The civil society expects finalization of the Paris rule-book to make the Paris agreement functional in the upcoming COP-26 and they want Bangladesh to lead in Glasgow.
They expressed this while addressing a Roundtable discussion titled “Pre-COP 26 National Dialogue: CSOs Concerns and Expectations” at the Daily Star Center at Karwan Bazar in the capital on Saturday.
Center for Participatory Research and Development (CPRD), in collaboration with COAST Foundation, CDP, CLEAN, RIB, SDS, CCDB, CANSA-BD, YPSA, BARCIK and some other civil society organizations and development partner organizations jointly organized the event.
Md Shamsuddoha, Chief Executive of CPRD, presented the keynote speech and chaired the discussion.
He said, “The upcoming COP is very crucial because the 2020 COP event was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to stave off climate change, finalization of the Paris rule-book is very much urgent, and we hope the upcoming COP-26 will finalize the Paris rule-book. The Paris Agreement will be operational after finalization of the Paris rule-book.”
“According to IPCC, the most effective way to control climate change is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To implement this, setting an appropriate emission reduction target is very essential. The NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) submitted so far are not enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees or well below 2 degrees Centigrade from the pre-industrial era,” he continued.
He further said, “Some countries have already submitted their enhanced NDCs, but analyzing those NDCs, it has become clear that even if those are fully implemented, the endeavour will fall short of the levels essentially required for limiting global warming to 1.5 even 2-degrees centigrade. We hope COP-26 will prescribe a target for every country.”
Shamsuddoh said, “The developed countries are committed to giving $100 billion to the green climate fund annually to address climate change, but they are not fulfilling their commitments. We have been demanding in different forums that, developed countries must reach net-zero carbon emission by the year 2030 and developing countries have to reach this target by the year 2040. We hope, this COP-26 will take the necessary steps to reach net-zero GHG emission.”
Dhareetree Kumar Sarkar, Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change said, “The developed countries are pursuing the target of limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade above the pre-industrial level, but the 6th assessment report of IPCC (Inter-government Panel on Climate Change) has confirmed the urgency of limiting the rise of global temperature to 2 degrees centigrade.
It is the NDCs properly set by the global community which can bring the rising global temperature under control. Our government, with its best possible efforts, is contributing to the climate actions for facing climate change.”
Jahangir Hasan Masum, Executive Director of Coastal Development Partnership (CDP) highlighted that, the overarching goal of the UNFCCC is limiting the global temperature rise by curbing down anthropogenic emission of GHG i.e. mitigation actions. But over the time issues have been pushed and the objective of GHGs emission reduction got a bit diluted.
He claimed that it is the developed world which brought forth those issues intentionally to overcast the main objective of emission reduction.
Among others, Kawser Rahman, President of Bangladesh Climate Journalists Forum, Syed AminulHaque of COAST Foundation, Syed Jahangir Hasan Masum, Executive Director of Coastal Development Partnership (CDP), Rabeya Begum, Executive Director of Shariatpur Development Society (SDS) also spoke in the discussion.