Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) Patrick Verkooijen has said investing in climate adaptation is not just the right thing to do; it is also the economically smart thing to do. “Every dollar invested in climate adaptation brings a much higher return on investment,” he said in an interview with UNB noting that Bangladesh is on the frontline of their climate emergency. Patrick said addressing climate change is a national priority for the country, and Bangladesh is recognised internationally for its cutting-edge achievements in addressing climate change. The activities of the Global Hub on Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) were launched on December 11 in Dhaka by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in an event reinforcing the government of Bangladesh’s global leadership on LLA. Read more: Climate Change: Momen urges global community for more support to developing countries A right approach for climate adaptation will save lives, reduce inequality, and create opportunities. GCA’s research has shown that a dollar invested in weather and climate information services gives between 4 and 25 dollars in benefits. One dollar invested in resilient water and sanitation not only saves lives; it creates between 2 and 12 dollars in economic benefits. Patrick said, “We are here to learn. When it comes to adaptation, our best teachers are often those who are on the frontlines of climate change. And few countries have more to teach us than Bangladesh,” he said, adding that there is a lot other countries can learn from Bangladesh’s approach. He said Bangladesh is a “striking example” of how poor communities can be the most innovative in adapting to climate change. “We hope the valuable lessons it has learnt will help the rest of the world adapt to our new climate reality.” “But while Bangladesh has much to teach, we know Bangladesh is keen to learn from the experience of other countries facing similar challenges,” Patrick said, adding that they are grateful to the United Kingdom whose support has made the Global Hub a reality. He said rising seas, floods, and intensifying cyclones are just a few of the impacts that make Bangladesh one of the most climate change-vulnerable countries in the world. Average tropical cyclones cost Bangladesh about $1 billion annually. From 2000 to 2019, Bangladesh suffered economic losses worth $3.72 billion and witnessed 185 extreme weather events due to climate change. read more: New abnormal: Climate disaster damage ‘down’ to $268 billion By 2050, Dr Patrik said, a third of agricultural GDP could be lost and 13 million people could become internal climate migrants. In case of a severe flooding, like we have just seen in Pakistan, GDP could fall by as much as 9 percent. Asked why locally led adaptation is so important, Patrick said, “The reason LLA is so important is that you can’t make top-down national plans without investing in enabling bottom-up inputs from the vulnerable communities so that the plans are implemented without failure.” Bangladesh already has a long history of planning for adaptation to climate change and incorporating those plans into national development programmes such as the Bangladesh National Adaptation Plan (NAP) and the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan (MCPP), both of which emphasise investment in Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) as a way to achieve transformational adaptation over the next decade. “So, there needs to be a paradigm shift: instead of looking at the vulnerable communities as mere targets or beneficiaries of support from the top, we need to take them as the agents of change themselves who know best what needs to be done, and those who wish to support them must listen to them first,” he said. Asked why Bangladesh is chosen to establish the global hub on locally led adaptation,Patrick said two years ago at the launch of the GCA South Asia office, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked for local knowledge and innovations from Bangladesh, and from other countries in the region, to be shared with the rest of the world. Read more: 'With enough foreign funding, Bangladesh can do more to face climate risks' “There was no question in my mind that the Global Hub had to be in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has long been a global leader in Locally Led Adaptation. Rather than accept its destiny – geographical or otherwise, Bangladesh has been at the forefront of preparing for the onslaughts that global warming would surely bring,” he said. Bangladesh was also one of the first countries in the world to set up a national fund – the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF) – resourced from national budgetary sources to fund activities on the ground. The Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan now includes a further commitment to invest in LLA through an LLA funding window in the BCCTF, with preferential access for women, youth, disabled persons, and displaced people. “It also includes a commitment to create national Mujib LLA Hubs as a repository of information on communities, and a forum for discussion and consultation. Both these commitments will contribute to building a locally-grounded foundation for the GCA Global Hub,” Dr Patrik said. Patrick mentioned that with the combined expertise and financial resources of the Global Hub, they can urgently and cost-effectively find ways to help and support those local communities most disrupted by climate change. “We can help them adapt, survive and thrive.” About the long-term plans for this Global Hub on LLA, Patrick said the GCA Global Hub on LLA will have a deliberate focus on the local level, targeting the adaptation-related knowledge and information needs of local communities, governments, practitioners, and other grassroots organisations and champions. It will then expand outwards to encompass the LLA-specific needs of other actors that play a critical role in enabling and empowering LLA, he said. In the first phase of its activities between 2022-2025, Patrick said, the Global Hub on Locally Led Adaptation will focus its work on accelerating locally led adaptation across Africa and Asia.