 Today's video log is going to be a reflection on my part on the role of Bangladesh in the international negotiations on climate change over the years in the UNFCC. I'm not a member of the Bangladesh delegation, I come here as an observer but I know many of the members of the delegation and over the years I have been working with them, providing them with inputs and advice, but they have been negotiating on their own. So I'd say three things about the Bangladesh negotiations team in particular, firstly that one of the good things about the negotiating team is that the government of Bangladesh over the years, and this is true for various governments, has recognized the expertise of Bangladeshi experts on various topics, and the negotiating team has always included experts on various topics who are not necessarily government officials, but who are brought within the government team with the government officials who are the official representatives, and have been following various items in the negotiations and we have some very very well respected and senior negotiators, I'll name a few of them, but this is not an exhaustive list, we have Professor Ayun Mishad, we have Dr. Asad al Zaman, we have Dr. Mizan Khan, we have Dr. Atik Rahman, and Dr. QK Ahmad who is the head technical advisor as well, and then obviously on the government side we have the minister of environment here in Paris, we usually have the minister of environment for the high level session, we have the secretary of environment leading the negotiating team here, Dr. Kamaluddin, the minister Anwarasen Monju, we all had a gathering yesterday at the ambassador, Bangladesh ambassadors residence, Mr. Shahid al Islam, very nice gathering, we have a number of members of parliament here, we have a number of very senior government officials following the negotiations, not necessarily negotiating but following, so the Bangladesh team is quite substantial, some of them are very very well knowledgeable about the negotiations, we don't negotiate as a country, as do other countries, no country negotiates in the UNFCC alone, every country belongs to a group, even the United States belongs to a group called the umbrella group, China belongs to the group called G77 in China, so all countries belong to a group, we the Bangladeshi delegation belong to the least developed countries group, which at the moment is chaired by Angola, in previous years Bangladesh has indeed chaired it, but Bangladesh remains a very senior and very well respected team member in the LDC team, and it plays a very vital role in shaping LDC positions in arguing on behalf of the least developed countries and supporting the negotiations on their side, for example on loss and damage and on migration, these are two issues in Paris that Bangladesh is speaking on behalf of the least developed countries group, so Bangladesh negotiators by and large have been very good, I'll mention two other aspects of Bangladesh's presence in the UNFCC, there are a large number of NGOs, civil society members, I come as an NGO, there are many others from Action Aid and from Coast, and there are a number of stalls here by Bangladeshi NGOs, they do side events, they do press conferences, and when it comes to the issue of climate change, there is no difference between the voices of the government and the voices of the NGOs, we all want the same thing, we want a good agreement coming out of the UNFCC, and we want Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to get support for their support for their adaptation in particular, and the final element that I'll talk about which has evolved and changed over time, which is the media presence, for the last few years we are getting more and more media from Bangladesh, print media, Bangladeshi newspapers, English newspapers, television, there are several television channels who are represented here, who are reporting back to a Bangladeshi audience on what's happening in Paris, on a day by day basis, which shows that the level of awareness of climate change in Bangladesh is very high, they know about Paris, they know about COP21, and they want to know on a day by day basis what is happening in COP21 in Paris, I would argue that the average citizen of France and Paris probably doesn't know as much about what's happening here in the COP as a Bangladeshi citizen, so there's a very high level of awareness, a very high level of involvement, and I would say a very effective negotiating strategy from the leadership level down to the negotiating level, the final point I'll make is something that media generally ask at the end of these negotiations, which is what was good about it for Bangladesh, and it reveals a misunderstanding of what is happening here, what is happening here is a negotiation for the planet, for all countries, and we are one of 195 countries all collectively trying to come up with a good agreement, we are not Bangladesh negotiating against another 194 countries so that we have to win and bring back something for Bangladesh, what we want is a win for all countries, and that's the collective enterprise that we are involved here, so the question needs to be did we get a good agreement in Paris, and hopefully the answer will be yes.