[🇧🇩] Save the Rivers/Forests/Hills-----Save the Environment

[Saif]

The price of climate finance

An embankment can prevent enormous losses without earning a taka to repay the loan that built it. That distinction—between an investment’s value to society and the cash available to service its debt—should be at the centre of Bangladesh’s climate finance agenda at COP31. [Of

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The price of climate finance
Bangladesh's COP31 agenda

A man throws sandbags into the river to prevent river erosion in Munshiganj district, Bangladesh, September 19, 2022. The country is highly climate vulnerable —Xinhua Photo

An embankment can prevent enormous losses without earning a taka to repay the loan that built it. That distinction—between an investment’s value to society and the cash available to service its debt—should be at the centre of Bangladesh’s climate finance agenda at COP31. [Officially, COP31 stands for the 31st meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a landmark international treaty agreed in 1992, and parent treaty to the 2015 Paris Agreement.]

At the recent Pre-COP31 meetings in Fiji, Pacific representatives made a related point: countries facing rising climate costs cannot borrow their way out of every threat. This scribe joined those discussions with colleagues from Monash University’s Pacific Action for Climate Transitions (PACT). As the scribe prepares to travel with Monash’s delegation to COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, he is thinking about what each financing offer would mean for Bangladesh’s public budget and for the households that ultimately bear the costs.

This scribe grew up in Khulna, near the Sundarbans, and his research on recovery after Cyclone Aila in the same region has brought those household costs into focus. When support is delayed, families may face difficult choices between meeting immediate needs and preserving the assets on which future earnings depend. Climate finance should reduce the need to make such choices.

Climate-related losses extend beyond damaged infrastructure. UNICEF reported that extreme weather disrupted schooling for 35 million children in Bangladesh in 2024—a reminder that financing decisions must consider human capital as well as physical assets.

Look beyond the headline amount: Bangladesh should ask of each financing offer: what are the terms, when will funds arrive, and who carries the risk?

A grant and a loan with the same face value are not equivalent. Even a concessional loan creates repayment obligations. A foreign-currency loan can become more expensive in taka if the exchange rate moves adversely. A long grace period postpones repayments; it does not eliminate them.

This does not make all climate borrowing inappropriate. Investments that generate reliable savings or revenues may justify concessional debt. However, the financing decision must distinguish between an economic return to society and the cash available to repay a lender. An embankment may prevent substantial losses without generating revenue, but its debt service must still be funded by taxes or other public resources.

Bangladesh should therefore prioritise grants for essential adaptation that benefits poor communities. If borrowing is proposed, the appraisal should assess repayment capacity under additional climate shocks and the expected benefits. It should also include maintenance costs: infrastructure without a funded maintenance plan can become another liability.

Negotiators should also ask whether a promised contribution is new or a repackaging of an existing aid budget. Shifting funds from health or education into a climate category may inflate the reported climate total without providing Bangladesh with additional resources. Donors should clarify the baseline for their claims.

The same discipline applies to private capital. Energy efficiency, storage, and productive enterprises may attract investors, but many protective services will not. Public guarantees can encourage investment, but they also create contingent liabilities for the state. Before offering a guarantee, the government should establish why support is needed, what private investors will contribute, and how much taxpayers could lose.

Take a financing program to Antalya: COP31 can shape international commitments and build relationships with funders, but it cannot replace prepared proposals. Negotiating ambition and project preparation must proceed in tandem. [[COP31, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, is taking place in Antalya, Türkiye from 9 to 20 November 2026.]

Bangladesh should present a small set of costed programs with clear implementation responsibilities and financing requirements. These programs should distinguish investments with credible repayment capacity from essential services that require grants. Coastal water security, resilient housing, and drainage deserve attention, including provisions for maintenance.

National institutions already have relevant experience. PKSF’s coastal homestead and livelihood project, backed by a US$42.2 million Green Climate Fund grant, shows one route for financing locally led adaptation. Bangladesh should build on that experience by seeking preparation grants and sustained in-house technical capacity rather than repeatedly commissioning disconnected studies.

Finance officials, sector agencies, and local authorities should agree on costs and delivery responsibilities before approaching funders. Delays can lead to missed construction seasons or revised estimates as costs rise. Bangladesh should identify bottlenecks in international review, domestic approval, and procurement.

In Antalya, negotiators should seek support during preparation and establish clear review milestones. Once agreements are finalized, payment schedules should reflect realistic implementation plans. A pledge, an approval, and a payment are separate stages, and reports should clearly distinguish between them.

