Let me start at the personal level by acknowledging two major events for me. The first was at the beginning of 2022 when I was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by the British Government and later given the medal at Windsor Castle by Prince William. The second was at the end of the year when the leading science journal in the UK, Nature, selected me as one of their top ten global scientists for 2022 for my work on climate change.
I am grateful for both of these honours and hope that they will enable me to do even better in my field in 2023. Next, on the global level, the achievement of the fund for loss and damage at COP27 in Egypt in November must be highlighted. This was an aspiration which climate vulnerable developing countries, including Bangladesh, had been fighting for – without success – for decades. We were finally able to achieve this breakthrough by a combination of excellent technical research and the strong diplomacy displayed by the vulnerable developing countries, together with the bigger group of developing countries, under the able leadership of Pakistan at COP27.
We were able to convince even the most reluctant countries, such as the US, to finally agree to set up this new fund for loss and damage from human-induced climate change. Of course, much still needs to be done to make the fund a reality, with money flowing in and then flowing out to reach the victims of climate change and address the losses and damages they are suffering already. We hope to achieve this next year at COP28.
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