One of the world’s lowest-lying countries invited international experts to discuss the security challenges related to climate change.
The Dhaka Global Dialogue (11-13 November 2019) brought together stakeholders from across the Indo-Pacific Region to discuss the shared challenges they face. Co-hosted by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), India and the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), the conference raised issues such as growth and development in the Indo-Pacific and the link between climate security and migration.
As Dhanasree Jayaram noted in her recent South Asia risk brief for the Climate Security Expert Network, extreme weather events and sea level rise are driving irregular migration in the region, especially from rural to urban areas. Dhaka for example, is the most densely populated city and the world and receives up to 400,000 low-income migrants every year. This has the potential to exacerbate urban inequalities, competition for urban resources and services, and tensions between local authorities and urban slum dwellers.
Beatrice Mosello of adelphi took part in the climate security and migration panel discussion along with Md. Shahidul Haque, senior secretary from the Bangladeshi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina gave the opening address, underscoring how seriously the low-lying country takes international cooperation on climate-related issues.
Dr. Mosello also moderated a panel on “Ecofeminism: Engendering Green Transitions”, an often overlooked topic – women are the primary energy managers in households across the region’s developing countries and are thus the main agents of change in the transition to sustainable energy.
The Gulf Cooperation Council’s grid operator is studying the feasibility of a cable to Ethiopia, which would run through currently war-torn Yemen.
Islands need support to face shocking impacts of 1.5C global warming
Small Island States will be facing dramatically higher adaptation costs to build resilience against the kind of impacts the IPCC projects in its most recent Special Report. Thoriq Imbrahim, former Environment and Energy Minister of the Maldives, urges the international community to attend to the political demands of countries particularly exposed to the impacts of climate change and also confront loss and damage with renewed urgency.
Three years after the talks that delivered the Paris Agreement, the world is gathering in Poland to take stock of the progress that has been made and to raise its ambitions. But as new nationalist leaders take power, has the world lost its appetite for climate action?
Asian Development Bank signals end to ‘dirty’ coal finance
As falling renewable energy costs and a shadow carbon price are making coal power investments unviable the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is making a decisive shift to clean energy, according to bank energy chief Yongping Zhai.