British High Commissioner Robert Chatterton Dickson here today said Bangladesh could make the ‘moral case’ for increased investment in climate adaptation during the upcoming COP 26 conference.
“As a leader on climate adaptation and a country highly vulnerable to climate change, Bangladesh could make the moral case for increased investment in adaptation,” he said while speaking at “DCAB Talk” at Jatiya Press Club in the capital.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to join the COP 26 with other world leaders in Glasgow in the first week of November.
Dickson said Bangladesh has a particular role to play at COP 26 through Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s influence as the Chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF).
“Bangladesh’s international leadership will be important in ensuring sufficient pressure on the big emitters by the climate-vulnerable nation to reach the ambitious global deal that will be needed,” he said.
Describing the UK’s admiration for what had been achieved in Bangladesh over the past 50 years, the High Commissioner said he was delighted that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would visit London and Manchester to meet with British business enterprises during her visit to the UK.
The UK was looking forward to welcoming the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and welcoming the Bangladesh delegation to Glasgow.
“This was just one sign of the way that the UK was working with an increasingly confident, prosperous and outward-looking Bangladesh on the world stage, as we headed into the next fifty years of partnership,” he said.
The High Commissioner said the UK would work with new and existing investors to ensure that they could add benefit to and advantage from the extraordinary success of Bangladesh’s economy.
“As the third-largest individual destination for Bangladeshi exports, this was an important signifier of the UK’s continued commitment to work on this relationship, as was the UK’s status as the second-largest cumulative investor in Bangladesh,” he added.
The UK would continue to support plural and democratic practice in Bangladesh as was set out so admirably in the Constitution, and support as far as possible, as external friends, a fair electoral process with protections for voters and participants when the next general election is held.
The High Commissioner said that he had watched recent events around communities in Bangladesh with concern.
He said that the UK stood with those who supported tolerance and religious freedom, as set out most admirably in the Bangladeshi Constitution, which enshrined freedom of expression and religion.
The High Commissioner said he was pleased to hold the first bilateral UK-Bangladesh Trade and Investment Dialogue in February, which addressed market access barriers and improvements that could be made to the business environment in Bangladesh, to realise the potential of the country’s impressive growth.
The envoy said Britain wants to see the Rohingya repatriation to Rakhine state as soon as in a way that was voluntary, dignified and safe. “No one wanted to live in a refugee camp,” he added.
The UK was working closely with Bangladesh to ensure the extraordinary generosity in hosting the Rohingyas continued, and that the funding was there to provide the refugees with the healthcare, food, shelter, water and sanitation they needed until they could return to Myanmar.
“On a global stage, the UK also makes sure this crisis is not forgotten,” he said, adding that the UK is the penholder on the crisis in the UN Security Council (UNSC) and works hard to keep it on the agenda, despite not having full support from all UNSC members.
He said Britain is also using its new status as a Dialogue Partner to ASEAN and supporting the ASEAN Special Envoy to assist better outcomes in Myanmar.
Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) organised the talk where it’s President Pantho Rahaman and General Secretary AKM Moinuddin also spoke.
Source: Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS)