In 2021, Bangladesh unveiled a nationwide local weather motion framework, the Mujib Local weather Prosperity Plan. Named after the nation’s founding father and former president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, it was introduced by his daughter, prime minister Sheikh Hasina, on the Glasgow local weather summit COP26. This was throughout her second tenure as president of the Local weather Susceptible Discussion board.
The Mujib Local weather Prosperity Plan goals to ship strong socio-economic improvement whereas maximising inexperienced alternatives and Bangladesh’s resilience to local weather change. Amongst its acknowledged goals are the elimination of maximum poverty and local weather change-induced migration by 2030; new climate-resilient jobs totalling 4.1 million; cleaner air and improved mobility; and “web financial savings or prevented losses” price at the least USD 30 billion per 12 months by 2030.
To raised perceive the intricacies of this initiative and what has been achieved within the virtually two years since its launch, The Third Pole spoke with Saber Hossain Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi Member of Parliament and, since he was appointed in June, the prime minister’s Particular Envoy on Local weather Change. Chowdhury talks concerning the plan’s priorities, the challenges it has confronted, and its potential to remodel Bangladesh’s local weather panorama. The dialog has been edited for size and readability.
The Third Pole: What precisely is the Mujib Local weather Prosperity Plan (MCPP)?
Saber Hossain Chowdhury: Local weather change is an enormous problem for us, with implications for our financial system. The World Financial institution says we’ll lose 2 per cent of GDP by 2050 and 9 per cent [by 2100] if mitigation measures usually are not elevated, resulting from local weather change. This can be a troublesome state of affairs to beat.
[But] with the Mujib Local weather Prosperity Plan, we are attempting to vary our perspective and ask ourselves: how can we get well from this loss and transfer in direction of prosperity? We don’t need the whole lot to cease at loss and harm alone. That’s why this plan has the whole lot: it covers adaptation, mitigation, and loss and harm. We are going to use our native information and mix that with worldwide finest practices to cope with such components.
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We may have spent cash on well being, training, employment, and the development of roads, [because] meals, shelter, clothes, training and medical therapy are constitutional rights. However the influence of local weather change is main us to disclaim these rights and forcing us to spend cash on mitigation and adaptation.
Saber Hossain Chowdhury, prime minister’s particular envoy on local weather change, Bangladesh
Bangladesh contributes lower than 0.5 per cent of world emissions. But we’re doing mitigation. [This is because] we see it as a method of accelerating employment, attracting funding and decreasing gas prices.
We need to strengthen employment in our inexperienced financial system, defending employees and companies from the harms of local weather change by significantly growing the extent of safety [for them]. On prime of that will be producing extra combination employment than financial targets. This could be carried out by means of strategic inexperienced jobs progress, decreasing unemployment, and guaranteeing upskilling of the workforce to high-quality inexperienced tech jobs. By decreasing using fossil fuels and utilizing renewable vitality, we can cut back gas prices.
Within the final fiscal 12 months, the Bangladesh authorities allotted USD 2.96 billion (0.73 p.c of the GDP) for 25 ministries to create initiatives that sort out local weather change impacts. We may have spent that cash on well being, training, employment, and the development of roads, [because] meals, shelter, clothes, training and medical therapy are constitutional rights. However the influence of local weather change is main us to disclaim these rights and forcing us to spend cash on mitigation and adaptation. We’ve allotted cash for local weather adaptation [actions] like warmth and salt-tolerant paddy manufacturing, constructing extra shelters and emergency meals provide throughout floods and different disasters.
The Third Pole: Which points does the Mujib local weather plan prioritise and the way will these be tackled virtually?
Chowdhury: The plan is concentrated primarily on eradicating poverty and attaining financial and social wellbeing for everybody. This can be achieved by means of a local weather change technique that’s centered on the much less well-off, which prioritises adaptation and catastrophe danger discount, and likewise addresses carbon emissions, know-how switch and the supply of satisfactory finance. With worldwide and different funding help, we hope to have 30 per cent [of all energy be] renewable by 2030 and as much as 40 per cent by 2041, and [achieve] grid resilience and modernisation. This could entice funding in Bangladesh from the world’s huge corporations.
Relating to jobs, [we will] markedly improve protecting measures towards rising office warmth that exposes indoor and outside employees to extreme well being and productiveness dangers. We plan to extend protections for employees and companies who confront the impacts of local weather change, equivalent to rising warmth and the resultant well being dangers.
The Third Pole: The massive problem is financing. How does the federal government plan to handle this?
Chowdhury: Financing is one among our largest challenges. Growing a [financing] plan is one factor, however how you can implement it’s a matter of concern.
