Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Sunday urged the international community to scale up financial and technological support for developing countries to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change.
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the resulting cost-of-living crisis around the world, aggravated by sanctions and counter-sanctions, cannot be a pretext for diminishing or diverting the much-needed financing for tackling the climate crisis in order to save planet earth, he said.
While speaking at the launching ceremony of the global hub of Locally Led Adaptation (LLA), Momen said the government of Bangladesh stands ready to provide full support to the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) to achieve the goal of the global hub which is to promote Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) at scale, with speed, to reduce climate risks for populations and sections of society that are most vulnerable to climate change.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina joined the launching ceremony virtually as the chief guest.
"The kind presence of our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at this launch is clear testimony to our unstinting support," Momen said.
The foreign minister congratulated Ban Ki-moon and the entire GCA team.
"I feel personally pleased to be able to serve as a member of the GCA Governing Body. The launch of the Global Hub today is indeed a positive step forward from our decision to host the GCA Regional Office in Dhaka. Soon we plan to organise other events," he said.
Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Shahab Uddin, 8th Secretary General of the United Nations and Chair of the Board, Global Center on Adaptation Ban Ki-moon, Chief Executive Officer, Global Center on Adaptation Prof Dr Patrick Verkooijen and British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Robert Chatterton Dickson spoke at the launching ceremony held at Foreign Service Academy.
Momen thanked the government of the United Kingdom for its support in establishing the global hub.
“Each year more than 6,50,000 people of Bangladesh are being uprooted from their homes, from their traditional jobs, due to erratic climate changes and global warming and river erosion and the government has the responsibility to rehabilitate them although the government has no role in contributing to their uprooting,” the minister said.
There are varieties of estimates that say that around 20 per cent of the coastal areas of Bangladesh will be flooded, and there could be millions uprooted from their homes.
"If millions of people are uprooted from their homes it will create a global security problem," Momen said, adding that "before such a situation happens, I would request global leaders to come forward to share the burden of their rehabilitation and also take corrective action so that that situation never happens."
The foreign minister said, "Our journey with GCA is promising and progressing. It pleases me to witness that over a span of just 2 years, GCA and the Bangladesh Government have developed the adaptation activities."
Bangladesh is ready to share similar home-grown solutions such as floating agriculture, rainwater harvesting, early warning system, climate resistant crop varieties with other vulnerable countries through this Global Hub, he said.
