With the 27th edition of the Conference of the Parties (COP27) just around the corner, now is a good time to talk about the continuous negligence of richer nations in not only causing, but perpetuating the adverse effects of climate change.
For nations such as Bangladesh, among the most vulnerable to the effects despite its very limited carbon footprint, things continue to look bleak, and it bears repeating: None of this was ever our fault.
Indeed, the sobering report that households in rural Bangladesh spend almost $2 billion yearly on repairing climate-related damage and prevention measures -- twice as much as the national government spends and over 12 times higher than multilateral international financing to Bangladesh's rural population -- highlights just how lopsided the current situation is.
The fact that the government of Bangladesh has continued to plan for climate mitigation is admirable in itself, but the fact that rural households are paying money out of their own pockets -- when they are already often struggling to make ends meet, particularly with the current inflation issues -- is nothing short of a tragedy.
This bears repeating: The fact that vulnerable communities such as those in Bangladesh and other high-risk nations bear the greatest costs of climate impacts points to everything that is wrong with the world currently, and developed nations should take a long, hard look in the mirror and question their commitment to the planet.
Ultimately, leaders of these affluent nations continue to wax poetic over and over again about how this is a global issue and requires a global effort. To that, we say, this may be a global issue, but it has been brought about by these nations that make the most noise.
It is about time the developed world held their end of the bargain and put their money, literally, where their mouths continue to be.
