Making Climate Change a pathway to prosperity: Bangladesh aims to go from vulnerability to resilience

The world is still not taking climate change seriously enough, even though annual United Nations Conferences of Parties (COPs) try to focus minds on the urgency of the task. Ahead of COP29 in Azerbaijan this November, Bangladesh’s Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, has been in Brussels for talks with the EU’s Climate Action Commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, and to participate as a panelist in the opening session of the Second Conference of the Environment and Climate Mobilities Network (ECMN) in the city of Liège.

The Minister spoke to Political Editor Nick Powell about his country’s strategy and ambition to face the challenges of climate change, not as victims but as champions of a belief that heeding the warnings of science is also a pathway to a prosperous future.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury does not hide from the size of his task. He told me that Bangladesh faces what he calls “a rather frightening reality” of climate change “desertification, sea level rise, loss of food security, it’s all there”. His country is what he describes as one of the world’s “most dynamic, most populous delta”, where the River Ganges and its tributaries reach the Bay of Bengal.

“When sea levels rise, people get displaced, you lose land. We’ll lose about 17% of our land between now and 2050. There’ll be forced migration of at least 12 million people. That’s huge and that’s in a country that’s already one of the most densely populated in the world. We’ve had remarkable successes over the past years on food security. We have ensured food security but even that is now going to be challenged. Once you lose land, once you have erratic rainfall patterns, once you have salinity pollution, it’s going to reduce your yields, these all contribute to make challenges steeper”.

Unsurprisingly, he told me that there is an “absolute imperative of ensuring that COP29 delivers -and that delivery has to be across all the major themes of mitigation, adaptation, finance. Those themes include not only getting the planet on track to avoid unsustainable overheating -exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels -but also meeting the enormous costs of adapting to the reality that humanity faces even if that target is met.

To make for effective adaptation, there have been pledges of money from the world’s wealthier countries, who have long been the principal beneficiaries of economic growth achieved only at huge ecological cost. But the Minister argues that it’s time “to move from the billions to the trillions” of US dollars, if the world is going to get real about the size of the task. It’s a cost that is only increasing, he points out, “because we are so far away from the 1.5 degrees Celsius target -that needs urgent action”.

The idea of a loss and damage fund for countries like Bangladesh, which have played a negligible part in causing climate change but face some of its most severe consequences, was first agreed at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh. The European Union’s support for the idea was decisive in obtaining agreement. At COP28 in Dubai, funds were pledged but only in the hundreds of millions.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury said Bangladesh needs over US$230 billion by 2050 just on account of adaptation. But he told me that there is a crucially next step to make at COP29, even before the amount of money is agreed.

“Before we even go the quantum is the absolute imperative of having an agreed definition of climate finance as if we are not able to define climate finance, how do you ensure monitoring? how do you ensure transparency? Those are fundamental questions. The last thing you want to see is funds pledged in the past repackaged as climate finance. Climate finance must be new and additional, not old money channeled as new. 

As for the amount, it could easily be more than estimated. “In Bangladesh, we need $9 billion every year for adaptation. That’s assuming that global temperatures will be 1.5 [degrees above pre-industrial levels]. If it’s anything above that, then the requirement goes up. So, every tenth of a degree increase in temperature matters. 1.5 is not just a target, it’s the absolute maximum that science tells us we can go to”.

The Minister is also acutely aware of the need to agree at COP29 the rules and definitions of climate finance. “It cannot be loans, commercial loans, because that’s a double whammy. We haven’t created the problem in the first instance but we’re having to deal with it. Having to pay interest on the money we borrow, that’s something which is not acceptable. It’s really one of the last opportunities for the world to come together, show solidarity and really act on climate change, not just words and platitudes but action, implementation and delivery”.

He argues that as the science is very clear and everyone has signed up and agreed to the science, there is absolutely no excuse for further delay. “There has to be a continuity of the process. We cannot go back and try to open up issues that have already been discussed and resolved. 

“We talk about sea level rise in Bangladesh but even America is going to be affected as will be Europe due to cryosphere changes - melting snow, ice sheets, glaciers and permafrost. It’s all at a very critical level and some are suggesting that 1.5 is no good, we should be targeting 1.0 because the damage that we see today: floods, cyclones, typhoons, they’ve become a regular event. Urgent action, action based on science, that’s the important thing. It’s not what Bangladesh says, it’s what the science says”.

“That perspective isn’t just a national perspective, it’s also a global perspective because what happens to Bangladesh will not remain in Bangladesh. A country that is landlocked won’t experience sea level rises. But it will still have extreme heat, the frequency of hurricanes increasing, the intensity of the harms that it causes is there for all to see. It won’t just be the voice of Bangladesh but a voice for the world”.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury sees the European Union as a strong ally. It has been a crucial development partner of Bangladesh and offers a more equal trade and cooperation relationship as the country becomes increasingly prosperous. “We have found the European Union to be quite progressive, when it comes to climate.

