USAID to launch $17 million multi-year project to promote clean energy
USAID will soon launch a multi-year project of up to $17 million to promote clean energy, said the US Embassy in Bangladesh today, a day after US President's Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry's visit to Dhaka.
The project titled "Bangladesh Advancing Development and Growth through Energy" will work to expand Bangladeshs' access to affordable clean energy, support clean energy entrepreneurship, foster transparent and efficient energy markets, and advance innovation.
"It is also critical to curb the country's carbon emissions, which nearly quadrupled over the past two decades. Not only will it reduce emissions, but will also improve living standards for the people of Bangladesh and will support continued rapid economic growth," the statement said.
For more than two decades, USAID has helped Bangladesh transform the country's energy sector as well as protect its natural resources, including more than 2.5 million acres of wetlands and forest areas, which contain habitats for the iconic Bengal tiger in the Sundarbans mangroves, it added.
John Kerry was in Dhaka to invite Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to attend the Leaders' Summit on Climate, to be hosted by Joe Biden on April 22-23.
At least 40 world leaders from major economies and climate-vulnerable countries will attend the summit ahead to COP26 to be held in Glasgow in November this year.
US' return to Paris Agreement, from which the former president Donald Trump pulled out, generated hopes among scientists and world leaders to protect the world from climate change.
John Kerry told reporters in Dhaka on Friday that the US will pay $2 billion to the Green Climate Fund and will play a leadership role in mobilizing $100 billion annually for the fund meant to promote mitigation and adaptation.