Bangladesh most vulnerable to climate change: WB

Staff Reporter :
Among the countries, Bangladesh is the most vulnerable to climate change, said Abdoulaye Seck, World Bank country director for Bangladesh and Bhutan on Monday.

“As the intensity and frequency of natural disasters increase, Bangladesh must do more to tackle the environment and climate risks and sustain its strong growth performance,” said Abdoulaye Seck during a two-day conference titled “Toward Faster, Cleaner Growth” organized by the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) and the World Bank.

The WB’s country director also expressed that green growth can help Bangladesh build long-term resilience against climate risks while help to attain its vision of becoming an upper-middle-income country.

During the conference Planning Minister MA Mannan said, “Bangladesh has made some impressive progress in green development. For example, our garments sector ranks among the world’s best on the number of green factories.”

“We must continue on the path outlined in Bangladesh’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Master Plan, which includes a series of programmes that aim to help large industrial energy consumers, residential consumers, buildings, private companies, and government agencies move toward energy efficiency,” he added.

Despite solid growth, South Asia faces a risky outlook, says the World Bank in its latest regional economic update, urging countries to fully capitalise on the global energy transition to help boost growth.

Improvements in energy efficiency could accelerate progress toward both economic and environmental goals in South Asia, reads a press release.

The region uses twice as much energy as the global average to produce each unit of output.

While South Asian firms are enthusiastic adopters of basic energy-efficient technologies, they lag in the adoption of more advanced technologies.

“In South Asia, given the salience of our population and demographics, green growth agenda is not only a topic of central importance, but also a place to foster central innovation, and that’s what we are looking forward to.

The green growth agenda cannot be advanced without really thinking about how it delivers on growth and the importance of interdisciplinary approach is key to understanding green growth,” said Imran Matin, BIGD executive director.