Environment and Climate Justice Programme

We build climate-resilient communities through promoting food security; economic and ecological justice; democratization of technology; and work on Environmental Justice.

Experiences in Climate Change and Environmental Sustainable Issues

‘Climate Finance and Role of ADB’s in Bangladesh’ in 2008

The study mainly focused on the ADB’s climate finance policy in Bangladesh. The study findings were shared at the day-long consultation on `Environment and Climate Change: Role of the ADB in Bangladesh` was organised by VOICE, the Manila-based NGO Forum on ADB-an international civil society network.

Policy brief on climate-induced migrants and climate refugees in Bangladesh

The policy brief included some case studies relating to the climate refugees whose life and livelihood were submerged due to frequent flooding, deadly cyclone.

VOICE organized a training workshop titled `Unpacking the World Bank Group operations in Bangladesh in the context of climate change and development` ( 2-4 March 2010

VOICE launched a network in Copenhagen in 2008. The network called International Campaign on Climate Refugees’ Rights (ICCR)

VOICE has been following up UNFCCC conferences regularly and it provides perspective to the civil society in regard to climate change issues drawing attention to Bangladesh

VOICE organized a public dialogue on Climate Refugee in Durban CoP and drew attention of the participants and stakeholders calling a new protocol for climate refugees, 2011

VOICE is the member of Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development while VOICE did a study on climate debt in Bangladesh, 2009

VOICE organzied two days workshop on Politics and transparency of climate finance effectiveness in Bangladesh, November 17-18, 2011

Climate induced migrants: A political and development agenda, 1 November 2011, Dhaka

VOICE organized workshops and seminar in seven divisions, 20 districts on climate change and post development agenda and draw the necessity of justice, resilience and adaptation issues, 2015

VOICE runs a project on climate change titled Building capacity and strengthening networking / platform of CSOs working on climate change, 2015 ; and

Climate Justice for Climate Refugee: Demanding New Legal Framework

Narrative Description of Project:

The project focused on the following-

  • Organize a public dialogue on Climate Justice for Climate Refugee : Demanding New Legal Framework in Durban during UNFCC while Governments and major stakeholders from around the world present the UNFCCC conference.
  • The dialogue intends to spread the demand for climate justice for climate refugees’ of the world including Bangladesh
  • Raising demand to adopt a new protocol for for the displaced victims–climate refugee.
Role of International Financial Institutions in the Context of the Climate Crisis : Critical Workshop on World Bank and Climate Change Footprint in Bangladesh

Narrative Description of Project:

The establishment of the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) in Bangladesh is mainly a donor driven framework. The WB’s control over the fund undermines the government’s role.  It has not been clear how the WB will manage the fund. The WB, as a promoter of the neoliberal agenda and through imposing conditionalities, becomes a dominating force in Bangladeshi policies, resulting in a negative impact on climate change issues.

The Government of Bangladesh has considerable capacity to manage the MDTF. The country ownership and using country systems as per the Accra Action Agenda should be practiced while the MDTF will undermine country’s democratic ownership and its independent role. The MDTF could be managed through an “Independent Board” representing concerned experts from government and civil society. 

The project focused on the following

  1. Mobilize civil society organizations and actors of the society to raise critical awareness, and build up a broader constituency
  2. Building capacity of the NGOs and CSOs on WB project through training workshop
  3. Advocacy material publication
  4. Strengthen micro-macro linkage: information/data collection and dissemination

E-waste Management for Environmental Sustainability

VOICE works on E-waste Management for Environmental Sustainability while it did study on E-Hazards Management Rules 2021 to identify strength and weaknesses in 2021. It also did study on Business Model’s Compliance on E-waste Management in 2022. It continues project on E-waste Management.  

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

Established in 2002, the Food Sovereignty program aims to build critical awareness and build the capacity of social groups on the people’s sovereign right to seed and food. Due to the neo-liberal economic framework, the agriculture system in Bangladesh has been decimated by structural adjustment policies and a seed market diluted with invasive varieties. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides have caused environmental damage to local ecosystems and soil. In this context, we support upholding the people’s right to preserve their own seeds, and support the development and dissemination of ecologically-friendly agricultural production at the grassroots level. We conduct participatory action research, publish knowledge outputs, and facilitate the training of trainers about related issues.

