November 2, 2011

Source: The Daily Star

Bangladesh is going to host a two-day conference of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), an alliance of countries most affected by climate change, beginning November 13, just two weeks prior to the UN Climate Change Conference.

Environment ministers of around 30 such countries would participate in the meeting to set a common agenda which would be raised in the UN conference in Durban at the end of November.

Delegates are expected to issue a declaration from the vulnerable countries for action by industrialised nations and urgent support to limit increasing loss to human life and other damages.

They are also expected to affirm their determination to pursue green development and to manifest moral leadership on low-carbon development. The first conference of CVF was held in the Maldives in 2009.

CVF seeks leadership on green development and assistance in technology, capacity and finance to adapt and pursue low-carbon growth in the face of growing damage caused by climate change, says a DARA press release.

DARA is an independent, Madrid-based international organisation dedicated to assist vulnerable communities through research and technical assistance. It is supporting Bangladesh in convening the CVF conference.

CVF and DARA jointly published a Vulnerability Monitor report last December. The report pointed to a rapidly worsening climate crisis, capable of claiming up to five million lives, currently 3.5 million, mostly children in developing countries, unless effective remedial steps are taken.

The participating countries include Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh (incoming chair), Barbados, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Kenya, Kiribati (present chair), Liberia, Maldives (first chair), Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nepal, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Vietnam.