The Government of Bangladesh will be better able to meet its global temperature rise commitments after FAO trained 160 officials.

FAO, with support from the Department of Environment and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, provided training on how to measure, monitor, and report the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The officials work in several sectors including agriculture, forestry, energy, waste, and industry. The three-week training course will better equip the government to meet its commitments towards the goal of keeping the global temperature rise within 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

The training was provided under the scope of the Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) project which is implemented jointly with the Department of Environment (DoE) with financial assistance from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

Bangladesh is a relatively small contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions but is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. Devastating floods, cyclones and other environmental disasters linked to climate change already affect millions of Bangladeshis every year. Bangladesh has shown great commitment to climate governance and has ratified the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement, signed in 2016, brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat and adapt to climate change, with enhanced support to assist developing countries.

The Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is working towards a new legal agreement that will apply to both developed and developing countries for effective implementation. Under the current international framework, Bangladesh is obligated to reduce carbon emissions from its energy and transport sectors by five per cent by 2030.

At the close of the training, John Taylor, Chief Technical Advisor, FAO Food System and FAO Representative in Bangladesh ad interim, said that the training would improve the transparency, accuracy, completeness, comparability, and consistency of the country’s greenhouse gas emission data. Chief guest Md. Mizanul Hoque Chowdhury, Additional Secretary (Climate Change), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, said feedback from the participants would help to fill data gaps.  A.K.M Rafique Ahammed, Director General, Department of Environment and chair of the closing session, said that the training will help Bangladesh meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.