SEED HOUSE

We worked with local farmers to form Action Groups committed to improving their livelihood by creating a source of traditional and climate-resilient seed varieties. A number of seed houses were established in Mymensingh region. Where hybrid and GMO seed groups discourage seed preservation and increase the farmer’s overhead costs, local seeds are freeing farmers from becoming dependent on external markets for seeds and keeping them safe from external shocks.

JUTE FIBER

We have established Jute cultivation with local farmers. Jute fibers from these projects are being used to manufacture eco-friendly, biodegradable, and reusable consumer and lifestyle products.

 Project title

Strengthening environmental sustainability through safer e-waste management technologies

Context:

The use of digital technologies have touched almost every aspect of modern life reaching around 50 per cent of the developing world’s population in only two decades (UN nd)[i]. While the technologies have been developing for many years, however, have shown unprecedented growth with its enhance application in a wide range of social and economic activities like delivering trade and public services, harnessing  financial inclusion and e-commerce, supporting marginalized  groups and communities with free flow of information etc. The wide-ranging use of digital technologies has essentially been triggered with the innovation of digital devices like mobile, laptops, tablets, computers etc., most of which used in the developing countries are not quality products. The quality standard is often compromised to keep the price low for mass use. In most cases, the unregulated bi-lateral trade with the technologically advanced countries makes domestic market of the poor countries over saturated with the supply of cheap devices with a relatively shorter life-span that promote ‘one-time-use’ culture leaving basically no option of re-reusing the devices and foreclosing the potentials of circular economy.  

Though the digital technologies have created scope of an inclusive digital economy as well as achieving the flagship ambition of the SDGs, yet there are many challenges.

The major challenge is the management of e-waste that is piling-up day by day. They contain toxic materials such as lead, mercury, copper, cadmium, beryllium, barium etc, that cause severe risk related to health and damage to environment. They also contribute to the climate change through releasing carbon dioxide (CO2) during combustion and recycling of e-waste.

This has become a particular problem in Bangladesh. The government of Bangladesh literally opened-up imports of cheap digital devices to complement its political vision of ‘Digital Bangladesh’ to be achieved by 2021.  The vision was set to make Bangladesh technologically advanced through the effective use of digital devices in its key development sectors like education, health, communication etc. Inspired by that Vision, the private and public agencies have promoted mass utilization of digital devices, which also has increased the volume of e-waste roughly from 2.81 million tons in 2009 to around 12 million tons e-waste in 2019 (https://bit.ly/2YlLgzS). [ii]

Most of the e-wastes are collected informally from the sources, some reusable metals are taken out and the rest are dumped in to open landfills, farming land and in the open water bodies. And unstructured, unskilled and informal practices of e-waste recycling leave more than 30 millions of children, women and non-formal workers exposed to the hazardous substances like lead, mercury, cadmium, dioxin etc. Unfortunately, the environmental consequence as well as the emission factors of millions of tons of e-waste is largely unknown.

Bangladesh is yet to introduce a specific policy guideline on e-waste management. A draft regulation has been prepared and amended in 2017 but yet to enforce. Therefore, this is important to advocate for the policy framework through research, raising awareness and building capacity through multi-stakeholders approach.

[i] UN nd, https://bit.ly/2YlLgzS

[ii] (The Daily Star 2019, https://bit.ly/2YlLgzS)

This project was supported by Association for Progressive Communications (APC)

Project title

Community storytelling on human dimensions of conservation and climate through a collaborative media platform

Project description

 Project Development Objective: Establishing a permanent collaborative digital media platform by 2019 run by citizen and MSM journalists to enhance the access of women, youth and ethnic minorities to accurate, locally relevant, and quality information about social-ecological conservation and climate adaptation efforts in the LECZ of Bangladesh through training citizen journalists in community storytelling; and capacity building of Mainstream Media (MSM) in collaborative reporting based on community storytelling.

Partnership and long-term sustainability: The project will be implemented through a strong in-kind partnership of two Community Based Radios operating in the project area, the community radios will be hugely benefited from the project in terms of training of human resources and quality of information based programs. The project will be continued by a multi-stakeholder platform after the project duration with in-kind support of several local institutions.