“Of course, there have been elections recently in Europe and we have to respect the mandate of the people. But through all that when it comes to the climate agenda there’s going to be consistency. Europe is also very important in the global negotiations”.

The Minister recalled the breakthrough in the COP process achieved in Paris “because you had a community of China, the European Union and the US that actually came together. To us the European Union is actually a bridge between the various groups and how it can bring China and the US to the table, so that we have global consensus and solidarity, political ownership and commitment, is going to be very important”.

He told me that no one is going to question the EU’s net zero targets but that when it comes to a country like Bangladesh trying to deliver on net zero, the reality of the developing countries and the least developed countries also has to be factored in. “So in terms of our exports of ready-made garments to Europe, how’s that going to play out? You have due diligence; you have all of the new regulations that are coming in. But it’s important that those are enforced in a transparent, a practical and a realistic manner”.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury stressed to me that Bangladesh did not approach the enormous challenges it faces with the mindset of a victim. “Of course we are victims, nobody is trying to deny that … victims to a greater extent than most of the other countries. But we are also a leader when it comes to solutions … responses to climate change”.

He spoke of the world’s growing interest in Bangladesh’s pioneering work in creating an early warning system for natural disasters, such as severe storms and flooding. Even as global warming has made those phenomena worse; the country has reached a point where hardly any lives are lost when it is hit by these natural disasters.

It was, he said, just one aspect of the remarkable transformation achieved under the leadership of Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina. “Her vision of Bangladesh not just being a victim but also a champion, the things we have done in terms of the climate change trust fund set up in 2011, when climate wasn’t a major issue -or at least not as major as it is today.

“We have the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan, which has a very ambitious trajectory. We want to move from vulnerability to resilience and then on prosperity. How many countries in the world, how many prime ministers, have tried to reframe climate change as a potential pathway to prosperity?

“These are areas where Bangladesh under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is showing the path for others to follow. That’s also important, that we’re not just victims but we are also champions when it comes to adaptation. We are a role model when it comes to mobilising local communities, locally led adaptation is something that everyone follows”.

He pointed to achievements across his portfolio of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. When he took office in January, he gave himself 100 days to start addressing Bangladesh’s environmental problems. He told me that good progress has been made.

“We’ve done an evaluation and we went public on this because I think it’s important that we create space for accountability and public discussion on what we promised and what we delivered. So, there were 28 targets, 28 work programmes that we had initiated. The success rate in completing them, not taking into account those that were partially addressed, is around 78%.

“Of course, ideally, I would have loved to have seen 100%. But the fact that we are being transparent, acknowledging that there is room for improvement, this indicates how steep the challenges are. We addressed not just climate change but also air pollution, marine pollution. There’s a global plastics treaty that is being negotiated now and hopefully by the end of this year we’ll have a legally binding agreement.

“Air quality is a major concern for us and both air quality and marine pollution also have transboundary connections. You need national action of course but you also must have a regional aspiration, countries in the region coming together to collaborate. 

“Of the 10 most polluted rivers in the world, two are in Bangladesh. The Ganges and the Jamuna flow through Bangladesh. It’s not just our waste, it is the waste of the surrounding countries because it all flows down to the Bay of Bengal. We are having to manage waste that we ourselves have not produced.

“Our domestic priority is to reduce the cost of environmental degradation. We have done extremely well in terms of GDP growth and other economic fundamentals but we want to make sure that growth trajectory continues. The cost of environmental degradation is high, not just in economic terms but also in terms of public health.

“We have also started to focus on biodiversity. The forests are a very important reserve for us. We have the largest mangrove forest in the world. So basically, environment, forests, biodiversity and climate change; these are the four pillars on the basis of which we will work”.

I put it to Saber Hossain Chowdhury that one measure of success was whether the iconic Bengal tiger can be saved from extinction. He assured me that Bangladesh does not intend to lose it and the government is doing all it can to protect its habitat and to ensure that it thrives.

“We are upping our efforts … the latest survey details will be revealed at the end of the month. The last time the tiger count was 114, we are hopeful that we will have a higher number. I don’t want to say what number but a higher number”.

Not just when it comes to tigers but across his responsibilities, the Minister is very aware of the need both to be prepared to take urgent action and to be able to think long term. For many governments around the world this is a distinct challenge. “When we talk about climate change, when we talk about biodiversity, the timelines that we’re looking at are basically 15, 20, 25 years. But the tenure of governments is four or five years.

“So, you have this disconnect between the tenure of governments and the timeline of these major global challenges. Governments are thus more likely to focus on directing resources towards causes that will lead to electoral success”.

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