By Mathew Carr
Aug. 27-30, 2021 — Bangladesh has made a much-more solid contribution to global emission limits in 2030, widening and tightening its so-called “nationally determined contribution” to the Paris climate deal on Aug. 26.
The country is now saying it will seek to cut emissions by 22% below “business as usual” emissions by the end of the decade, as long as it gets financial assistance.
That’s a much-bigger cut than the 15% reduction proposed just last year and 10% in 2015. Warning: the plans are not easy to compare with each other.
Still, one of the least-developed nations that’s also most vulnerable to the climate crisis is planning to more than double its emissions in the next 10 years as it develops its economy and as it adapts to climate change (they would about triple under business as usual).
Bangladesh’s emissions from energy have about doubled during the past 10 years to 98 million tons, according to BP data. On top of that its agriculture emissions are big. So other nations might argue Bangladesh can do even better — with the right assistance.
This from the latest NDC document:
PREVIOUS DOCUMENT (2015) CHART HERE (NOTE LIMITED SECTORS):
Bangladesh is far from perfect on climate action: It’s been revealed as a major contributor of methane, a greenhouse gas that’s about 80 times more potent in its first two decades in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, Bloomberg reported in April (see note 2).
(Smoothed some language on Aug. 30)
NOTES