The European Union expects Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to play a crucial role at the climate summit in New York this September through her “high-level diplomacy”.
The European Commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard, said this at a meeting with foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali in Brussels on Wednesday.
A Bangladesh foreign ministry media release said Ali met Hedegaard against the backdrop of an Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report underscoring the risks climate change posed to countries like Bangladesh.
Mahmood Ali welcomed the EU decision to spend 20 percent of its development budget in mitigating the hazards climate change poses.
The European Commissioner assured the minister of their support for Bangladesh, a climate-change vulnerable nation.
She appreciated Bangladesh’s own solutions to climate adaptation during her visit in 2010, when Hasina was in the office of Prime Minister.
The foreign minister also met the President of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Wednesday.
They discussed Bangladesh’s political situation in connection with the Jan 5 elections and factory safety and workers’ rights issues.
Source: Bd news24
