Sharjah 24 – WAM: Dr. Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, and COP28 President-Designate, met with the Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, as he continued his discussions with global leaders to focus on delivering for COP28.
Following his speech in Brussels last week, he continued to share his core action agenda to fast-track a just energy transition; fix climate finance; focus on people, lives and livelihoods; and underpin everything with full inclusivity.
The President-Designate and the Prime Minister jointly committed to working constructively in the lead up to COP28 to protect the world’s most vulnerable communities. As a former Chair of the V20-CVF countries, a global forum dedicated to support economies systemically vulnerable to climate change, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina pledged to work in partnership with the COP28 President-Designate over the coming months.
Prime Minister Hasina commended the COP28 President-Designate for placing food systems at the heart of climate discussions. They also discussed climate finance, including the need for international financial institutions (IFI) and multilateral development banks (MDB) reform to attract more private finance, the importance of ensuring the $100 billion commitment from donor countries is met and the imperative to operationalise the fund for Loss and Damage.
Dr. Al Jaber acknowledged Prime Minister Hasina’s leadership on food and agriculture innovation and that Bangladesh had been a role model for climate adaptation.
Prime Minister Hasina agreed to champion the food agenda of COP28 and underscored how crucial food systems transformation and agricultural innovation is to sustainable development.
The COP28 President-Designate called on Bangladesh to continue sharing its innovative climate solutions, such as renewable energy targets and global preparedness, with other vulnerable countries.
Prime Minister Hasina expressed Bangladesh’s full support for the COP28 Presidency and confidence in the COP28 President Designate as a convenor of the multilateral climate process.
After the meeting, Dr. Al Jaber co-chaired a roundtable on climate action, where he emphasised the need to keep 1.5 within reach. The roundtable was hosted by AK Abdul Momen, Foreign Minister and Md Shahab Uddin, Minister of the Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
During his visit in Dhaka, Dr Al Jaber also met with Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Bangladesh Special Envoy for Climate Change. The COP28 President-Designate met students from Dhaka Residential Model College, where he planted a tree, and commended them on their pioneering work to sustainably increase crop production through the use of microorganisms.
Dr. Al Jaber was then welcomed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Shahrayar Alam, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs where he delivered a special address to an audience of university students from Dhaka University and met with winners of the Zayed Sustainability Prize
Whilst there, he also met with Bangladesh-based COP28 International Climate Youth Delegates, alongside winners of the Zayed Sustainability Prize, including Dipal Barua, the inaugural winner of the prize, Founder and Chairman of Bright Green Energy Foundation (BGEF), SOLshare and LEDARS Bangladesh.
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