Outcome Objectives: A) Producing concrete, practical, and local contents on human dimensions of climate vulnerabilities, adaptation efforts, and issues relating community’s access to ecosystem goods and services by citizen journalists and distributed by local community-based radios, cable channels, social media, online platforms, and newspapers; and B) Building capacity of local information outlets, citizen journalists, and MSM journalists to collaborate on reporting the state of vulnerable demographics and their potentials/preparedness to contribute in conservation and adaptation efforts by mainstreaming community storytelling in media landscape and overall information ecosystem.

Context: The population of Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) in Bangladesh is 63 million, which is 49% of the country’s total population, which is also world’s highest. Among the coastal regions, the West Coast, where the projects will be located in the easternmost edge at the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river mouth, is an ‘Atlantic type’ coast but relatively stable than the central and eastern coastal regions of the country’s shoreline on the Bay of Bengal.  The west region covers the coastline westward from the Tetulia River to the international border with India along the Hariabangha River in Sundarbans- world’s largest mangrove forest. This region was mostly covered with dense mangrove forests with deeply scoured tidal channels of the tidal plain overlapping retreated Ganges delta. But the two easternmost districts of the west coast; Patuakhali and Barguna saw the extreme degradation of forest, and now mostly exposed to the sea. This region suffers most to the impact of cyclone and storm surges causing an innumerable loss of life and property. Cyclonic storms have become more frequent and more extreme in last two decades. Also, this region is affected by the rising salinity due to sea level rise, a decrease of freshwater inflow from the upstream and shrimp aquaculture. According to a recent World Bank-IWM study, Patuakhali and Barguna are two of the four districts of Bangladesh that are at risk of riverine freshwater sources by 2050.

On the other hand, this region has notable biogeophysical features to support a wide range of ecosystem service and goods that can benefit the vulnerable communities if equitable sharing is ensured. The deepest part of the Bengal submarine fan- the Swatch of No Ground (SONG) is located off the east shore of this region. On the western part, the Sundarbans mangrove forest is a vast complex of intertidal and estuarine areas. SONG and Sundarbans provide critical habitats for many species of threatened marine mammals. Sundarban mangrove region is home to at least 1500 species of flora and fauna. Fish landing centers in this region see a huge amount of shark landings, comparatively to the east coast, this region sees more sawfish rays than other shark species.  Among other brackish water fisheries, Sundarban supports one of the largest crab fisheries (mud crab, Scylla serrata, and Scylla olivacea species) in Asia and associated crab fattening industry, mainly for export to the USA, EU countries, Australia, China, Japan and other southeast Asian markets. The wild capture fishery is the primary livelihood for perhaps estimated 140,000 people, including some of Bangladesh’s most marginalized people, ultra poor Muslims, Hindu and other ethnic and religious minorities. But due to growing volume of the fishery and total dependence on the wild catch (there was some failed research initiative to introduce mud crab hatchery though), there are concerns among ecologists that it will negatively affect the ecological balance of the mangrove ecosystem. 

Besides, wild-caught fishery, this region is home to one of the most intensive brackish water aquaculture in Asia, mostly shrimp. The total industry is export-oriented, major markets are the USA, and EU countries. Thousands of hectares of mangroves were cleared in this region to introduce shrimp aquaculture in the late 70s. Till date, the area coverage of shrimp aquaculture is gradually increasing. Due to rising salinity and shrimp aquaculture, farmers are losing agricultural lands. In the outer part of the west coast, virtually there is no cultivable land anymore. Drinking water crisis is extreme. For subsistence, poor people mostly rely on forest produce collection from the Sundarban (crab, finfish, shrimp larvae, honey, leaves etc).

Problems: Major problem to be addressed by this projects are (i) demographically and socially asymmetric access to information about climate change-induced loss of ecosystem services and goods, displacement, and other loss and damages, and resources for climate adaptation efforts; (ii) very limited representations of the exclusively climate vulnerabilities faced by coastal women, youth, ethnic minorities, and the youth in national public sphere and media landscape; and (iii) the lack of access of control over natural resources by climate-vulnerable marginalized communities.

Key Activities:  A) Establishing and running a collaborative learning and publishing platform (online) for 186 trainees during the second and last quarters of the project; B) One two day-long training camp for 22 local and national journalists and 14 NRM managers during first quarter of the project;  C) Two day-long training events for 150 students and young women about developing digital contents (audio, visuals, and texts) based on community storytelling; D) Publication and transliteration of selected produced contents in English for dissemination among broader regional and global audiences during the last quarter; and E) One national learning-sharing forum with diverse stakeholders to launch collaborative media platform for long-term sustainability of the project during the last quarter.

