Staff Reporter:
Chief Adviser of Bangladesh’s interim government Professor Muhammad Yunus yesterday said the world needs a new economic framework in an effort to tackle the climate crisis and create a new civili-zation that works for the earth and its people.
The Chief Adviser was speaking at a LDC high-level meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Gu-terres on the sidelines of the COP29 in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku, according to a message received in Dhaka yesterday.
Leaders of five major climate-vulnerable least developed countries – Nepal, Malawi, Gambia, Liberia, and Bangladesh – joined the close-door meeting.
“We need a new economic framework that serves the planet and the people,” Prof Yunus said, adding that he backs the UN-sponsored Summit for the Future to create an economic order for the world’s young people.
“We have created an economic framework based on consume, consume, and consume, and it only gener-ates waste, waste and waste. We need to create a world of zero waste,” he said.
The Chief Adviser said the COP climate conference should not be held every year.
“We know what the world needs, and we should make a long-term plan for that. It should be country by country. And we have to make the plan for long-term mitigation,” Prof Yunus said.
“We don’t need to meet here every year. Meeting every year to negotiate is time-consuming, wasteful, and humiliating,” he added.
The Chief Adviser also called for a new approach to climate negotiations, as the current approach has largely failed to meet the needs of much of the world.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the LDCs faced the greatest injustice as far as climate change is concerned.
“We want to tell you that we care about you,” Guterres said, adding that the LDCs need to do hard nego-tiations and “serious mechanism” to secure a bigger fund for climate adaptation and mitigation.
