Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has signified the richer nations’ response to the crucial climate issue as a “tragedy,” because their blustering words saying the urgency of the situation was not being matched by actions of reducing emissions, reports BSS.
"They don't act. They can talk but they don't act," she told French news agency AFP in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session, adding that those countries were “the responsible ones for these damages”.
“The rich countries, the developed countries, this is their responsibility. They should come forward. But we are not getting that much response from them. That is the tragedy," Sheikh Hasina said.
Supplementing her concerns AFP commented that “fertile, densely populated deltas, low-lying” Bangladesh was among the most vulnerable nations in the world to climate change.
Bangladesh, it said, produced a miniscule amount of the greenhouse gas emissions that have already contributed to the warming of the planet by an average of nearly 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The French news agency predicted that one key issue facing the next UN climate summit, to take place in Egypt in November, is whether wealthy nations also need to pay for losses and damages from climate change, not just to pay for adaptation and mitigation.
"We want that fund to be raised. Unfortunately we didn't get a good response from the developed countries," Sheikh Hasina said in her interview with AFP, which noted that wealthy nations agreed only to discuss the loss and damage issue through 2024.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
