President of the International Chamber of Commerce, Bangladesh (ICCB) Mahbubur Rahman left Dhaka for Bangkok on Tuesday to attend the second regional workshop of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP).
The workshop titled 'Innovative Climate Finance Mechanisms for Financial Institutions in the Asia Pacific Region' will be held on March 6 to 7 in Thailand, reports UNB.
Mahbubur Rahman will address the inaugural session and discuss hosting of a region-wide high-level multi-stakeholder forum on financing for development in collaboration with ESCAP and Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP) in Dhaka in December.
The Bangladesh delegation members are: Md Ashadul Islam, Secretary, Bank and Financial Institutions Division, Ministry of Finance; Sultana Afroz, Additional Secretary & Wing Chief (UN), Economic Relations Division (ERD), Ministry of Finance; Ataur Rahman, Secretary General, ICCB; Shah Md Ahsan Habib, Prof and Director (Training), Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM); Saleemul Huq, Director, International Centre for Climate Change & Development (ICCCAD), Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB); Khondkar Morshed Millat, General Manager, Sustainable Finance Department, Bangladesh Bank and Milia Sharmin, Deputy Secretary, Finance Division, Ministry of Finance.
Climate change may represent the single biggest obstacle to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the ICCB said on Tuesday.
The Paris Agreement, ratified in 2016, has provided an impetus for political commitment to the reforms needed to fight climate change. Achieving the primary goal of the Paris Agreement - to keep the average global temperature rise well below 2C degrees above pre-industrial levels will increase the ability of governments to achieve the SDGs in the context of the changing climate.
The latest report from UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that the planet could reach the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030 if it continues to increase at the current rate, triggering the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people - posing a threat to the achievement of the entire Agenda 2030.