We are going to want an funding of USD 80 billion to implement the [Mujib climate] plan. Nonetheless, managing [to source] a further USD 80 billion isn’t doable for Bangladesh [alone]. It will likely be higher if it comes by means of public-private partnership or direct international funding.
As talked about within the MCPP, [we will seek to] strengthen financial partnerships [through] funding and commerce, with local weather concerns, with North-South, South-South, regional and worldwide cooperation. The Plan goals to extend home non-public funding and international direct funding. These could be boosted by enhancing [Bangladesh’s] funding panorama, with a view to decreasing the price of doing enterprise and offering entry to serviced land [that is ready for development] by means of establishing particular financial zones.
Strengthening of financial partnerships is to be supported by means of advertising and marketing campaigns, publicising initiatives, and internet hosting annual investor conferences with a variety of capital suppliers, worldwide establishments and bilateral companions.
The Plan will drive local weather resilience, adaptation, and low carbon improvement demand from bilateral, multilateral, and business traders. These plans can function a negotiating software to allow a local weather commerce that results in strong competitors with companions, together with strengthened financial partnerships with international locations aligned with safeguarding the 1.5C restrict of the Paris Settlement. Concurrently, there can be a discount within the quantity of commerce with international locations that aren’t aligned with local weather prosperity outcomes because of lowered fossil gas imports.
There’s important alternative for technology-transfer partnerships and constructing manufacturing capability in Bangladesh. Partnerships in adaptation know-how could also be pursued in areas equivalent to flood safeguards, climate forecasting applied sciences, insurance coverage instruments, extra resilient crops, water recycling, water purification, environment friendly irrigation techniques, and sensors, particularly for flood zones.
Q: Has the Mujib Local weather Prosperity Plan been profitable thus far?
Saber Hossain Chowdhury: As this can be a new initiative, it’ll take a while to roll on as the thought is new and interrelated with numerous different nationwide priorities. We expect that the initiatives below the MCPP [such as sustainable agriculture] will begin in full swing from February or March subsequent 12 months. It will likely be applied step-by-step and can be up to date every so often. It’s going to bear a midterm overview in 2025.
An excellent instance of [an upcoming] sustainable agriculture [project] is seaweed cultivation, with its local weather resilience and improvement advantages. It’s a low and even detrimental carbon trade, resilient to local weather shocks, doesn’t require important capital to be established, is export-focused, and presents a wide range of types of employment. As Bangladesh has a big appropriate continental shelf already recognized round Cox’s Bazaar [in the south-east] and the coast south of Khulna, seaweed pilot schemes ought to be explored primarily based upon advertising and marketing partnerships with worldwide purchasers and international finest practices for cultivation. As soon as established, these pilot schemes will kind the idea of a rising and worthwhile native trade.
To this point, we have now handed a legislation in parliament [the Renewable Energy Policy of 2008] to make sure 10 per cent of the nationwide vitality provide comes from renewables. Sadly, we couldn’t obtain that; we have now solely been capable of attain 2 per cent-2.5 per cent resulting from a lack of expertise [surrounding the law] and monitoring. [Currently,] we have now a million irrigation pumps in our nation that are powered by diesel. If we will use solar energy in these, we can generate 5,000 megawatts of electrical energy. 1,523 photo voltaic irrigation pumps have been put in, with a cumulative capability of 42.08 MWp [megawatt peak, a measure of the maximum potential output of power]. The goal is 10,000 photo voltaic pumps by 2050. We additionally plan to put in floating photo voltaic panels. This has large potential.
The MCPP has developed a world attraction. After we launched the programme, Sri Lanka and Ghana adopted in our footsteps and are engaged on related ones. We need to be [climate adaptation] leaders, reasonably than victims.
Q: Have there been any challenges?
Chowdhury: Our problem [has been] to know [where we can be competitive] and entice traders. Forinvestors, Bangladesh isn’t the one possibility – the entire world is open to funding. If any investor desires to spend money on Bangladesh, they are going to first look throughout South Asia and solely then [will they] choose a rustic to do enterprise with. Many international locations within the area, like India or Sri Lanka, additionally want international funding and are additionally doing their half to attract the eye of potential traders.
Except we provide traders one of the best enterprise atmosphere, they are going to by no means come to Bangladesh. This isn’t simple. We have to combine our plans; all our improvement plans have to be built-in with the Nationwide Adaptation Plan and the Power and Energy Grasp Plan. It’s a huge problem. After graduating from the standing of LDC [least developed country, which is scheduled for 2026], there can be extra new challenges.
This story was printed with permission from The Third Pole.
