PINAKI ROY

Ten years after the Paris Agreement vowed climate justice for vulnerable nations, global leaders have gathered in the Brazilian city of Belém for COP30. But as negotiations unfold, Bangladesh, one of the world’s least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, finds itself sinking deeper into climate debt.

The inaugural Climate Debt Risk Index, published by Dhaka-based think tank Change Initiative, has placed Bangladesh in the “high risk” debt-trap category with a score of 65.37 out of 100, forecasting a continued upward trajectory to 65.63 by 2031.

The report, which analysed debt scenarios across 55 countries, says that global climate finance has turned into an instrument of financial burden, straying far from the grant-based, justice-driven commitments made in the Copenhagen and Paris accords.

“Bangladesh enters COP30 carrying one of the world’s heaviest climate-debt burdens, not because it over-borrowed, but because the global climate finance system keeps forcing the most vulnerable to pay for survival,” said M Zakir Hossain Khan, managing director and chief executive of Change Initiative.

The financial burden on Bangladeshi citizens is starkly disproportionate. According to the study, Bangladesh’s cumulative climate-related borrowing from 2002 to 2023 has created a per capita debt burden of $79.61, about 3.5 times higher than the average for Least Developed Countries (LDCs), which stands at $23.12.

The country is now compelled to borrow $29.52 for every tonne of carbon emitted, just

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