Remembering Saleemul Huq, climate justice champion for vulnerable nations

Tributes are pouring in from around the world for Saleemul Huq, a pioneering climate scientist from Bangladesh who died of cardiac arrest last Saturday. He was 71. 

Huq was known for pushing high-polluting countries in the global north to pay for the impacts of climate change on poorer countries in the global south. 

He was also an early force for community-based efforts to address what climate change does to the most vulnerable nations.

But Huq, who directed and helped found the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he died, is also being remembered for his composure, humility and willingness to share his expertise with countless young scientists from the developing world.

“I still can’t imagine there will be a COP without him,” said his friend Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy with Climate Action Network International, referring to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will next be held in the United Arab Emirates at the end of November.

Huq, who had attended all previous 27 COP summits, started a 20-year tradition of putting a special focus on adapting to climate change at each conference, initially called Adaptation Days, said Kristie Ebi, a University of Washington climate and health scientist who also called Huq a friend. 

He first did it in 2002 by bringing a rural Bangladeshi farmer to the high-level negotiations to just talk about her experiences.

That’s now blossomed into a multi-day event that focuses on adaptation, said another friend, former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official Joel Smith.

At more recent COPs, Huq would set up a workstation in a public area — such as a cafeteria — rather than in a private room, Singh told What on Earth host Laura Lynch.

“Everybody would be coming to him,” he said. “That’s how open and accessible he was. The [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] would have loved to offer him an office. But no, he would find it at a public place somewhere, and say, ‘This is my office.'”

Loss and damage fund

Huq spent years calling for a loss and damage program for developing nations hit hard by climate change, paid for by richer nations that mostly created the problem with their emissions. 

United Nations climate negotiators last year approved the creation of that fund, but efforts to get it going further have so far stalled because countries have been at odds over who pays, who’s eligible for funding, and who would oversee the fund. 

Government representatives gathered in Abu Dhabi for a two-day meeting this weekend, for a last ditch attempt to bridge the divide.

Singh, who was at the emergency meeting, said it is critical for countries to figure out how to implement the fund before COP 28 kicks off.

If there is no consensus before the summit begins, Singh said he worries the program will be “traded against other issues” under negotiation at COP.

“You cannot talk about a loss and damage fund as a bargaining chip,” he said. “We have to seal the deal here in Abu Dhabi so that we then finalize it in Dubai.”

Singh, who worked with Huq for two decades, said he pledges to redouble his efforts to champion the loss and damage fund in his friend’s memory. 

Huq published hundreds of scientific and popular articles and was named as one of the top 10 scientists in the world by the scientific journal Nature in 2022.

That year, Queen Elizabeth II also bestowed the Order of the British Empire on him.

He was also a senior associate and program founder at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London and taught at universities in England and Bangladesh. 

Huq is survived by his wife, son and daughter.