BAKU: The first Afghan official to attend UN climate talks since the Taliban came to power told AFP Monday that his country hopes to benefit from a global finance deal under negotiation at COP29 in Baku.
Heading a three-person team, former Taliban negotiator Matiul Haq Khalis stood out in the bustling halls of the conference in Azerbaijan’s capital where delegates from nearly 200 countries began two weeks of talks.
The Taliban-led government, which is not internationally recognized, tried and failed to attend the previous COP (Conference of the Parties) meetings held in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
Khalis, director general of Afghanistan’s National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), said his team was invited to attend the talks by Azerbaijan’s ecology minister and COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev.
The Afghan delegation is in Baku as “guests” of the hosts, not as a party directly involved in the negotiations.
“I really appreciate” Babayev’s invitation and the Azerbaijani government’s facilitation of visas, said Khalis, son of prominent jihadist figure Mawlawi Yunus Khalis.
His delegation, he told AFP through an interpreter, aims to “deliver the message ... to the world community that climate change is a global issue and it does not know transboundary issues.”
With Afghanistan among the countries most vulnerable to global warming, the Taliban have argued that their political isolation should not bar them from international climate talks.
Khalis said COP29 participants should take into consideration vulnerable countries such as Afghanistan, which are most affected from the effects of climate change, “in their decisions.”
The Taliban treatment of women, however, could be controversial at climate conferences where gender rights always play a part of the discussions.
“Afghan people, especially the most vulnerable, urgently need support from climate finance to recover and adapt,” climate activist Harjeet Singh told AFP.
“However, as the Taliban government seeks to engage in the international process, it is essential that they respect and promote universal fundamental rights — particularly women’s rights within the country,” he said.
Women and children in particular “are bearing the brunt” of climate change, Sanjay Vashist, director of the Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) told AFP.
While the Taliban are barred from the negotiations, “the world cannot abandon the people of Afghanistan who are suffering from the triple whammy of the climate crises, gross human rights violations and extreme poverty,” Vashist said.
Asked about the gender issue, Khalis told AFP that the implementation of climate change projects “boost” women as well.
Azerbaijan’s COP29 presidency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the invitation.
Azerbaijan reopened its embassy in Kabul in February this year, though it has not officially recognized the Taliban government.
Developed countries have committed to providing $100 billion per year in climate finance through 2025 to help developing nations prepare for worsening climate impacts and wean their economies off fossil fuels.
Developing nations are calling for trillions of dollars, but Babayev said Monday a more “realistic goal” was somewhere in the hundreds of billions.
“Our people in Afghanistan also should access” such funds “as a right (over) climate change,” Khalis said, describing it has his country’s “main expectation” at COP29.
Among the poorest countries in the world after decades of war, Afghanistan is particularly exposed to the effects of climate change, which scientists say is spurring extreme weather.
Drought, floods, land degradation and declining agricultural productivity are key threats, the UN development agency’s representative in Afghanistan, Stephen Rodriques, said in 2023.
Flash floods in May killed hundreds and swamped swaths of agricultural land in Afghanistan, where 80 percent of people depend on farming to survive.
Khalis said Afghanistan was seeking to attend next year’s climate summit in Brazil as an official party to the talks.
“We are very interested to be as a party in the COP30 in Brazil,” he said.
“This is the right of the people, the climate justice for the people that’s actually most vulnerable communities to the impact of climate change.”
Taliban eye aid at their first UN climate talks since 2021 takeover
https://arab.news/8jwke
Taliban eye aid at their first UN climate talks since 2021 takeover
- The Afghan delegation is in Baku as “guests” of the hosts, not as a party directly involved in the negotiations
‘People will vote for us’: Bangladesh’s Tarique Rahman confident of win in landmark election
- In first 180 days, Tarique Rahman plans democratic reform, restoring law and order, focusing on job creation
- He says he admires Vision 2030, wants to visit Kingdom as one of the first countries and perform Umrah
DHAKA: After almost two decades in self-exile, Tarique Rahman, the leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is expecting victory in Thursday’s election following a change in regime that for years restricted his supporters’ voting rights.
