Climate crisis
Earth gets hotter, deadlier during decades of climate talks
World leaders have been meeting for 29 years to try to curb global warming, and in that time Earth has become a much hotter and deadlier planet.
Trillions of tons of ice have disappeared over that period, the burning of fossil fuels has spewed billions of tons of heat-trapping gases into the air, and hundreds of thousands of people have died from heat and other weather disasters stoked by climate change, statistics show.
When more than 100 world leaders descended on Rio de Janeiro in 1992 for an Earth Summit to discuss global warming and other environmental issues, there was “a huge feeling of well-being, of being able to do something. There was hope really,” said Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, one of the representatives for Native Americans at the summit.
Now, the 91-year-old activist said, that hope has been smothered: “The ice is melting. ... Everything is bad. ... Thirty years of degradation.”
Data analyzed by The Associated Press from government figures and scientific reports shows “how much we did lose Earth,” said former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief William K. Reilly, who headed the American delegation three decades ago.
That Earth Summit set up the process of international climate negotiations that culminated in the 2015 Paris accord and resumes Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland, where leaders will try to ramp up efforts to cut carbon pollution.
Back in 1992, it was clear climate change was a problem “with major implications for lives and livelihoods in the future,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the AP this month. “That future is here and we are out of time.”
Read: ‘Everything is at stake’ as world gathers for climate talks
World leaders have hammered out two agreements to curb climate change. In Kyoto in 1997, a protocol set carbon pollution cuts for developed countries but not poorer nations. That did not go into effect until 2005 because of ratification requirements. In 2015, the Paris agreement made every nation set its own emission goals.
In both cases, the United States, a top-polluting country, helped negotiate the deals but later pulled out of the process when a Republican president took office. The U.S. has since rejoined the Paris agreement.
India among world's top 10 for climate tech investment: Report
India ranks ninth in the list of top 10 countries for climate technology investment over the past five years and Indian climate tech firms received USD 1 billion in venture capital (VC) funding from 2016 to 2021, according to a new report released in London on Tuesday.
'Five Years On: Global climate tech investment trends since the Paris Agreement', by London & Partners and Dealroom.Co, analysed the trends in the sector since the last United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris and ahead of the COP26 summit in Glasgow next week.
It found that venture capital investment into climate tech companies globally has skyrocketed since the Paris Agreement, with the US and China leading the global top 10 with USD 48 billion and USD 18.6 billion investment between 2016 and 2021 respectively. The UK comes in at No. 4 with USD 4.3 billion after Sweden at USD 5.8 billion.
"Countries around the world need to work together so that we can collectively change business practices and commit to net zero emissions," said Hemin Bharucha, Country Director India, London & Partners - London's business growth agency.
"The global tech industry plays a pivotal role in accelerating this global transformation and this is demonstrated in the rapid growth of VC investment into global climate tech companies. It is fantastic to see the UK and India among the top 10 countries for climate tech investment globally, with London leading the way in Europe for the number of climate tech companies and dedicated VC funds," he said.
Read: EU lauds Bangladesh’s leadership on climate front
The global top 10 is completed by France at No. 5 (USD 3.7bn), Germany at No. 6 (USD 2.7bn), Canada at No. 7 (USD 1.4bn), the Netherlands at No. 8 (USD 1.3bn) and Singapore tenth (USD 700m), after India.
Overall, global climate tech VC investment soared from USD 6.6 billion in 2016 to USD 32.3 billion in 2021, an increase in funding by almost five times.
According to the report, which analyses technology companies working to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions or addressing the impacts of climate change, 2021 investment levels have already exceeded the whole of 2020 for global climate tech investment, demonstrating the importance of the global tech industry in the fight against climate change.
Europe is found to be the fastest-growing region globally for climate tech, with European VC investment into climate tech firms seven times higher this year than in 2016 (up from USD 1.1 bn to USD 8bn).
In Europe, London is described as one of the world's most advanced ecosystems for climate tech, with its start-ups raising USD 3.3 billion since 2016, accounting for 16 per cent of Europe's total. London is also home to 416 climate tech companies, the biggest cluster in Europe.
"The UK is well on its way to becoming a climate tech powerhouse thanks to its combination of world-leading research, thriving ecosystem and creative entrepreneurs that are using technology to solve the most pressing issue in our lifetime," said Remus Brett, Partner at VC firm LocalGlobe.
Read: COP26 president-designate visited Bangladesh to see climate crisis firsthand
"It's no wonder then that investors across Europe and the world are taking note of the startups and scaleups being created in London and the rest of the country. With sustained investment and the right support, these companies will have the tools they need to successfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight the climate crisis," he said.
Growth in climate tech is being driven by significant investment into transportation and energy solutions, accounting for a combined total of 78 per cent of global climate tech investment in 2021. A similar trend is reflected in London, with 60 per cent of VC investment into climate tech going into energy companies, while enterprise software, circular economy and food start-ups are also attracting an increasing share of investment.
