BD striving to ensure
low-carbon dev: Nahar

Staff Correspondent: Deputy Minister for Environment, Forestand Climate Change Habibun Nahar said yesterday that the government isearnestly striving hard to ensure low carbon, climate resilient andsustainable development in the country under the skilled leadership ofPrime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
“We are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emission as part ofglobal efforts. However, Bangladesh being the 7th among the mostclimate-vulnerable countries in the world, adaptation is our mainfocus,” she said.
The deputy minister was speaking at the virtual ministerial meetingof the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF), hosted byUnited States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry yesterdayevening, a ministry press release said.
Habibun Nahar said Bangladesh has increased quantified emissionreduction targets to 21.85 percent below business-as-usual level by2030 in updated NDC submitted to the UNFCCC on 26 August last year.
“We have included agriculture and waste sector along with energyand industry sector to enhance the coverage of emission reduction,particularly reduction of methane emission from agriculture and wastesector.
“We are already working to reduce emission from rice fields byscaling up the use of alternate wetting and drying method in fiftythousand hectares of rice fields,” she said.
She said the government is also working to reduce methane emissionsfrom improved feed of livestock and improved manure management.
“In waste sector, we are establishing a waste to energy plant inone, out of two landfill sites in Dhaka city,” Habibun Nahar said.
She said following the call of the COP26, Bangladesh has alreadystarted to consider revisiting its NDC in 2022.
“We have already cancelled 10 coal-based power plants worth US$ 12billion of foreign investment. We have recently drafted National SolarEnergy Roadmap and aim to have 40 percent of our energy from renewablesources by 2041,” the deputy minister said.
She said Bangladesh have recently drafted the Mujib ClimateProsperity Plan 2030, under which “we are planning to implement 4 Gigawatt of wind energy project in our offshore areas”.
In case of zero emission vehicles, the government has already givenincentives to promote hybrid vehicles, while it is working on theelectric vehicle policy to promote zero emission vehicles in the longrun, Habibun Nahar said.