Arrange support before losses deepen: Bangladesh’s shelters, warning systems, and volunteers have significantly improved cyclone protection. Protecting livelihoods also requires sustained investment.

Timing can be as important as financing terms. Cash arriving after a family has sold its productive assets may relieve hunger but do less to preserve its livelihood. Bangladesh already has experience with anticipatory assistance. A joint report by the World Food Program and the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief records 15 activations in 2024, reaching nearly 430,000 people across 20 districts ahead of floods, cyclones and heatwaves.

Bangladesh needs to seek funding to expand arrangements that release support based on agreed forecasts and triggers. These arrangements require reliable early warnings, identified recipients, and payment systems ready to operate. Contingency provisions are also needed for households whose losses are not captured by a trigger. Such arrangements can complement, but not replace, longer-term adaptation and recovery finance.

Some losses remain despite preparation. The destruction of homes and livelihoods requires support beyond immediate relief.

The Fund for responding to Loss and Damage offers a path, though its resources remain limited. Its first funding round raised US$342 million. By the close of the application window, 119 countries had submitted 176 funding requests totalling about US$2.8 billion. Demand far exceeds available resources.

Working with other vulnerable countries, Bangladesh should press for predictable replenishment and accessible procedures while preparing evidence for its own requests. That evidence must include losses beyond damaged buildings and crops. Lost work, disrupted schooling, and relocation costs are harder to document but critical to recovery.

The government should disclose the status of all previously submitted requests and identify who is responsible for follow-up. The fund covers both slow-onset losses and extreme events. Bangladesh should develop proposals to address salinity and deteriorating freshwater supplies rather than treating every funding opportunity as a response to the latest cyclone.

Measure finance by what it delivers: International access is only part of the problem. My research on housing reconstruction assistance after Aila found that political connections were associated with bribery and missing grant funds. Funds reaching an affected locality did not ensure fair allocation and delivery to households.

Delivery arrangements belong in financial design. Budget from the outset for publishing eligibility criteria, accessible complaint procedures, and independent checks. Electronic payments may leave a clearer record, but fair delivery starts with who is included on the list.

A national climate-finance register should record funding sources, instruments, terms, implementing agencies, disbursements, and results. The finance ministry needs a consolidated view of loans, repayment schedules, and guarantees, including contingent liabilities that become payable if specified events occur. Public reporting should track delivery without exposing households’ personal information.

Pacific countries and Bangladesh can cooperate on these demands despite their different circumstances. Both have an interest in grant-based adaptation, predictable financing, and stronger emissions reductions. More borrowing cannot indefinitely offset rising climate risks.

Bangladesh should arrive in Antalya with a clear account of its financing needs and obligations, costed programs matched to appropriate funding, and proposals to accelerate support to households. For families in southwestern districts such as Khulna and Satkhira, success means fewer assets sold under pressure and less borrowing simply to survive until earnings recover.

Asad Islam is Professor of Economics and a Professorial Fellow at Pacific Action for Climate Transitions (PACT), Monash University.​

 

[Saif]

Global warming is accelerating: Report

Global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions is accelerating, pushing many of the Earth's most important ecosystems close to their tipping points, said Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Speaking at the Reuters Sustainability Europe conference on

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Global warming is accelerating: Report

Global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions is accelerating, pushing many of the Earth's most important ecosystems close to their tipping points, said Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Speaking at the Reuters Sustainability Europe conference on Tuesday, Rockström said damage to coral reefs and the Amazon rainforest was close to becoming irreversible. Parts of the Atlantic Ocean circulation system, including the current that moderates Western Europe's climate with warm water from the Caribbean, were close to collapse.

The latest science confirms the world is on course to exceed a 1.5°C (2.7°F) rise in average surface temperature in the next few years, increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, he said, ahead of the United Nations' COP31 climate talks starting on Nov 9.

Companies looking to prepare and build resilience into their operations should treat climate and nature as a single integrated agenda rather than separate issues, he said.

While prioritising efforts to decarbonise, they should also invest in helping preserve nature, particularly projects related to maintaining or rebuilding biodiversity and reserves of fresh water.

Rockström said it was "incredibly disturbing" to see lobbying for an easing of rules on phasing out internal combustion engine vehicles, pointing to subsidies for petrol and diesel that were undermining consumer demand for electric vehicles.​

 

[Saif]

Bangladesh’s hidden climate bill: How much are we losing?