Target beneficiaries

 Direct Beneficiaries: A) 22 local and national citizen journalists and journalists working with Mainstream Media (MSM); B) 150 young girl students and women teachers of local schools, colleges, and a university; and C) 8 major media organizations.  Indirect Beneficiaries: Approximately 14 resilience and Natural Resource Management (NRM) practitioners and policymakers working with Government agencies and NGOs in Bangladesh at the grassroots level. Other Audiences: A) Women who are livelihoods earning members of their artisanal fishing and farming families of 28 villages in LECZ of Bangladesh’ west coast on the Bay of Bengal at the mouth of Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna River System; B) Rakhine ethnic minority people living in 45 villages in the LECZ of the west coast in Patuakhali and Barguna Districts of Bangladesh; C) 8 Lawmakers from the coastal regions of Bangladesh; and D) The audience of local Community Radios and local and national TVs and Radios living in coastal and inner cities.

This project was supported by EJN-INTERNEWS

Workshop on Governance and Transparency of Climate Financing in Bangladesh

Background

Bangladesh is a country whose geophysical situation has made the country critically sensitive to climate change resulting in Bangladesh already facing serious impacts of climate change. With it’s population density of 988 people per square kilometre, making it the 12th most densely populated country in the world, it is one country which faces unique challenges and threats because of climate change. Some of the most critical climate change challenges that Bangladesh faces are cyclones, land sink, floods affecting almost all the spheres of human development from agriculture, water, health, to land, labour, migration etc. 

Climate Financing Globally

Globally, the initial concept of generating climate finance was almost entirely from the 36 developed and richer countries in the Annex 1 list, who have historically contributed maximum to create the climate change crisis in the first place – by using overwhelmingly large shares of fossil carbon fuels, by consuming disproportionately large shares of most material productions and by accumulating, often at the expense of poorer societies, all kinds of wealth through these uses.  It was also agreed that the major part of the envisaged climate finance will come through public funding by the rich countries, where the unequal market conditions are not a determinant.  This was the near-universal consensus after Kyoto Protocol came into being and was being operationalised.  Though under pressure from some developed & rich countries, the concept of generating climate finance from marketable CO2 emissions was also introduced in the formal design / mechanisms. 

Climate Finance in Bangladesh

Being one of the most critically sensitive countries to climate change, Bangladesh has been at the receiving end of climate finance in a big way, but this has come at a cost. With the failure of climate talks at Cancun, the role of the Bank as manager of funds for climate change adaptation and resilience funds has emerged. This also happened at a time when the Bank had been revisiting its roles to find significance in the rapidly changing geopolitics. Considering Bangladesh’s recently ended political crisis, economic condition and challenges of dealing with huge population, lack of resources and now the onslaught of climate change, has left them with little option but to accept these climate funds of which most are managed or lent by the Bank.

Bangladesh has been pledged almost US$120 million by the developed economies under a climate change multi-donor trust fund named Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF). The BCCRF is a Donor Fund for support to contributions in the area of Climate Change in Bangladesh. It is jointly developed by Swedish International Development cooperation Agency (Sida), DFID-UK, the EU, Denmark, and the World Bank.  The purpose of the fund is to contribute to the implementation of the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, developed by the Government of Bangladesh. The World Bank has been appointed as trustee and fund administrator.

Nearly US$200 million (Taka 14 billion) that the government of Bangladesh (GoB) has earmarked for its climate change adaptation and mitigation measures under the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund by 2010. BCCRF, as insisted by the donor countries, is being administered by the World Bank (WB) on payment of 10-15% management fee.  

Bangladesh is far from receiving its fair share of the firm commitment of US$30 billion to be provided by the developed economies by 2012 which include funds from UK, Denmark and Sweden. The estimated share for Bangladesh is more than US$5 billion. If the present allocation for BCCRF is any indication, then most likely the developed economies are once again reneging on their commitments to shoulder the burden of climate change measures in developing nations although the latter contributed next to nothing for the consequences they are facing on the climate change front, a change caused solely by the highly wasteful energy consumption of the developed nations. Apart from that Bangladesh has also received funds for Pilot Project for Climate Resilience from the Climate Investment Fund managed by the World Bank.

