Dhaka, Mar 14 (bdnews24.com) – Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday commented that financial assistance to face extreme weather was being confused with development assistance and alleged the development partners had not lived up to their promises.
She asked donor countries to make good on their well-publicised commitments and come up quickly with promised funds to help Bangladesh limit the effects of climate change.
"Overseas aid is declining for the past two decades. Now we are seeing that climate fund is being equated to development financing," she said at the inaugural session of the meeting of parliamentarians on "Climate Change: Beyond COP 17" in Radisson Water Garden Hotel in Dhaka.
"Climate funding is no charity. It is compensation for the air pollution that industrialised nation did for decades.
"It must be new, additional, and in the form of grants," she asserted.
A total of $30 billion has been promised by the end of this year but, after three years of delays in channelling promised money, only $2.4 billion has been made available.
Referring to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, the prime minister said, "A meter rise in sea level would submerge a fifth of Bangladesh's land mass displacing about 20 million people… the time is, therefore, ripe to discuss creation of an appropriate framework for addressing the needs of such displaced people."
"Sadly, we are yet to see any meaningful flow of funds even for the fast start finance promised in COP 15 in Copenhagen."
She said, "There is no clarity on how the global community would raise funds in the period between 2013 and 2020 for making the Green Climate Fund operational."
The GCF was agreed in Cancun last December by industrialised countries to mobilise USD 100 billion per year by 2020 for developing countries.
Addressing ministers of various countries attending the meeting, Hasina said there should be discussions encouraging development focussing on low-carbon emission in all countries with the use of renewable energy and other green options.
"We should also ensure that the new climate change framework offers concrete and robust support to developing countries, particularly to the vulnerable ones, in terms of finance, and transfer of technology for adaptation and mitigation actions."
Stressing that Bangladesh was alert to greenhouse gas emission, the prime minister said, "We would expect our development partners to help us with adequate finance, technology and capacity development support."
Environment minister Hasan Mahmud, executive committee member of Inter-Parliamentary Union Faisal Karik Kundi, parliamentary standing committee member on environment ministry Saber Hossain Chowdhury and UNDP's resident representative in Bangladesh Stephen Prisoner were among others who spoke at the meeting presided over by parliament speaker Abdul Hamid.
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