Bangladesh has earned global recognition for reducing deaths from cyclones and floods. Early warning systems, cyclone shelters, embankments and community preparedness have transformed the country’s disaster response. Yet another climate crisis is receiving far less attention: the economic damage...

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Bangladesh’s hidden climate bill: How much are we losing?

Shahiduzzaman
Published: 20 Oct 2026, 16: 15

Scientific research has found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense. AFP

Bangladesh has earned global recognition for reducing deaths from cyclones and floods. Early warning systems, cyclone shelters, embankments and community preparedness have transformed the country’s disaster response. Yet another climate crisis is receiving far less attention: the economic damage climate change is quietly inflicting on households, farmers, workers, businesses and public finances.

The question is no longer whether climate change is costing Bangladesh. It clearly is. The real question is how much we are losing, who is paying the price and whether the country is doing enough to prevent these losses.

The uncomfortable reality is that Bangladesh still lacks a comprehensive annual system for calculating climate induced microeconomic damage. Losses are recorded separately through agricultural damage, disaster assessments, health costs, infrastructure destruction, lost working days, business interruption, declining household income and climate induced migration. As a result, much of the country’s real climate bill remains invisible.

Available evidence shows that the cost is already enormous. The World Bank estimates that tropical cyclones cost Bangladesh around US$1 billion annually. It has also warned that a severe flood could reduce national GDP by as much as 9 per cent, while climate change could cause around one third of agricultural GDP to be lost by 2050. As many as 13.3 million people could become internal climate migrants by 2050 because of climate related pressures on agriculture, water and land. The economic burden is no longer limited to cyclones and floods.

Extreme heat is emerging as a major source of economic loss. A 2025 World Bank assessment found that heat related physical and mental health conditions resulted in an estimated 250 million lost workdays in Bangladesh in 2024. The resulting economic loss was estimated at between US$1.33 billion and US$1.78 billion, equivalent to around 0.3 to 0.4 per cent of GDP.

This should fundamentally change how Bangladesh understands climate damage. A disaster does not have to destroy a house, factory or bridge to cause economic loss. When extreme heat reduces the productivity of a construction worker, garment worker, farmer, transport worker or street vendor, the economy loses output.

The hidden climate bill therefore extends far beyond physical destruction.

Consider a farmer in coastal Bangladesh. Rising salinity may gradually reduce agricultural production. The immediate result is lower household income. But the consequences do not end there. A family may sell livestock, borrow money, reduce food consumption or withdraw children from school. Eventually, one or more family members may migrate to Dhaka or another city.

A climate shock that begins in a field can therefore become a problem for the labour market, housing, education, health services and urban infrastructure.

The same chain of losses occurs during floods. A small shopkeeper can lose inventory. A transport worker can lose several days of income. A factory may remain physically undamaged but stop production because roads are submerged or workers cannot reach their workplace.

Households may spend their savings on repairs instead of education, healthcare or investment. At the same time, the government must spend more on emergency relief, damaged roads, embankment repair, reconstruction and public health.

Climate change therefore creates a double burden: private income and productive assets are lost while public expenditure increases.

This is why Bangladesh urgently needs a national climate loss accounting system. It should systematically measure household and productive asset losses, agricultural and fisheries damage, lost income and working days, health and productivity costs, business interruption, supply chain disruption, displacement and loss of human capital.

Such a system would tell policymakers not simply how much a cyclone or flood costs in physical damage, but how much income ordinary citizens lose and how much economic activity Bangladesh sacrifices.

This is particularly important because a large share of Bangladesh’s workers remain in informal employment. Agricultural labourers, construction workers, transport workers, street vendors and small entrepreneurs often have limited access to paid leave, insurance or social protection. When a flood, cyclone or heatwave prevents them from working, their income can disappear immediately. Climate change is therefore also an inequality crisis.

A wealthier household may be able to repair its home, relocate temporarily or pay medical expenses. A poor household may have to sell productive assets or take on debt. For families living close to the poverty line, one climate shock can erase years of economic progress.

Bangladesh has taken important steps toward adaptation. Its National Adaptation Plan for 2023 to 2050 identifies major adaptation priorities and recognises the enormous investment required to protect people, livelihoods and development. But the gap between ambition and implementation remains a serious concern.

The first major gap is data. Bangladesh cannot effectively manage climate related economic damage without knowing its full scale. The government should publish an annual National Climate Economic Loss Report covering households, agriculture, businesses, labour productivity, health and public infrastructure.

