The Hon. Saber Chowdhury, Member of Parliament of Bangladesh, spoke on the need to increase investment in disaster prevention at the Asia-Pacific Partnership Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction, in Brisbane, Australia on 12 November.

BANGKOK, 15 November 2019 – Bangladesh on Wednesday declared climate change to be a “planetary emergency” and called on the world to work “on a war footing” to combat it and reduce its impacts.

Led by parliamentarian Mr. Saber Hossain Chowdhury, who is a global champion for disaster risk reduction and former president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Bangladesh parliament unanimously passed a motion declaring a “planetary emergency.”

While countries such as Britain, France, Canada, Portugal, and Argentina have declared climate emergencies, the Bangladesh parliament is the first to declare a “planetary emergency.” The declaration also makes Bangladesh the first among developing countries to issue such an alert and call for action.

The impacts of climate change are already being felt in the Asia-Pacific region, which is experiencing an increase in the frequency, intensity, and duration of climate-related hazards such as cyclones, floods, droughts, and heatwaves.

Bangladesh is among the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The passage of the motion coincides with the 49th anniversary of the 1970 Bhola cyclone, which killed hundreds of thousands of people in the densely populated Ganges-Brahmaputra delta and is considered one of the deadliest disasters in recorded history.

The motion calls on countries to step up their commitments under the Paris climate agreement and highlights that developing countries require assistance to build up the resilience from climate-induced disasters: