120 leaders meet in Egypt to talk climate actions

World leaders are set to kick off another climate conference -- COP27 on November 6, to take appropriate measures to achieve the climate goals in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to fulfill global climate pledges leaving the world on track to heat by as much as 2.6 degrees Celsius this century.
About 120 heads of states and governments including the US President Joe Biden will attend the Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Implementation Summit on November 7 and 8, while a high-level segment primarily attended by ministers will take place from November 15-18.
Meanwhile, about 50,000 people around the world registered as COP27 participants representing the UN and regional organizations,      businesses, the scientific community, indigenous and local communities, and civil society and media people are joining the summit to accelerate the implementation of climate action and follow up on their collective commitments and pledges.
Bangladesh will call on governments to establish a loss-and-damage fund for developing countries and implement climate financing pledges during the ministerial meeting in the conference.
She will also reiterate its call for a materialisation of the pledge of providing US$100 billion funds annually to developing countries at the earliest, officials involved in the process have said.
 "Bangladesh will raise its voice for funding arrangements to address losses and damage. We are aware that the loss and damage agenda item is very important for a country like ours. However, there is no specific financing system for this loss and damage," said Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Minister Md Shahab Uddin to the Daily Observer.
Bangladesh will try to establish a separate fund for loss and damage through negotiations, said the Minister. The country will also push on matters relating to the work programme, which is the future course of action on how to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees will be determined, the Minister said.
"We will also discuss the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) agenda item for more funding in the years after 2025, to be decided at 2024 or COP 29," added the Minister.
"Water is a agenda here, this time the scientists are set to discuss the water system here along with the food crisis, however, both the issue is very crucial for Bangladesh, my observation is Bangladesh should give priority to discuss the finance issue first then on mitigation and adaptation," Climate expert and Professor Emeritus of BRAC University Dr Ainun Nishat said.
Meanwhile, the UN independent experts called on states to fully integrate human rights standards and principles into negotiations during the 27th Conference which called to establish a loss and damage finance facility, and significantly step up funding to help particularly vulnerable developing countries, especially small island developing states and least developed countries, to cover the costs of loss and damage.
They also suggested including children and youth representatives in their delegations to COP 27 and future COPs, to ensure that young people have a say in their future.
The Vulnerable 20 Group of Finance Ministers - from climate vulnerable economies - and the G7 Presidency have announced they have reached agreement on a financial protection cooperation that responds to loss and damage as a contribution to the Paris Climate Treaty.
CVF (Climate vulnerable Forum) consisting of 48 member countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific, led by a rotating chair for two years and currently Finance Minister of the Republic of Ghana chairing for 2022-2024.
Bangladesh Prime Minister, holding the chair for 2020-2022 of CVF, attended COP 26 and many sessions and raised strong voices with others to keep the global temperature at a limited level and requested developed countries to compensate affected countries by determining the loss and damages.
The V20 membership stands at 58 economies representing some 1.5 billion people including Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Environment Programme, in its annual Emissions Gap report, found that updated national promises since last year's COP26 summit in Glasgow would only shave less than one per cent off global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Observing the report, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday that 'the most important outcome of COP27', which begins November 6 in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, is to have 'a clear political will to reduce emissions faster.'
A 2021 report by the top body of climate scientists provided new analysis of the chance the world has to cap warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) or 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times in the coming decades, in line with global climate goals.
Without major action to reduce emissions, the global average temperature is on track to rise by 2.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 to 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, scientists say.
Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College of London, said achieving the 1.5-degree goal 'is still possible from a physical science point of view.'
"If we reduce emissions globally to net zero by 2040 there is still a two thirds chance to reach 1.5 degrees and if we globally achieve net zero emissions by the middle of the century, there is still a one third chance to achieve that," she said.