Climate debt : Bangladesh Climate Finance

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Bangladesh Climate Finance

"The people of Bangladesh are already suffering from climate change. People’s homes, food supplies, livelihoods and lives are under threat." - Md Shamsuddoha, Equity and Justice Working Group Bangladesh

bangladesh climate

Campaigners in Bangladesh protest against the UK’s insistence that the World Bank oversees the Multi-Donor Trust Fund

Already this year, the average person in the UK has emitted as much carbon dioxide as the average Bangladeshi will in the whole of 2010.

Since the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks, Bangladesh is negotiating directly with the UK government on climate finance. But instead of the UK government repaying its climate debt, built up through years of getting rich off the back of climate-wrecking carbon emissions, it proposes taking money from its existing aid budget and offering it as loans, channelled through the untrustworthy World Bank.

This proposal will only increase injustice and poverty by locking Bangladesh into unjust debt which campaigners have fought against for years and using money that should be used for vital services such as education, health and clean water.

The Jubilee Debt Campaign alongside WDM are working together with Equity and Justice Working Group in Bangladesh to ensure that people in the UK are speaking out about the UK’s unfair proposals. This deal could be signed at any time in the next few weeks so its vital we take action now. Join us by emailing International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander now. Tell him that you won’t stand for the UK giving Bangladesh a bad climate finance deal.

Send Douglas Alexander your notice of climate debt

Join us by signing our petition to Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, to take action on climate debt in Bangladesh.

This will be much more effective if you send him your own personal message. However, to give you inspiration we have provided the text below.

To act now, please fill in the boxes below. Feel free to add to or change the text of the message. (Fields marked * are required.)

your message: *
Dear Douglas Alexander, This year the UK will emit more carbon dioxide than the country now known as Bangladesh has in its entire history. Yet, as you know, Bangladesh is already suffering from the impacts of climate change. Money for tackling climate change should be compensation for a problem rich industrialised countries have caused. However, we are very concerned that the UK is using climate change money to further injustice. DfID is pushing both in Bangladesh and across developing countries for the majority of money for tackling climate change to be given as loans. This does nothing to repay the climate debt we owe, but will only increase the unjust financial debts of countries such as Bangladesh. I call on you to ensure that all money for tackling climate change is given as grants rather than loans. DfID is insisting, against the wishes of the Bangladesh’s Ministry of the Environment and Forests, that the World Bank manages the trust fund. Because it continues to be run by rich countries, the use of the World Bank to manage climate change money is opposed by governments and campaigners across developing countries. The Bank has a long history of imposing economic conditions on developing countries, fuelling unjust debts and promoting dirty development. In contrast, there are examples of funds being managed in Bangladesh in democratic and transparent ways, with active participation by civil society. I call on you to facilitate local democratic ways of managing the Bangladesh Trust Fund, rather than insisting that the World Bank manage the Fund. I am pleased that you have said money for tackling climate change should be additional to aid. However, the money for Bangladesh, and all UK money being spent on tackling climate change in developing countries, is counted as aid and is from existing aid budgets. I call on you to guarantee that all money for tackling climate change is given as new money, rather than including climate change money to Bangladesh as counting towards meeting UK aid commitments. In Copenhagen many developing countries rightly resisted the unjust Accord negotiated by a few countries. The Copenhagen Accord would allow rich countries to continue to burn huge amounts of fossil fuels for decades to come. I was therefore appalled to see the UK government telling developing countries they must sign the Accord if they want any climate change money. This is blackmail. I call on you to ensure the UK pays its climate debt to all developing countries and withdraws all threats regarding signing the Copenhagen Accord. Yours sincerely,

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"There is no viable solution to climate change that is effective without being equitable... Any solution that does not ensure an equitable distribution of the earth's limited capacity to absorb greenhouse gases, as well as the costs of mitigating and adapting to climate change, is destined to fail."

Bolivian Government submission to the UN climate talks