The second gap is institutional coordination. Climate adaptation cannot remain primarily the responsibility of environmental or disaster management agencies. Climate risks must be integrated into agriculture, finance, labour, health, housing, transport, industry, education and urban planning.

The third gap is prevention. Bangladesh has become relatively successful at responding after disasters, but prevention deserves much greater economic priority. A resilient drainage system that prevents repeated business disruption may be more valuable than repeatedly repairing flood damage. A climate resilient crop can protect rural income for years. A heat resilient workplace can preserve thousands of working days.

The fourth challenge is finance. Bangladesh cannot meet its enormous adaptation needs through public budgets alone. International climate finance, concessional financing, private investment, insurance and innovative financial mechanisms will all be necessary.

International experience offers useful lessons. The Netherlands demonstrates how flood protection can be integrated into long term spatial planning, infrastructure and water management. Its experience shows that flood resilience can be treated as an economic strategy rather than simply an emergency response.

Singapore offers another important lesson, particularly for Bangladesh’s cities. Its approach to rising temperatures combines urban greenery, heat modelling, climate sensitive planning and protection of vulnerable populations. Dhaka could similarly treat trees, shaded public spaces, cool buildings, drainage and water management as economic infrastructure rather than merely environmental amenities.

Bangladesh can also build on its own success. Its cyclone warning system and community preparedness programmes demonstrate that locally rooted approaches can deliver remarkable results. The same principle should now be applied to protecting livelihoods, small businesses, agriculture and workers.

Most importantly, adaptation should be judged by economic outcomes. Instead of simply reporting how much money is spent on a climate project, the government should measure how many jobs are protected, how much income is safeguarded, how many working days are preserved and how much future economic loss is avoided.

The real climate bill is not simply the cost of rebuilding a bridge after a flood. It is the farmer who produces less for years because of salinity. It is the worker who loses productive days because of extreme heat. It is the small entrepreneur whose capital disappears in a flood. It is the child whose education is interrupted because household income collapses. It is the family forced to migrate after losing its land.

When millions of such individual losses accumulate, they become a national economic crisis. Bangladesh has demonstrated that it can protect its people from the deadliest consequences of climate disasters. The next challenge is to protect their livelihoods and economic future.

The country cannot manage what it does not measure. It is time to move from simply counting disasters to counting lost income, lost jobs, lost working days, damaged productive assets and the GDP that climate change prevents Bangladesh from generating.

The objective should not simply be to calculate how much climate change costs Bangladesh. It should be to determine how much Bangladesh can save by investing in resilience today.

Climate adaptation is no longer merely an environmental responsibility. For Bangladesh, it is an investment in GDP, employment, poverty reduction, human development and long term economic security. The climate bill is already being paid. The failure is that we still do not know its full size.

* The writer is the Editor and CSO of News Network​

 

[Saif]

Bangladesh’s sinking delta faces $52b climate-funding gap

Bangladesh faces a growing climate-financing challenge as sinking delta land and rising sea levels threaten coastal communities, infrastructure and economic activity. The country's Delta Plan 2100 requires an estimated US$52 billion in investment through 2040, but with 99 per cent of the expenditu

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Bangladesh’s sinking delta faces $52b climate-funding gap

Representational image

Bangladesh faces a growing climate-financing challenge as sinking delta land and rising sea levels threaten coastal communities, infrastructure and economic activity.

The country's Delta Plan 2100 requires an estimated US$52 billion in investment through 2040, but with 99 per cent of the expenditure expected to come from public resources, securing the necessary funding remains a formidable task.

The challenge is compounded by land subsidence, which can accelerate the relative rise in sea levels and worsen coastal flooding.

"Land subsidence is exceeding sea level rise in major river delta systems," says the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its Asia-Pacific Climate Report 2026: Coastal Risks on the Rise -- Actions for a Resilient Future, released on Wednesday.

The Delta Plan 2100 envisages 80 projects, with estimated implementation costs of around $52 billion, including operation and maintenance, through 2040.

Financing the plan remains a major challenge, as the report estimates that 99 per cent of total expenditure will need to come from public resources.

Delta-related expenditure would need to reach 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) annually, according to the report.

Against existing adaptation spending of around 0.8 per cent of GDP a year, Bangladesh would require an additional 1.2 per cent of GDP in public finance and 0.5 per cent in private investment.

The funding requirement comes as the country faces mounting risks from coastal flooding, erosion and saltwater intrusion, which threaten settlements, infrastructure, livelihoods and economic activity.

The report estimates that around 17.45 million people in Bangladesh could be affected by coastal flooding by 2100 under a high-emissions scenario.

