During COP 28 held in Dubai from November 30 to December 12, Bangladesh achieved a historic milestone by securing an unparalleled $8 billion collaborative fund. This marks the first instance of any Asian nation attaining such significant financial support. Acknowledging the urgency of climate action, international partners have united to provide substantial funding. The primary goal is to empower Bangladesh with the essential resources to effectively confront the escalating challenges presented by climate change.
Expressing Concerns Over Bangladesh’s Climate Challenges
On the sidelines of COP 28, Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the IMF, issued a statement emphasizing Bangladesh’s continuous efforts to raise awareness about the heightened risks of climate change for vulnerable nations. She underscored the vital role of international collaboration in supporting those in need.
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Georgieva acknowledged that Bangladesh is actively taking significant measures to enhance climate resilience, adaptation, preparedness, and conservation. The statement lauded Bangladesh’s unwavering commitment to implementing its climate agenda and tirelessly promoting global collective action against climate change.
“We commend Bangladesh for steadfastly implementing its climate agenda and tirelessly working to encourage global collective action to address climate change,” Georgieva added.
Ajay Banga, the President of the World Bank Group, highlighted that the recent funding announcement reaffirms Bangladesh’s strong dedication to partnering with international and local entities to tackle climate challenges.
“The urgency is high, and we all need to collaborate to share knowledge and provide financing to countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change,” he emphasized.
Bangladesh’s role in earlier cop summits
In earlier COP summits, Bangladesh played a role in discussions related to adaptation, loss and damage, climate finance, and technology transfer. The country has been vocal about the importance of equity and justice in climate action, advocating for a fair and inclusive approach that considers the specific vulnerabilities and capacities of different nations.
In earlier COP summits Bangladesh has achieved different goals:
COP 26
At the COP26 Leaders’ meeting titled‘Action and Solidarity- the CriticalDecade’ co-hosted by British PrimeMinister Rt Hon Boris Johnsonand Prime Minister of Italy MarioDraghi, Hon’ble Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina boldly calledupon the developed countries to fulfiltheir commitment of annual 100billion dollars climate finance with50:50 allocations for adaptation andmitigation to address effective globaladaptation actions.
COP 27
At COP 27, the minister for environmentMd Shahab Uddin said the conference decided to create a new fund to address “loss and damage” in the most vulnerable developing countries. The minister also said that a decision has been taken to finalize “Loss and Damage” in the conference, decide its host and form an advisory committee.Countries have agreed to take action on the “Global Goals on Adaptation.”
COP 28 (Present)
“The delegation of Bangladesh will play an effective role in various issue-based discussions in the conference on behalf of least developed countries and countries that are vulnerable to climate change,” Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Md Shahab Uddin told a meeting at the secretariat on the occasion of the COP-28 meet.
At this summit ‘The Asia Climate Mobility Champion Leader Award’has been conferred to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, acknowledging her voice of leadership in championing the climate actions and a lead global advocate for vulnerable communities.
Prime Minister Addresses Climate Change at 78th UNGA Session
During the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session at the UN headquarters in New York, the Prime Minister issued a statement on climate change. Highlighting Bangladesh’s unique position as one of the most climatically-vulnerable countries despite contributing less than 0.47% of global emissions, the Prime Minister emphasized the severe threats that climate change poses to the security and economic prosperity of current and future generations. The statement called for urgent, bold, and ambitious collective actions to address these challenges.
Expressing Bangladesh’s commitment to environmental preservation and biodiversity, the Prime Minister affirmed the nation’s dedication to a climate-resilient sustainable development path. Aligning with the long-term temperature goal outlined in Article 2 of the Paris Agreement, Bangladesh is actively formulating a national low-carbon emission strategy and implementing mitigation actions through green initiatives, including a focus on renewable energy.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister highlighted Bangladesh’s proactive stance in addressing climate challenges by establishing the “Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund” in 2009. Notably, the country has allocated 480 million US dollars to this fund from its own resources to finance climate adaptation initiatives.
Partners to help Bangladesh with the climate fund
The international development partners who have joined their hands to help Bangladesh Climate and Development Platform (BCDP) are The Asian Development Bank (ADB), World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), AgenceFrançaise de Développement (AFD), The EU and the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Standard Chartered Bank and the United Kingdom.
The partnership takes place in the context of the $1.4 billion Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) arrangement approved by the IMF in January, the programmatic series of Green and Climate Resilient Development (GCRD) Policy Credits by the WB totaling $1 billion, and the ADB’s ongoing funding for climate projects in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is currently receiving funding for nine private-sector climate projects with contributions of $441.2 million from the GCF, $135.5 million from other development partners, national implementing entities, and private banks.
Funds for Bangladesh
The ADB is currently in the process of facilitating a $400 million policy-based loan for Bangladesh, with 53% of its 2023 project financing (totaling $1.9 billion) already earmarked for climate financing. The Manila-based lender has committed to allocating more than half of its 2024-26 fund allocation ($5.5 billion) to support Bangladesh’s government in pursuing its climate agenda.
In addition, the Korean government has pledged $50 million, and the AIIB is contemplating an additional $400 million provision in 2024, following the government’s request. The UK, through its Taskforce on Access to Climate Finance, aims to enhance the coordination of bilateral climate finance, assisting the government in accessing diverse climate finance sources.
The GCF is actively supporting various public-private sector projects exceeding $400 million across energy, agriculture, water management, and resilient livelihood sectors. Team Europe has committed to providing an EIB Loan of $381.5 million specifically for renewable energy projects in Bangladesh.
AFD is currently processing a $320 million climate policy-based loan program, aligning with and complementing commitments from the IMF, World Bank, and ADB. JICA, in support of the BCDP, will align project pipelines with Bangladesh’s climate change agenda through technical assistance, concessional loans, and grants.
The UNDP remains committed to providing ongoing technical assistance to Bangladesh, focusing on strategic climate change-sensitive planning and budgeting management, strengthened climate public finance governance, and more effective planning and budgeting for climate finance at the local level.
Interview
Chairman, Department of Environmental Sciences
Jahangirnagor University, Savar, Dhaka
Bangladesh is one of the vulnerable country due to climate change problem. The major problems due to climate change are irregular rainfall, sea level rise and salinity intrusions in coastal region, drought problem in Northern part of our country, unusual flood, coastal cyclone, landslide vernability, crop pattern changes, public health risk, pathogenic and vector born disease etc. As a developing country country, Bangladesh is not able to cop this adverse impact of the climate change. We don’t have enough money and technological know-how to combat the situations. That’s why international partners are committed to help us throw 8 billion dollar in co p 28 summit. Definitely it will be helpful us to take the remedial measures to reduce the climate change vulnerability. This money can be used in different sector of our development program through GO and NGO activities. This money can be used in different projects of climate change adaptation practices like agriculture sector, health sector, infrastructural sector, education sector , animal husbandry and farming sector, fisheries sector, rural livelihood development sector etc. I think this money and the international partners commitment will help us to make sustainable development projects in Bangladesh and to achieve the SDG targets. Finally I can say, a monitoring policy is needed from international partners to review the commitment and activities of this money and take the feedback, how it progress. Based on the feedback, review the policy and budget for next action.
