Climate rights activists on Saturday at a press conference in Dhaka demanded the cancellation of the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan 2022-2041, National Adaptation Plan 2023-2050 and reformation of the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund.
The Climate Justice Alliance-Bangladesh, a coalition of 39 civil society green organisations, came up with the demand at the press conference held at the National Press Club.
The activists considered that the policy documents were formulated in an undemocratic process and designed solely to meet the political ambitions of the then government deposed following student-led mass uprising on August 5.
They also demanded radical reform of the BCCTF and the Climate Change Trust Act, 2010 to prevent syndicated corruption in climate action funding decision and implementation.
A coordinator of the alliance Md Shamsudohha said that along with the MCPP, BCCTF the NAP, Nationally Determined Contribution were made from political motivation scoping for syndicated corruption.
He said that the MCPP estimated $170.95 billion as implementing cost, of which $140.2 billion was for the infrastructure development and was loan-based.
Without any feasibility assessment, the plan estimates $27.1 billion for 4-gigawatt wind power generation project in the Bay of Bengal, which are impractical.
The trustees of the BCCTF board comprised 17 members, including 14 ministers who usually considered political interest, compromising the critical adaptation needs of the climate vulnerable people.
Stamford University professor Ahmed Kamruzzaman Mazumder criticised the loopholes of the NAP that had not been developed in the context of vulnerability arising from the country’s geographical diversity.
Deputy executive director of Shushilan Md Nasir Uddin Faruk pointed that there had been lack of coordination between government agencies and between the government and the non-government entities, lack of good governance, and tendency to corruption in project implementation.