What Bangladesh and UK can achieve through COP28

The year 2023 is a year of unprecedented climate change. Temperatures in Bangladesh have climbed, and wildfires have raged across North America and Southern Europe. India, China, Europe and North Africa have experienced devastating flash floods. In the UK, temperatures in September and October were the highest in 120,000 years. The need for urgent action has never been clearer. We need strong and meaningful partnerships.

Bangladesh and the UK agreed to work together at COP26 through our COP presidency and Bangladesh's role as the chair of Climate Vulnerable Forum. We co-hosted an event that highlighted the experiences of many climate-vulnerable countries. This helped to reaffirm the urgency of climate action and put pressure on big emitters to commit to greater emissions reduction. In March this year, UK's Minister of State for Indo-Pacific Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Bangladesh's State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam cemented this partnership by signing the Bangladesh-UK Climate Accord. This partnership is built on mutual trust. As equal partners, we are engaging in policy dialogue, sharing expertise and leveraging opportunities. We are committed to working together bilaterally but also in international fora.

Delivering this accord includes sharing our experience of climate policy and legislation, including on assessing national climate risks. We have also agreed on a new programme to protect climate-vulnerable communities and critical ecosystems in Bangladesh, particularly in the Sundarbans and Hakaluki Haor. Through our partners, the Global Centre on Adaptation, we launched the Global Hub on Locally Led Adaptation to support communities with access to knowledge and finance, and showcase the amazing work that Bangladesh is leading. But while action at home is vital, we also need to keep the pressure up internationally.

The UK's new White Paper on International Development puts poverty reduction and climate change at the centre of our work and outlines new ways of working with countries like Bangladesh that better reflect their development trajectory and aspirations. Beyond COP28, we will continue and expand the Bangladesh-UK climate partnership. For example, we plan to strengthen links between academic institutions in the UK and in Bangladesh, and support more young climate activists to get involved in policymaking.

COP28 starts on November 30 in Dubai. This is an important opportunity for our partnership to deliver our shared priorities on the international stage. Our countries have a common interest in stepping up climate action for the sake of future generations. COP28 must deliver and lead to a step change in scale, pace and ambition. Most importantly, we want to help rebuild the trust that has been eroded by countries not living up to commitments, either on emissions reduction or on finance.

The UK has the following priorities for COP28:

Keep 1.5 degrees in reach: We are committed to reducing our emissions in line with our Nationally Determined Contribution. But it is vital that all countries agree to ambitious new commitments and action to keep global temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius, or this year's extreme climate impacts will be just the start.

Action on adaptation: We want COP28 to deliver progress on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and agree on a framework for enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change. This means increasing the amount, quality and accessibility of adaptation finance with a focus on those most in need.

Progress on loss and damage: The UK wants to see progress on operationalising the Loss and Damage Fund and the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage, ensuring that they both deliver effectively for vulnerable countries.

Finance, finance, finance: We agree it is vital that countries deliver on their commitments to mobilise climate finance for developing economies, including that of reaching the $100 billion climate finance goal this year. Private finance will also be key.

These will not be easy to achieve, and there will inevitably be trade-offs—as with all multilateral negotiations. But we must aim high. We look forward to working with all partners at COP28 to ensure we advance the climate agenda and put words into action.

Matt Cannell is deputy high commissioner and development director at the British High Commission, Dhaka.

Views expressed in the article are the author's own.

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