“The climate crisis is an existential threat to many of us, and Bangladesh is one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world. The adverse impacts of climate change would continue to challenge our lives and livelihoods severely unless we come up with drastic adaptation actions,” he said.

The minister came up with the remarks while speaking at the ministerial high-level segment at the Conference of the Parties (COP25) here.

He said Bangladesh has prepared the Delta Plan 2100 to address the adverse impacts of climate change through adaptive delta management. “It (Delta Plan) is a long-term strategy to implement action for sustainable delta development in Bangladesh. It’ll also assist us to address the adverse impacts of climate change through adaptive delta management,” he said.

Working closely with stakeholders, Bangladesh hopes to harness international best practices and finance to ensure its successful implementation, the minister said, adding that in the year of action, Dhaka will be able to contribute substantially to the global actions to deal with the climate crisis.

“We stand ready to contribute to global adaptation actions building on our experiences,” he said.

In Bangladesh, resilience building and adaptation are at the heart of development efforts and the government has invested heavily for improved agriculture, coastal zone management, resilient infrastructure and water and land management, he said.

Bangladesh has shown how a strong early warning system and a coordinated approach in disaster management can make a big difference and Scaled-up disaster response has included cyclone shelters , building civic awareness, and improving post-disaster recovery, he added. “The frequency of disasters has increased but we’ve been able to reduce the loss of lives from hundreds of thousands a few years back to almost zero now.”

The two-day high-level segment from December 10-11 will be attended by ministers from 200 countries.