, while the average salary of a RMG worker is USD 100 per month. If brands absorbed the cost of paying living wages within their supply chains, it would cost them less than 1% of the price of a garment.
Also, the world’s richest 10% of people produce 50% of the world’s emissions, and the wealthiest 1% produce twice as many emissions as the poorest 50%, linked to egregious, excessive luxury consumption.
In contrast, the entire continent of Africa produces less than 4% of global emissions. It also showed, we are at 1.2 degrees Celsius of global warming and experiencing disastrous consequences of the climate crisis everywhere on the planet.
