Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has once again defended the construction of a coal-fired power plant at Rampal near the Sundarbans mangrove forest.
Former US Vice President and climate activist Al Gore, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, CEO of the HSBC Stuart Gulliver, Cofco Agri CEO Jingtao Chi also took part in the plenary session titled ‘Leading the Fight against Climate Change’ at Congress Hall in Davos on Wednesday.
As Mr. Al Gore raised the issue of the coal-fired power plant near the world’s largest mangrove forest, invited him to visit Bangladesh and see for himself that ‘what is happening in Rampal’. ‘Come to Bangladesh and see yourself whether it (plant) affects the environment,’ she said.
The premier said that the people who were opposed to Rampal project could not point out any logical reason for why and how the plant would affect the environment and even did not respond to her call to visit the plant site either.
Sheikh Hasina said her government took all sorts of measures to protect the environment. "As I'm the prime minister of the country, nobody is more concerned than me on any issue . . . I won't give permission for any project where there is a possibility of any type of damage," she said.