Rahman left Bangladesh in 2008 and settled in London, facing various convictions brought against him by the administration of Sheikh Hasina, the BNP’s archenemy who led the country until mid-2024, when she was toppled in a student-led uprising.
He returned in late December, received by millions of people who lined his route from the airport to the center of Dhaka. He believes they will back his party at the polls.
“BNP is the most popular party in the country. We have been struggling for the people’s voting rights for more than 17 years. We represent the people’s expectations and aspirations,” he told Arab News in Dhaka on Tuesday.
“I believe the people will vote for us and, inshallah, we will achieve a landslide victory.”
Rahman, 60, is the son of BNP’s founder, Ziaur Rahman, a 1971 Liberation War hero, who became president in 1977. After his assassination in 1981, Rahman’s mother, Khaleda Zia, took over the party’s helm and in 1991 became the country’s first woman prime minister.
Rahman assumed the BNP’s chairmanship following her death from a prolonged illness, just days after his return to Bangladesh.
In Thursday’s election, the BNP will race against another 50 parties, including Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, which is forecast to emerge as the main opposition party in the next government. The Awami League, led by the ousted premier Hasina, has been banned from contesting, following deadly unrest that led to the party’s removal from power in August 2024.
An interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, which has been tasked with preparing the general election, banned Awami League’s activities, citing national security and a war crimes investigation against the party’s top leadership.
The UN Human Rights Office has accused the former government and its security apparatus of systematic rights violations to suppress the student-led protests between July 15 and Aug. 5, 2024. An estimated 1,400 people were killed.
If Rahman wins the election, he wants his administration to pursue accountability for the former leadership and meet the political and economic expectations of the youth movement that brought about the change.
In the first six months, his party’s immediate priorities include restoring law and order, democratic reform and creating a business-friendly environment.
“Our 180-day program includes development plans across key sectors, including employment for 10 million people,” he said.
“We will also accelerate private sector growth, ensure employment-oriented economic recovery and develop the blue economy. We will focus heavily on the ICT sector and AI-driven technological innovation.”
In international cooperation, he will prioritize partnerships with Gulf Cooperation Council countries, especially Saudi Arabia — home to more than 3 million Bangladeshis — with whom strong commercial relations were established during his father’s rule, and which is likely to be one of the first countries he would visit if he becomes prime minister.
“The highest number of Bangladeshi migrant workers are employed in Saudi Arabia, and the remittances they send significantly contribute to our economy,” he said.
“I admire the Saudi Vision 2030, and I am sincerely looking forward to working with the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ... I would definitely like to visit Saudi Arabia early in my term. Personally, I also wish to visit the holy mosque, Al-Masjid Al-Haram, Makkah, to perform Umrah.”
In relations with other countries, especially the regional powers India and Pakistan, the BNP government’s policy would be guided by national interest, which “is not about any specific country,” Rahman said.
“We want good relations with all our foreign friends, particularly our neighbors. We are committed to building relations of equality, cooperation and friendship with our neighbors. The foundation of that relationship will be mutual respect and understanding, which will ensure our collective progress.”
Exchanges with Pakistan, from which Bangladesh gained independence in 1971, have improved following Hasina’s removal — after decades of unease. At the same time, ties with India, where the former premier fled after the 2024 unrest, have since deteriorated.
In November, a special tribunal in Dhaka convicted the former prime minister of crimes against humanity, and Bangladesh requested that the Indian government extradite her.
“We want to establish justice in the country,” Rahman said. “No one is above the law. Anyone who has committed crimes must face trial. This is not about any specific political party; it is about justice and rule of law.”
During Hasina’s time in office, Rahman faced multiple corruption cases — allegations he has denied, saying they were politically motivated.
“There were so many false charges filed against me, and the situation in the country was not stable in terms of law and order,” he said. “Despite all the odds — as I have committed and communicated to my countrymen and women — I have returned back to my beloved Bangladesh before the historic national election and (I am) looking forward to it eagerly.”
