Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance collaboration in protecting environment and wildlife and combating climate change.
The decision came when Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Saber Hossain Chowdhury held a bilateral meeting with Saudi Arabia’s State Minister for Environment Dr Osama Ibrahim Faqeeha on the sidelines of ongoing UN Environment Conference in Nairobi, Kenya.
Recognising the mutual commitment to environmental protection, both the nations agreed to enhance cooperation by signing the MoU.
The agreement aims to bolster collaboration in key areas such as environmental protection, wildlife conservation, combating climate change and pollution control, according to a message received here.
During the meeting, State Minister Faqeeha extended a formal invitation to Bangladesh Minister Saber Hossain Chowdhury to attend the United Nations Convention on Desertification (UNCCD) slated for December 2024.
This invitation underscores the growing collaboration between Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia in addressing environmental challenges on a global scale, he said.
They discussed a wide array of issues, including knowledge exchange programmes, agricultural sustainability, mangrove conservation, waste management, the development of smart cities, and strategies to address land degradation.
They underscored the need for the shared determination of Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia to pursue innovative solutions to pressing environmental issues.
Saber Hossain expressed Bangladesh’s dedication to advancing environmental sustainability both locally and internationally.
Environmental protection is a global issue with a plethora of protective legislation, enacted as transnational and national regulations and guidelines, aimed at sustainable use of water, soil, air, and biomass. These laws apply not only to the polluter but also to governments, national institutions, and individuals. They are designed to protect human health and ecosystems from the effects of chemical contaminants, to guarantee the quality of natural resources, e.g., potable water and to facilitate the recovery of degraded environments, e.g., contaminated land.
Within Europe, European Council Directives and Regulations form an overarching legislative framework that requires Member States to take preventative action and specifies that environmental damage should, as a priority, be rectified at source and that the polluter should pay. Importantly, environmental protection is also required to be integrated into other European Community (EC) policies, emphasizing its pervasive nature. Thus, Member States have a strong impetus to enact environmental legislation that incorporates the concepts of responsibility and control. Directives formally bind Member States and specify the outcomes and deadlines but the exact form of the legislation is at the discretion of the individual member country. However, delays in implementation have led to the increased use of EC regulations that bind individual states directly, without requiring national implementation. The principles of subsidiarity and harmonization also apply to environmental law within the EC. Individual Member States have responsibility for enforcement, although overall policing is by the EC and, increasingly, by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Court of Justice.
Within the UK, environmental protection is embodied in overarching statutes, e.g., the Environmental Protection Acts of 1990 and 1995, which require both an integrated approach, as embodied in the European Community Water Framework Directive, and a precautionary approach, as embodied in the 1999 Pollution Prevention and Control Act. Statutes are supported by Government Circulars and statements of policy, codes of practice, and orders and policies from agencies such as the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive.
In the USA, 12 major statutes covering, e.g., Pollution Prevention, Clean Air, Clean Water, and Toxic Substances form the basis of an overarching legislative environmental protection policy generally administered by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The statutes either set, or require to be set by the EPA, emission, quality, discharge, disposal, and testing standards with the intention of safeguarding the environment while enabling economic and social development.
International agreements and conventions, e.g., OSPAR and the Rio Summit, define a framework for transnational cooperation on many environmental issues such as sustainable development, biodiversity, protection of endangered species, tropical rain forests, the ozone layer, and means to combat global warming.
