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Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) – Climate vulnerable countries have developed a roadmap and action plan aiming to reach a consensus to stand united at negotiations at the Durban climate conference scheduled to take place in two weeks.
The two-day international Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) ended in the Bangladesh capital on Monday. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries that will bear the brunt of climatic calamity for no or little fault of their own.
Officials from 19 countries and observers from eight countries expressed their concern that climate change is causing political, economic and social instability exacerbating insecurity for the people of the poorest countries.
Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday said climate change constitutes a serious injustice and must be acknowledged by the global community. “We are bearing the brunt of the damage though we made negligible or no contribution to the menace,” she remarked.
She was worried by the cost of climate change, estimated at $130 billion, and that it would increase if adequate and timely steps were not taken.
Hasina said that she has not seen any clarity on how the global community would raise funds in the period between 2012 and 2020 towards operation of the Green Climate Fund.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who arrived in Dhaka on Sunday, was the keynote speaker. He made an international call for world leaders, either of developed or underdeveloped countries, to unite to face the climate-change challenges and save the planet for the common good.
Ban said: “We are in the middle of a serious economic crisis. But even in these difficult times, we cannot afford delay. We cannot ask the poorest and the most vulnerable to bear the costs.”
Quoting Hasina’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly earlier this year, Ban said a one-meter rise in sea level could make 30 million Bangladeshis homeless.
He commended the lead taken by Bangladesh to follow a pro-development, low carbon path and establishment of a Climate Change Trust Fund and a Resilience Fund.
The Forum, one of the new voices on climate change, plans to take advantage of the positive momentum sparked by the Copenhagen and Cancun meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The group includes small island states vulnerable to extreme weather events and sea level rise, those with immense spans of low-lying coastline such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, and the dry nations of East Africa.
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Reported in Environmental Issue Stories follow this link for the rest of the article