London ranks second globally behind the San Francisco Bay Area for number of funding rounds raised by climate tech start-ups, demonstrating an active early-stage ecosystem in London, according to London & Partners.
The city's promotional agency added that climate tech start-ups in London also have access to deep pools of dedicated climate tech capital, with the city home to 18 dedicated climate tech VC firms, more than anywhere else in Europe.
'COP26 outcomes crucial for climate-vulnerable countries like Bangladesh'
The outcome of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) is crucial for climate-vulnerable countries like Bangladesh, said Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
In less than two weeks, world leaders, government officials, negotiators, and representatives of the private sector and civil society organisations are going to attend the COP26 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
CPD and the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) jointly organised the virtual dialogue "Bangladesh's Expectations from COP26" Sunday to shed light on the expectations from the Conference.
Dr Fahmida Khatun, executive director of CPD, and Professor Mizanur Rahman Khan, deputy director of ICCCAD, made presentations at the dialogue.
The study pointed out that the least developed countries (LDCs) are the worst victims of climate change vulnerability. Moreover, the ongoing pandemic has put enormous pressure on climate-vulnerable countries.
In Bangladesh, annual average temperatures increased by 0.64 per cent in 2018, which was 10.20 times faster than the annual average temperature increase of 0.06 per cent in 1961.
Due to floods, Bangladesh is expected to incur losses equivalent to 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Given these critical consequences, Bangladesh has an active interest in the outcome of COP26.
Five specific agendas are critically important for Bangladesh.
First, ensuring the commitments of major carbon-emitting countries to limit carbon emission; second, scaling up climate funds urgently to support climate-vulnerable countries; third, ensuring the bigger share of climate fund towards adaptation; fourth, finalising the Paris Rulebook to ensure accountability; and fifth, establishing the mechanism for loss and damage.
Read: Hasina’s climate leadership lauded at CVF-COP26 dialogue
ADB raises climate financing target to $100 bln by 2030
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has announced it is elevating its ambition to deliver climate financing to its developing member countries (DMCs) to $100 billion for the 2019–2030 period.
“The battle against climate change will be won or lost in Asia and the Pacific,” said ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa.
He said that the climate crisis is worsening daily, prompting many to call for increased climate finance.
Read: ADB appoints new country head for Bangladesh
“We are taking action to meet this call by elevating our ambition to $100 billion in cumulative climate finance from our own resources by 2030.”
In 2018, ADB committed to ensuring at least 75 percent of the total number of its operations support climate action and its own climate finance resources reach at least a cumulative $80 billion by 2030.
Today’s announcement elevates the ambition of this financing.
ADB expects the cumulative climate financing from its own resources in 2019–2021 to reach about $17 billion.
The expanded climate finance ambition is a key element of ADB’s efforts to support its DMCs. Facing the interconnected challenges of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the climate crisis, many DMCs are taking bold action to promote a green, resilient, and inclusive recovery.
Read: ADB to provide Bangladesh $250 million for Covid recovery
The additional $20 billion will provide support for the climate agenda in five main areas:
First, new avenues for climate mitigation, including energy storage, energy efficiency, and low-carbon transport. ADB expects its cumulative climate mitigation finance to reach $66 billion.
Second, a scale-up of transformative adaptation projects. Projects in climate-sensitive sectors, such as urban, agriculture, and water, will be designed with a primary purpose of effective climate adaptation and enhanced resilience. ADB expects its cumulative adaptation finance to reach $34 billion.
Third, an increase in climate finance in ADB’s private sector operations. This includes creating more commercially viable projects for both ADB and private investors.
The expansion will be underpinned by improvements in operational efficiencies, a post-pandemic recovery in market demand for financing, new technologies and innovations in climate financing, and new areas of business for private sector climate operations.
Read: ADB to loan $400 million to Bangladesh under agreement signed Monday
ADB intends to support these initiatives with $12 billion in cumulative private sector climate finance from its own resources and anticipated crowding in of an additional $18 billion to $30 billion.
Fourth, support for a green, resilient, and inclusive recovery from COVID-19, including through innovative financing platforms such as the ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility and Green Recovery Platform, which are expected to leverage funds from capital markets and private sector investors for low-carbon infrastructure.
Fifth, support to advance reforms in DMCs to unlock actions through policy-based lending to support policies and institutions for enhanced climate resilience and climate mitigation.
Fight against climate change: 'Bangladesh adopts nature-based solution'
A nature-based approach is the most effective way to tackle biodiversity loss, climate change and achieve sustainable development, Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Md Shahab Uddin said Thursday.
Bangladesh has been putting efforts into achieving sustainable development goals, placing climate, nature and development at its heart, he said.
