FBCCI president urges Commonwealth countries to revisit GCF

The fiduciary standards of international climate funds like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) should be revisited and relaxed cohesively to ease the climate finance gap in highly climate-vulnerable countries like Bangladesh as per Article 9 of the Paris Agreement (2015), Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) President Jashim Uddin has said.

He also said that a simplified approval process (SAP) and an increased quota for international funds in the budgeting framework need to be introduced and popularised across the Commonwealth.

He made the remarks during a roundtable discussion on 'Financial and Professional Services - the Role of Standards and Regulations on the Road to Net Zero' at the Commonwealth Trade and Investment Summit 2022 at the Mansion House, London on Monday.

Jashim Uddin attended the roundtable discussion as one of the speakers.

At the programme, Jashim Uddin proposed a constructive discussion and prospective engagements with the Commonwealth for joint venture partnerships at various stages of the clean energy supply chain; infrastructure, technologies, expertise, and viable business models targeting improved energy productivity, and ensuring energy for all.

Approximately $50 trillion in incremental investments is required by 2050 for the transition of the global economy to net-zero emissions and avert a climate catastrophe, he said.

Jashim suggested that climate financing may be mobilised through blending climate finance, private sector investment, innovative financings such as green or blue bonds, risk transfer mechanisms or insurance.

He informed the delegates that Bangladesh has a National Action Plan on climate change that requires $230 billion over the next 27 years till 2050 with 113 interventions with 90 high-priority ones.

The FBCCI chief said that the private sector is working with the government of Bangladesh to implement environment-friendly industrialisation.

He mentioned that despite being one of the lowest emitters in the world, Bangladesh committed to cutting carbon emissions by 89.47 million tonnes, equivalent to 21.85% of carbon dioxide by 2030 as part of global efforts to control the emissions. To reach the target, Bangladesh will cut 96.1% of emissions from the energy sector, such as power, transport, industry, households, commercial, agriculture, brick kilns, and fugitive emissions. The remaining 3.9% will be cut from agriculture and livestock, forestry, and municipal solid waste and wastewater.