Finance Minister AMA Muhith and Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu on Sunday emphasised enhancing the country’ s institutional capacity to realise the due shares from green climate funds for mitigating the adverse effects of climate change.
“Funds have been created since the Copenhagen climate summit, but access to those funds is extremely difficult and cumbersome… we should find out ways and gain capacity to be able to have access to those funds,” Muhith told a workshop.
Economic Relations Division (ERD) of the Ministry of Finance arranged the workshop titled ‘Accessing Green Climate Fund: Opportunities, Options and Challenges for Private Sector and Civil Society Organizations’ at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the capital.
Muhith said Bangladesh is the worst victim of climate change thought it hardy generates any carbon and any kind of pollutant that destroys the ecological balance. “Bangladesh suffers the most because of others’ activities.”
He deplored that though the developed countries agreed to give the victim countries grants from the collected green funds, they are giving it in reality as loans. “I don’t have any serious objection to it as this is a soft-term loan. With my experience in public service for nearly 60 years, I know the 50 percent of this loan is spent on financing and planning,” the minister said.
Muhith said, the climate change-hit countries may have another agreement in Paris which will be a legal-binding one. “We should have some legally binding-agreements in Paris that will be the basics for survival of the world, not the survival of a few countries as the warming of the earth has gone to a very dangerous level.”
The minister said it will be quite enough for Bangladesh if it gets $100 million even as soft loan for adaptation to the climate change effects.
Amir Hossain Amu said developing countries which are facing badly by the climate change cannot realise their due shares from the green climate fund for lack of institutional capacity.