The country has adopted a green growth strategy in its 8th Five Year Plan and Bangladesh Perspective Plan 2021-2041 to harmonise economic growth with environmental sustainability to create a climate-resilient nation, Shahab added.
Read: Climate crisis no longer a looming crisis: Mia Seppo
The minister made the remarks during the Fourth United Nations Environment Program Session of the Forum of Ministers and Environment Authorities of the Asia-Pacific held Thursday in South Korea, joining virtually from Dhaka.
The government has adopted the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 to achieve a safe, climate-resilient and prosperous delta by ensuring long-term water and food security, economic growth, environmental sustainability while effectively reducing vulnerability to natural disasters and building resilience to climate change, Shahab said.
To cut GHG emissions, Bangladesh has revised and submitted Enhanced Updated NDCs on August 26 this year, enhancing both the unconditional and conditional contributions with ambitious quantifiable mitigation targets, he added.
Read: Bangladesh, UK issue collective call for ‘ambitious action’ against climate change
Shahab Uddin said Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan 2030, finalised by Bangladesh, has recognised the co-benefits of maximising share of renewable energy, enhancing energy efficiency, giving importance to climate-resilient nature-based approaches of development and due consideration on Locally Led Adaptation.
The country is also working on implementing its sectoral policies and action plans like Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, Country Investment Plan on Environment, Forestry and Climate Change, Renewable Energy Roadmap, Plastic Waste Management Action Plan, the minister said.
Climate change: EU to step up support for Bangladesh
The European Union (EU) will assist Bangladesh in its ongoing effort to tackle climate change, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission's European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, said Friday.
Appreciating the role of the Bangladesh government, he said: "The EU will continue to increase its cooperation in the days to come."
Frans said this at a bilateral meeting between the EU and Bangladesh led by the Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Md Shahab Uddin in Italy's Milan.
Read: Climate crisis no longer a looming crisis: Mia Seppo
The environment minister told the EU that Bangladesh is playing a significant role in the international arena on climate change.
Also, he sought the EU's cooperation in all sectors, including technology transfer, capacity building, renewable energy and implementation of adaptation activities, to tackle climate change.
Read: Bangladesh, UK issue collective call for ‘ambitious action’ against climate change
Additional Secretary (Development) A Shamim Al Razi and Director of the Department of Environment Md Ziaul Haque were also present at the meeting.
'Climate crisis destroying human rights of those least responsible for it'
The global climate crisis is destroying the human rights of those least responsible for the same, according to a British newspaper report co-authored by Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen.
"There is no time to lose. The longer we delay action to support people who are vulnerable to climate breakdown, the worse the consequences are likely to be, making responses even more complex and costly," Dr Momen and Patrick Verkooijen wrote in 'The Guardian'.
Patrick Verkooijen is the CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation, while Bangladesh is presiding over the Climate Vulnerable Forum this year.
Quoting UNHCR prediction that the number of climate refugees and displaced people could reach 200 million a year by 2050 -- nearly double the number than that of today, the authors called on the United Nations to urgently appoint a special rapporteur on climate change and human rights "to galvanise action on the biggest threat to fundamental freedoms".
"The special rapporteur will have a duty to witness the impact of climate breakdown on human rights first-hand, visiting countries affected by climate disasters and galvanizing action across the family of UN organisations and the wider public sphere."
The UN’s top scientists warned in August that "even if we were to succeed in reining in emissions, we still face many decades of climate disruption because of the greenhouse gases that are already trapped in the atmosphere".
"This decision to appoint a UN special envoy on climate and human rights is long overdue. The UN Human Rights Council, currently in session, could take this decision now," Dr Momen and Verkooijen wrote.
This is precisely what the CVF has called for in its manifesto for Cop26. By doing so, the authors said the Council would demonstrate that UN bodies can take decisive climate measures, a much-needed positive impulse for the Glasgow summit on which our planet’s fate hinges.
"That move is also the international community’s strongest signal it is prepared to staunch the climate emergency’s hemorrhaging of human rights. We sincerely hope it will," they wrote.
World News Day observed with focus on climate crisis
Bangladesh on Tuesday joined the global community of journalists in observing the annual World News Day, which aims to promote the importance of authentic journalism.
News organisations and media houses came together across the world on this fourth iteration of World News Day, choosing to highlight the critical importance of credible journalism in providing trustworthy information about the climate crisis and the planet's future.
With the involvement of 500 news organisations across the world, the campaign focuses on one point -- climate change, or as the terminology shifts, the climate crisis -- with 2021 on course to be declared as the hottest year on record amid the worsening consequences of global warming.
The flagship virtual event of this year's campaign is a 75-minute Web show titled “World News Day: The Climate Crisis”.
World News Day is an initiative driven by the Canadian Journalism Foundation and the World Editors Forum to raise awareness about the critical role of journalists in people’s lives. The very first World News Day was observed on September 28, 2018.
