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Bangladesh making efforts to ensure low carbon tolerant sustainable dev


Published : 27 Jan 2022 10:44 PM

Deputy Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Habibun Nahar said the present government under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been making sincere efforts to ensure low carbon tolerant sustainable development in the country. As part of the global efforts, government is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As Bangladesh ranks 7th among the most climate-risky countries in the world, adaptation is top priority for Bangladesh government.

The Deputy Minister made the remarks while addressing a virtual ministerial meeting of the Major Economy Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) hosted by John Kerry, the US president's special envoy for climate change on Thursday evening.

 Deputy Minister Habibun Nahar said that in the updated NDC submitted to UNFCCC on August 26 last year, Bangladesh has increased its measured emissions reduction target by 21.75 percent by 2030. Government has included the agriculture and waste sectors along with the energy and industrial sectors to increase emissions reduction coverage, reduce methane emissions from agriculture and waste sectors. Bangladesh is already working to reduce emissions from paddy fields using alternative wetting and drying methods on 50,000 hectares of paddy land. Government is also working to reduce methane emissions from improved animal feed and improved fertilizer management. In the waste sector, Bangladesh is setting up a waste-to-energy center at one of the two landfill sites in the capital city of Dhaka.

"Following the call for COP-28, we have already started thinking of revising our NDC in 2022," the deputy minister said. 

“We have already canceled 10 coal-fired power plants with a foreign investment of 12 billion. We have recently developed a National Solar Energy Roadmap and aims to take 40 percent of our energy from recyclable sources by 2041,” she added.

The Deputy Environment Minister said Bangladesh has recently prepared Mujib Climate Enrichment Plan, under which we are planning to implement 4 GW wind power projects inthe coastal areas. In the case of zero-emission vehicles, the government has already given impetus to the promotion of hybrid vehicles, while government is working on the policy of electric vehicles for the promotion of zero-emission vehicles in the long run. In the forestry sector, government is currently implementing projects and programs to increase tree cover by 24 percent by 2024.