America is Bangladesh’s partner as this great nation confronts the challenges of climate change, said US Ambassador to Bangladesh Dan W Mozena on Sunday (Nov 23, 2014).
“Funded at about US$ 10 to 15 million a year, our climate change partnership with Bangladesh promotes clean and sustainable development while addressing the potentially devastating impact of global climate change,” he told the Meet FEJB members styled ‘Combat Climate Change, Conserve Environment and Achieve Sustainable Development’ at the Jatiya Press Club in Dhaka.
Quamrul Islam Chowdhury, Chairman of Forum of Environment Journalists of Bangladesh (FEJB), delivered the introductory speech at the meeting while FEJB General Secretary Hasan Hafiz and other leaders and members, among others, were present marking the entering into 32 years of founding of the organization.
Mozena said, Bangladesh is among the nations most impacted by global climate change and added that the rising sea levels threaten huge swaths of the nation, much of which is only a few meters above sea level.
Stressing the stance of America on the issue of global climate change, he said, “Confronting this challenge is a high priority for America. We help Bangladesh engage with local communities to change their relationship with the every-threatened fosters to provide a stronger buffer for the nation from the rising levels of Bay of Bengal”.
“At the UN General Assembly in September, President Obama said that the challenge (of global climate change) demands our ambition. Our children deserve such ambition. And if we act now, if we can look beyond the swarm of current events and some of the economic challenges and political challenges involved, if we place the air that our children will breath and the food that they will eat and the hope and dreams of all prosperity above our own short-term interests, we may not be too late for them”, the ambassador quoted the President Obama as saying.
“The US-Bangladesh partnership engage in so many other areas– Planting trees to increase the nation’s tree cover, introducing fuel efficient cook stoves to reduce pressure on the forests and slash air pollution, reintroducing practices of raising homesteads by using dirt dug out from constructing fish ponds, developing and disseminating saline-tolerant, drought-tolerant and flood-tolerant seeds. We work closely with the government agencies to strengthen regulatory climate, to increase energy efficiency and to promote clean energy development”, the US envoy added.
Mozena informed that one of our most promising programs is to promote access to power for all Bangladeshis by bringing power from renewable energy sources to rural communities that are not connected to the grid.
“I’m so proud of America’s partnership with Bangladesh in helping people of this country prepare for and cope with the effects of climate change,” he said.
The US envoy commended the work of the private sector in Bangladesh and hoped, “Once these new, environment-friendly tanneries come on line, Bangladesh will have access to American and other markets for exporting shoes and finished leather goods. I believe some day these exports will rival apparel as drivers of Bangladesh’s exports”.
–Our Monitor