Read: Dickson lauds Bangladesh's efforts on climate front
Bangladesh: On the frontline of a planet in peril
Nowhere is the climate crisis more pressing or more potentially catastrophic than Bangladesh, for the simple fact that nowhere else do we see a greater swathe of humanity under threat from its worst effects.
According to the Environmental Justice Foundation, by 2050, with a projected 50 cm rise in sea level, Bangladesh may lose approximately 11% of its land, affecting an estimated 15 million people living in its low-lying coastal region.
It isn’t something the country brought upon itself. As a late comer to industrialisation, the country’s contribution to anthropogenic climate change, for which the Industrial Revolution that started in 19th-century Britain was a catalyst, has actually been minimal.
That is why as the current chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of 48 countries that are most disproportionately affected by the consequences of global warming, it is working hard for a fair and equitable deal to be reached at the next UN-led conference on the issue (COP26), set to be held in Glasgow in December.
Experts have long bemoaned the fact that the wealthier, industrialised countries – the ones who have historically contributed the most to the depletion of the ozone layer – still put up a reluctant front when it comes to taking responsibility now for addressing the problem.
“Bangladesh has been hit hard with extreme weather caused by climate change for years. Climate change is a global phenomenon that needs a global solution through collective efforts,” noted climate expert Dr Ainun Nishat on the occasion of World News Day.
Dr Nishat said they have been talking about climate finance for several decades for combating climate change impacts, but sufficient funds have not been allocated globally.
“It’s necessary to sensitise global leaders regarding climate financing and keep their commitment to reducing carbon emission. The upcoming COP-26 Summit will create an opportunity to do this,” he said.
World News Day is being observed in Bangladesh as elsewhere across the world today (Tuesday), highlighting the critical importance of credible journalism in providing trustworthy information about the climate crisis.
Environment experts said about 700,000 people in Bangladesh become refugees every year due to the natural disasters which are said to be intensifying with climate change.
They point out that per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in Bangladesh is 0.46 tonne per year while it is about 10 to 15 tonnes per year in the developed countries.
Alongside reducing carbon emissions, the analysts said developed nations must help Bangladesh with mitigation and adaptation efforts, necessary funds, resources and technology to prepare it for the inevitable losses of lives, livelihoods, habitable land, and the resulting human migration.
Read: Dickson lauds Bangladesh's efforts on climate front
Climate crisis no longer a looming crisis: Mia Seppo
UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh Mia Seppo has said the climate crisis is no longer a looming one but it is widespread, rapid and intensifying.
“Few countries know this better than Bangladesh,” she said, adding that this pressing issue (climate crisis) will play a central role in the current session of the UN General Assembly.
In a recent programme with the Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh, Mia said the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a code red for humanity.
But it also made clear that it is not too late to meet the Paris Agreement 1.5 degree target. “We’ve the tools to achieve this target but we are rapidly running out of time,” said the UN Resident Coordinator.
Read:World needs journalists more than ever: Mia Seppo
Countries like Bangladesh have not historically contributed to the problem but are bearing the brunt of its consequences, with the most vulnerable being hardest hit, she said.
While the global outlook is dire, Mia said, the impact on the Asia Pacific is particularly alarming.
Sea-level rise is reportedly occurring faster than the global average and the region is predicted to experience more intensive heat waves and heavier rainfall in the decades to come, said the UN official.
Moreover, with the majority of the world’s poor in the Asia Pacific, the impacts of climate change threaten to push millions more into poverty and hardship, she said.
For Bangladesh, Mia said, the IPCC predicts more frequent high-intensity cyclones and storm surges they create, which are particularly devastating for already-vulnerable coastal regions undermining livelihood security, food and water security, and fuelling internal displacement and migration.
She said climate change threatens to increase the level of poverty and inequality, pushing poorer Bangladeshis into situations of protracted economic uncertainty.
And as urban migration increases in the years to come, Mia said, public infrastructure will be put under further stress, creating a host of social protection concerns for those already at risk.
Read: UN to provide electoral assistance to Bangladesh if requested: Mia Seppo
According to a recent report, sea-level rise alone is predicted to submerge 17 percent of the country by 2050, leaving approximately 20 million people homeless.
Mia said this does not take into the account the millions more who will be forcibly displaced by extreme weather events or the slow-onset impacts of climate change, such as saltwater intrusion.
In line with continued global leadership on climate advocacy, the UN official acknowledged that Bangladesh, as the chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, has made a similar plea for greater recognition of the cross-cutting impacts of climate change on human rights, peace and justice.
Mia hoped that Bangladesh will use the expertise for advancing the human rights, climate and environmental justice agenda domestically, too.
DCAB President Pantho Rahaman and its General Secretary AKM Moinuddin also spoke at the DCAB Talk held at Foreign Service Academy on Sunday.