US climate envoy Kerry arriving in Dhaka Friday with Biden’s summit invitation
Thursday, 8 April 2021
John Kerry, the United States special presidential envoy for climate, will visit Dhaka on Friday to officially invite Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to the Leaders’ Summit on Climate called by President Joe Biden.
Now in India on a four-day visit, Kerry is scheduled to reach Bangladesh around 11:30am on Friday from New Delhi. He is supposed to present Hasina with the invitation later in the day.
Kerry will sit with Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen at the State Guesthouse Padma in the afternoon, reports bdnews24.com.
The day after taking office, Biden brought the US back to the Paris Agreement, which Donald Trump had withdrawn from four years ago.
Subsequently, Kerry, who signed the Paris Agreement on behalf of the US in 2015, was given a new role as special climate envoy to Biden.
At the end of January, Biden announced a virtual summit on climate to underscore the urgency and the economic benefits of stronger climate action and invited 40 world leaders, including Hasina, to the summit.
The White House said the two-day virtual summit will be held on the World Earth Day on Apr 22 and will be live-streamed for public viewing.
Apart from this, Kerry is also travelling to discuss the United National Climate Change Conference COP26 scheduled for November. He began his trips on April 1 with his visit to Abu Dhabi.
Biden’s call for a global conference for climate change comes at a time when Bangladesh leads the Climate Vulnerable Forum or CVF, the forum for countries at risk in the change.
Due to this, Momen underscored Kerry’s trip to Bangladesh as significant.
“We can present out priorities and let the world know about the steps we have taken to combat the detriments caused by climate change.”