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called upon all to remain united in the war against nature to avert a possible loss for mankind. “In our war against nature, we’ll lose unless we unite,” she wrote in the renowned magazine Diplomat in its April 2021 issue. In the write up – ‘Forging Dhaka-Glasgow CVF-COP26 Solidarity’ – she said that humans are consciously destroying the very support systems that are keeping us alive. “What planet shall we leave for the Greta Thunbergs or those at the Bangladesh Coastal Youth Action Hubs? At COP26 we must not fail them,” she said. Sheikh Hasina, currently the president of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), said, we want to see climate financing unleashed, not only towards low-carbon economy, but also for the promised US$100 billion, and 50 percent dedicated to climate resilience-building. Also read: Leaders Summit on Climate: Kerry due Apr 9 to invite PM Hasina “We want to see international carbon markets unlocked for transnational climate cooperation and solutions found to our profound loss, damage and climate injustice,” she added. She mentioned that the CVF represents over one billion of the world’s most vulnerable communities, whose very survival is threatened by the slightest sea level rise, frequent hurricanes or rapid desertification. In this connection, she said that for Bangladesh, often referred to as the ‘ground zero’ of natural disasters, climate change is a survival battle braved by millions of our resilient people whose homes, lands and crops are lost to the recurring wrath of nature. Every year, 2% of country’s GDP is lost to extreme climate events. By the turn of the century, it will be 9%. By 2050, more than 17% of its coastlines will go underwater displacing 30 million. Six million Bangladeshis have already become climate displaced. And yet the country continues to bear the 1.1 million Rohingyas from Myanmar at the cost of environmental havoc in Cox’s Bazar.   “Who will pay for this loss and damage?” She asked. Also read: Climate adaptation: Bangladesh for making finance more accessible The Prime Minister wrote that like Bangladesh, every CVF nation has an irreversible climate loss and damage story to tell. “But they contributed little to global emissions. It is time to address this climate injustice.” She said that international cooperation on climate had been de-prioritised by the US for several years. International climate finance was falling far short of the $100 billion pledged at Paris. “The G-20, accounting for nearly 80 per cent of global emissions lacked the political will to finance transactional carbon markets to support low-carbon projects in vulnerable countries. Loss and damage remained a far cry.” And then, she said, COVID-19 hit us like a bolt from the blue, triggering the triple perils of climate, health and nature. A rude awakening finally forced the world to heed to my warning that the climate crisis is indeed an emergency. And any recovery had to be green, nature-based and resilient. Therefore, my first act as CVF President was to declare climate change a ‘planetary emergency’ and call upon all to be on a ‘war footing’ to arrest global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees. Also read: Bangladesh with Maldives in fighting climate change: PM “By Autumn 2020, I’d seen very few NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions), and COP26 was postponed, so I launched the ‘Midnight Survival Deadline for the Climate’ initiative at the CVF Leaders’ Summit,” Sheikh Hasina said. She said that US President Joe Biden’s returning to the Paris treaty was also inspiring. “But those who failed to meet CVF’s midnight-deadline, I urge them, to submit ambitious NDCs ahead of COP26. CVF’s most vulnerable members pledged no less than a net-zero by 2030, including Barbados, Costa Rica and the Maldives.” Talking about Bangladesh, she wrote that Bangladesh, the CVF member with the largest population, also submitted interim NDC updates with additional pledges over and above Paris to reduce methane emissions. For Bangladesh and the CVF, climate adaptation and financing is a prime ‘survival’ priority as we relentlessly struggle to protect our populations from recurrent extreme climate events. “Realistically, my climate survival philosophy has been a common sense one. ‘Help thy self’ and wait for no one to rescue. Because, climate change is not going to spare us for our inactions.” As a testament to this, she said, she had long championed locally-led adaptation and resilience-building at the heart of which are local actors, especially women and youth. In 2020, when Category-5 Cyclone Amphan mercilessly hit Bangladesh and India, Bangladesh demonstrated its capability to evacuate 2.4 million people and half-a-million livestock to safety in less than five days. Also read: Climate change: Hasina seeks more actions than words That same year, two-thirds of Bangladesh went under water in flash floods during the pandemic. Even though this double jeopardy cost $3.5 billion in GDP losses, disaster preparedness of Bangladesh saved millions of lives.   She said that Bangladesh has also learnt to self-finance its climate projects. The government has thus created a $450 million Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund that supports nearly 800 adaptation and resilience projects in its vulnerable coasts. “We are spending on an average 2.5 per cent of our GDP – US$5billion each year – on climate adaptation and resilience-building.” She said that Bangladesh built 16.4km of sea dykes, 12,000 cyclone shelters and 200,000 hectares of coastal plantation. The scientists invented nature-based solutions for the country’s coastal communities, such as salinity and stress tolerant crops, rain reservoirs and pond-sand-filters, floating agriculture technology and mobile water treatment plants. In Bangladesh, the Prime Minister wrote, we are now championing climate prosperity. By pioneering the ‘Mujib Climate Prosperity Decade 2030,’ named after Bangladesh’s Founding Father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman during his birth centenary, I have called CVF nations to initiate ‘climate prosperity plans.’ We have already planted 11.5 million trees under our plan. These are strategic, low carbon investment frameworks integrated into national development plans for capturing our growth and prosperity. But the CVF can only do so much on its own. “There is a limit to adaptation too!” she said. “It is vital to build strong CVF-COP solidarity. We want to see a Dhaka-Glasgow-CVF-COP26 Declaration emerge from November’s meeting.  We, the climate vulnerable nations want to see G20 submit ambitious NDCs before COP26.”

Bangladesh has sought support from the UK and other developed countries to ensure concessional finance and access to technology for all developing countries, and LDCs, especially due to the unprecedented socio-economic impacts of Covid-19.

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has highlighted the significance of collaboration among the South Asian countries for effective implementation of adaptation activities in the region.

Dhaka, July 7 (UNB) – The government has joined hands with UNDP to implement a $33m project in Satkhira and Khulna districts benefitting almost 7 lakh people mostly women and adolescent girls to help them adapt better to climate change.