Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pranay Verma on Wednesday said they are exploring areas of cooperation based on national priorities, noting that environment and climate change naturally appear very high in that priority.

"Environment and climate change - both are areas are very important part of our domestic governance in India and Bangladesh," he told reporters after a meeting with Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Abdul Awal Mintoo at Secretariat.

The High Commissioner said they have invited Bangladesh to become a full member of the International Big Cat Alliance that they have recently launched.

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Bangladesh also attended the inaugural meeting.

The International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) is a global conservation initiative launched by India in April 2023 to protect the world's seven major big cats: tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, jaguar, puma, and cheetah.

"I briefed the Minister about what we are doing in the renewable energy sector. 
India has a very ambitious target. It has achieved a lot in terms of its renewable energy and non-fossil fuel energy portfolio," he said, noting that they have a very ambitious target of 500 gigawatt of renewable energy capacity in the next few years.

The High Commissioner shared some of those experiences - what kind of institutional mechanisms they have built to achieve that capacity and how they can work together in the renewable energy capacity building for Bangladesh.

The High Commissioner said there are many areas which are common to their interest like climate change, energy transition and renewable energy.

"We discussed also in detail about carbon trading system, which Bangladesh is also going to introduce," Pranay Verma said. 


He said they also have a carbon trading market. "So, these are the kind of experiences that we shared, and we discussed how we can take them forward."

The two sides also discussed about conservation areas like forestry, wildlife, and also how tbey can cooperate together in international initiatives that they are both members, like International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster, Resilient Infrastructure. 


Pranay Verma described his meeting with the Environment Minister as "excellent" and said they discussed a lot of areas of how they can have closer cooperate together both bilaterally and internationally in the days ahead.