Climate change adaptation: Bangladesh needs $230b till 2050

GBNEWS24DESK//

Bangladesh has a National Action Plan ready on climate change stressing the need for $230 billion over next 27 years till 2050 to enhance its adaptation capacity, as the the COP 27, the biggest climate event, kicks off today in Egypt to tame the rising temperature.

The COP 27 is taking place in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh. Diplomats from nearly 200 countries gathering in the Red Sea resort for the November 6-18 conference are tasked with greening the global economy and helping the poor and climate-vulnerable nations, who have barely contributed to the problem, cope with evermore deadly storms, heatwaves, droughts and floods.

“This COP needs to demonstrate that there is a distinct shift from negotiations to implementation,” UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell told journalists online.

Egypt must mark a leap from the long process of hammering out a treaty to ensuring that its goals are met, he added.

“Paris told us what needs to be done, and Glasgow defined how we need to do it,” he said, referring to the landmark 2015 deal that sets a cap on global warming, and the summit last year in Scotland that finalised the treaty’s rulebook.

“Sharm El-Sheikh is about getting stuff done -– moving from words to action.”

Without a “historic pact” bridging the North-South divide, “we will be doomed, because we need to reduce emissions, both in the developed countries and emerging economies,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said on last Thursday.

Last week the UN warned that “there is no credible pathway in place” for capping the rise in global temperatures under the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

COP27 will arguably boil down to a trio of interlocking priorities: emissions, accountability and money.