It identifies Bangladesh and Vietnam as countries facing both high absolute exposure and a high relative population burden from coastal flooding.

The risks extend beyond damage to homes and farmland. Flooding and salinity can disrupt transport, undermine agricultural production, threaten freshwater supplies and damage infrastructure, increasing pressure on public expenditure and the wider economy.

Land subsidence adds another layer of risk. The report says the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta has a mean subsidence rate of 4 millimetres a year, while the maximum rate in some locations reaches 55 millimetres a year.

Subsidence is driven by factors including groundwater extraction, sediment compaction and reduced sediment supply.

As a result, some areas can experience a faster rise in relative sea levels than projections based on ocean levels alone would suggest, intensifying the risks of flooding, erosion and saltwater intrusion.

The report's regional projections underline the potential economic cost of delaying adaptation. Across 30 coastal economies in Asia and the Pacific, annual coastal flood damage is estimated at around $27 billion today.

Without adequate adaptation, it could rise to between $172 billion and $199 billion by 2050, and between $520 billion and $739 billion by 2100.

The ADB estimates that annual investment of $9 billion to $19 billion in coastal protection across the economies covered could keep damage close to current levels and avert between $178 billion and $360 billion in losses each year.

These are regional estimates, not Bangladesh-specific costs, but they indicate the potential economic benefits of investing in coastal resilience before disasters cause further damage.

More than 400 million people in the ADB's developing member economies with coastlines live within 10 kilometres of the sea.

The region's coastal areas generate an estimated $7.0 trillion in economic output annually, making the protection of coastal settlements and infrastructure an economic as well as an environmental priority.

The report also highlights a gap in climate finance. International adaptation finance for coastal economies rose from around $5 billion in 2015 to an annual average of $11.4 billion in 2022-23, but financing needs remain substantial.

For Bangladesh, the challenge is to turn long-term planning into funded, coordinated and implementable investments while managing competing demands on public resources.

The Delta Plan's reliance on public funding makes the mobilisation of government resources and the effective prioritisation of projects particularly important.

The report calls for long-term, adaptive and risk-informed approaches to coastal protection that take account of differences in local geography and exposure.

Such approaches can help governments plan investments in advance and adjust them as risks change, rather than relying mainly on emergency responses after disasters.

For Bangladesh, where the delta supports a large population and significant economic activity, the task is not only to finance the proposed investment but also to ensure that resources are deployed effectively to reduce risks to people, infrastructure and the economy over the coming decades.​

 

[Saif]

Forests need more than paper promises

Encroachment in Patuakhali reserved forest exposes gap between pledges and the will to enforce them

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Forests need more than paper promises

Encroachment in Patuakhali reserved forest exposes gap between pledges and the will to enforce them

VISUAL: STAR

Why is it that our forests are so often treated as expendable? On one hand, we are quick to make gestures that look commendable on paper. But we are far less consistent in realising them on the ground. The latest report of such attrition of forestland comes from Patuakhali’s Rangabali, where an estimated 200 to 300 trees have been cut down in a reserved forest to make way for watermelon cultivation. Forest officials say an excavator is also being used to build an embankment on the site. The work has continued despite the Forest Department’s objections and its filing of two cases and a general diary with police. What is most troubling is that the encroachment may have been given an appearance of being legal.

Last October, the district administration reportedly leased at least 30 acres of reserved forest for two years. However, a Rangabali upazila land office document from last year, signed by a former UNO, appears to have permitted farming for only one season or a year. Those overseeing watermelon cultivation claim they leased it from the administration, while the current UNO denies any involvement. How could land in a reserved forest be leased at all, and why did the Forest Department’s objections fail to stop the cultivation work?

There is a tendency in Bangladesh to use nature’s resources for immediate gain, and not treat them as living ecosystems whose value exceeds what they can provide. This is made worse by routine disregard for laws, an acute lack of enforcement, and repeated use of political patronage for a senseless desire for profit. In a climate-vulnerable country like Bangladesh, coastal mangroves (which surround the reserved forest in question) shield communities from cyclones and storm surges, and their destruction strips away an effective natural defence.

Local communities should be empowered to be stewards of the forests, not mere beneficiaries. We urge the government to thoroughly investigate the leasing of forest land and ensure accountability for those responsible. Coastal regions are certainly well-suited for watermelon cultivation, but it should never come at the cost of a forest’s health. Genuine institutional goodwill, matched by enforcement, can make all the difference.​