UK assures Bangladesh of 150m pounds to climate fund
The UK has assured Bangladesh of increasing its contribution to climate change resilience fund to 150 million pounds from the current 75 million pounds.
Alan Duncan, UK minister of state for international development, gave the assurance in a meeting with State Minister for Environment and Forests Hasan Mahmud at his secretariat office yesterday.
Talking to newsmen after the meeting, the state minister said the support to the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF) would be additional to British government's support of $1 billion in various sectors of Bangladesh.
Hasan said they discussed various issues relating to mutual interests, and development programmes, global climate issues and Bangladesh's impending challenges to cope with the impacts of climate change.
“We have discussed how we can work together on climate issues globally and the agenda of the world's environment ministers' conference in Berlin, Germany next month where 'mitigation' would get priority to reduce global carbon emission”, he said.
The minister said Bangladesh reiterated its position that Kyoto Protocol should not be abandoned.
“We are in favour of second commitment period of the developed countries under Kyoto Protocol and bringing all major emitters under a binding agreement to reduce emission,” he observed.
Focusing on the challenges of Bangladesh regarding climate change, Hasan urged the UK minister for accelerated support for construction of coastal embankments, afforestation, river training, dredging and protecting coastal agriculture lands from salinity.
The British minister also assured him of giving support for coastal afforestation in Bangladesh, and senior officials of the ministry and DFID will soon work out the plan for the afforestation, he added.
British High Commissioner in Dhaka Stefan Evans and country representative of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) Christopher Austin were present at the meeting.
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