Governance and Transparency Issues

When even official “Parties” – the national governments – to the UNFCCC & KP are not always privy to decision making and goal-post shifting, one can easily imagine the status of the civil society which often is the only representative voice of the marginalised.  Apart from this, even the decisions that our own national governments are taking, or their commitments to international fora or secret chambers of powerful nations (like the G-20), are hardly ever open to scrutiny to our own Parliaments.    Within South-Asia, governments have drastically changed its position on mitigation, on climate finance etc – without in any way taking its people, or even its own Parliament into confidence.  Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world, from several continuing and expected climate change impacts, and yet it failed to stand firm in Copenhagen & Cancun on the principles of climate justice.  Nepal has a large percentage of its people deeply dependent on forest resources, and yet it has initiated REDD+ projects in its territory, in return of some money from a few European countries.  It is no surprise that the large number of poor people in India or in Bangladesh or in Nepal, who are already suffering from climate impacts, have no information or knowledge of their own government’s  stands or changes of positions, and that their lives & livelihoods are for  garage-sales.

Whatever climate finance is actually committed and operationalised, it is facing and will continue to face the big question of credibility as the World Bank has been made the trustee of the fast-track finance for the first three years till 2012, and the WB has no admirable record of looking after the poor societies.  There is the newly constituted “Green Climate Fund” with a governing  board split equally between developed & developing countries, but who and how this fund will be governed, is yet being negotiated.  In the meantime, big businesses are already establishing their stranglehold over many of the processes – by floating many pressure groups on governments & by floating BINGOs (Business and Industry NGO) to influence the little bit of open-space that occasionally comes up for civil society organisations and people’s movements,  during the negotiations.  

The Workshop

This workshop is an attempt to bring together civil society organizations, people’s movements and researchers to share information and bring together the knowledge for the benefit of other activists to monitor the manner in which the Bank is influencing the climate funding scenario in Bangladesh which has serious consequences in terms of policy and planning in Bangladesh. The purpose of the workshop is also in the end to map the way ahead and discuss the strategy for ensuring accountability, transparency in the process of receiving and execution of funds. The idea is also to ensure that there is a democratic process followed in receiving and execution of climate funds.

Climate change under neoliberal capitalism

Wednesday 10 September 2008, by Ahmed Swapan Mahmud

There is little doubt that climate change is happening. As countries and international organizations ponder over how resolve an impending crisis brought about by global warming, they should also stop to consider whether the prevailing market oriented economy makes enough of an allowance to arrive at sustainable and genuine measures to contain this impending crisis.

The consequences of climate change already threaten the planet and communities around the world. However, strong resistance is present among the northern as well as southern communities to change the existing system of over consumption and exploitative nature of the global transnational corporations and international financial institutions. Although it is the North that is mainly responsible for carbon emission and destruction of nature and socioeconomic condition the Southern elites cannot avoid the responsibility either. It is also clear that the southern elite show little willingness to take proper measures against pollution and destruction by corporations often backed by the international financial institutions. Rather, it is observed that these institutions and corporations undermine government policies undertake activities that cause enormous damage to the nature and people’s livelihoods.

Martin Khor of the Third World Network points out that the global reduction of 80 per cent greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2050, that many consider necessary, will have to translate into reductions of at least 150 to 200 per cent on the part of the global North if the two principles—’common but differentiated responsibility’ and recognition of the right to development of the South—are to be followed. But are the governments and peoples of the North prepared to make such commitments?

Northern societies are still obsessed with over consumption while the development discourse is still predominated by the neoliberal economic school of thought promoting capitalist free market. And this dominant economic model is considered as an obstacle to dealing with climate change.

Walden Bello finds it to be the central problem. It is becoming increasingly clear that it is a mode of production whose main dynamic is the transformation of living nature into dead commodities, creating tremendous waste in the process. The driver of this process is consumption—or more appropriately overconsumption—and the motivation is profit or capital accumulation: Capitalism, in short. It has been the generalization of this mode of production in the North and its spread from the North to the South over the last 300 years that has caused the accelerated burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil and rapid deforestation, two of the key man-made processes behind global warming.

