Marrakech, Morocco: Describing 2016 as a bad year for Bangladesh with the growing intensity of flood caused by climate change, Environment and Forest Minister Anwar Hossain Manju has stressed the need for implementation of the Paris Agreement to combat that climate disasters. 

Manju, now in Marrakech for attending the 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP-22), made the call at a press conference here on Wednesday evening. 

“We’ve already been affected by the adverse impacts of climate change. This year, 2016, has been a bad year for us. The Brahmaputra recorded the highest ever flood level. The Dharla basin faced s severe flooding. On the other hand, the rainfall during the peak of monsoon was very low, while drought like conditions prevailed in the northwestern region,” he said.

The minister further said, “Increased salinity is seriously affecting the people of southwestern Bangladesh. The Chittagong region has been hit by cyclone Ruanu. These demonstrate that climate disasters are on the rise.”

Mentioning that Bangladesh has acted proactively to ratify the Paris agreement, he hoped that all the signatories to it will complete their ratification process at the earliest and thus create pressure on world leaders for accelerating the implementation of the Paris Agreement. 

Manju also said Bangladesh wants to see the urgency in making real progress on developing the ‘Paris Rulebook’ particularly finalising modalities, procedures and guidelines (MPGs) for NDCs, Transparency Framework, Global Stocktake, and Compliance Mechanism. 

Climate finance stands at the core of the negotiations, observed saying this is an important agenda for all vulnerable countries like Bangladesh. “Our country is in urgent need to receive adequate and predictable finance for addressing adaptation needs.”

On Adaptation Fund, the minister said Bangladesh strongly feels the importance of the continuation of the fund to support concrete adaptation projects in developing countries. “We also urge developed countries for generating adequate resources for the LDC Fund.”

Monju said Bangladesh has already submitted 5 proposals for technology transfer to Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN). “The CTCN has indicated that initially they planned to support two of these proposals. But, we noticed with concern the inadequacy of funds compared to the requests submitted by parties for technology transfer. So, we urge the developed countries to provide adequate resources to facilitate technology transfer to developing countries.” 

The COP22 which began on November 7 and will conclude on Friday in Bab Ighli of Marrakech, Morocco, is the first such meeting since the historic adoption of the Paris Agreement at COP21 in December last year.