Climate catastrophe is a major component of today’s global scene. The leaders of developed countries, international financial institutions and corporations are mainly responsible this crisis for having damaged environment and ecology, destroying people’s livelihoods. Those very quarters are raising the issue of mitigation and adaptation. The communities of the developing countries are also feel pressured about how they will generate enough resources for adaptation and mitigation.

The adverse effect of climate change is increasingly growing with a higher frequency and intensity of weather events like floods, droughts, cyclones and hurricanes globally which affect people’s livelihood causing substantial damage to agriculture, environment and the communities in general. The rise of sea level will inundate low lying coastal areas which will cause a fourth of Bangladesh to disappear according to one report. Also extreme heat and warmer waters will cause even further damage to the communities concerned.

As profit driven mode of production by corporate agencies, over extraction of natural resources and over consumption hasten global warming, poor communities of the developing countries continue to suffer from poverty and malnutrition without any effective access to public services.

There have been attempts to intervene into climate change and avert the impending crisis. The Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol were adopted but substantial progress was not made. Rather the Kyoto deal does not intervene into the root causes—corporate globalization and the mad pursuit of profit by global conglomerates. The destructive process is continuing in the South through carbon trading and reallocating quota for further extraction of natural resources for profit of companies through energy extensive operations. The Kyoto Protocol overlooks the damage caused by climate change and avoids the principle of ’right to development and human rights’ including people’s authority over their own natural resources.

The Bangladesh paper on climate change was prepared without substantive participation of communities, the poor and the vulnerable and civil society actors. It does not highlight the root causes of climate change and also does not undertake proper measures based on human rights and justice framework. Limited participation is the fundamental flaw of the paper. Among many, major concerns include, for instance, regarding food security, poverty and health, the government counts on increased food production but based on commercialization and industrialization that will threaten people’s food sovereignty and farmers’ rights. Even on the health issue, proper measures are not considered regarding how to ensure people’s right to health while climate change has a serious impact on food production and health.

Support based programmes do not necessarily help people in the long run if natural disasters frequently hit those areas. Community based programmes should be undertaken with community management. As climate defense, physical infrastructure is prioritized over what should have been a ’reorientation and integration’ approach from a human rights perspective.

Considering low carbon technology, as it would compel the country to thwart its process of industrialization, Bangladesh should assert its right to development and adopt appropriate measures towards the proven path of industrialization, economic growth and poverty alleviation.

It should be noted that per capita carbon emission per year in Bangladesh is only 0.02 tons while in the US it is 20 tons, literally a thousands times more, and in China and India it is around 10 tons.

As decided at the Bali Conference, an adaptation fund will be created under the UN as there was and continues to be strong opposition against separate initiative under any lending agencies. But the World Bank has already taken such an initiative at the G8 Summit in Japan that parties present there lauded and agreed to support. These lending agencies are equally responsible for climate injustice, having imposed their policy conditions undermining the right and policy sovereignty of different countries and thereby undermining core democratic values. This initiative must be opposed.

Greater cooperation and collective effort including the vulnerable communities need to be taken to mitigate the problem. The fundamental principles should adhere to policies so as to overcome the damaging factors sustaining people’s sovereignty over food and natural resources. Global responsibility must be considered for immediate and long term strategies with due consideration for the poor and vulnerable.

Climate change is not only an environmental issue. It must be understood how under the ’free market’—the neo-liberal economic order and capitalist globalization—the transnational agencies, backed by lenders, pursue profit through over exploitation of nature causing excessive carbon emissions. The neoliberal package is also behind defining the nature of investment, through myriad different means including multilateral and bilateral agreements and aid conditionalities. The root causes of climate crisis must be addressed appropriately that guarantees social justice and democracy.

The role of social movement groups, civil society, political actors, indigenous people, coastal communities, farmers, fisherfolk, poor and vulnerable when considering measures to address climate change for it must be inclusive and fully owned by the people that must adopt these measures. Market driven mechanisms must not be the central pillar to climate mitigation but it should hinge upon eco-sufficiency and sustainability. The People’s Protocol on Climate Change has already brought these issues to the forefront for building alternative mechanisms to resolve climate crisis.

However, the fundamental question is whether neo-liberal capitalism as a system in the current economic order will create the space to resolve climate change. And moreover, does the capitalist mode of development led by the global North can properly deal with climate change.

Ahmed Swapan Mahmud is a writer and activist.

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