Bangladesh bets the farm on climate survival

Bangladesh must rapidly reshape its agriculture sector, which generates nearly 38 per cent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, or risk compounding the vulnerability of one of the world’s most climate-exposed nations, according to a World Bank-backed technical roadmap published this month.

The report “Low Carbon Agriculture: Technical Roadmap for Bangladesh”based on World Bank, co-authored with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and CGIAR found that Bangladesh’s agriculture, forestry and land use sector emitted around 95.35 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2022, or 37.83 per cent of the country’s total emissions.

Under current trends, that figure is projected to climb to nearly 111 million tonnes by 2035, the report said.

The report identified enteric fermentation from livestock digestion and rice cultivation as the two largest sources within the sector, together accounting for more than 80 per cent of agricultural emissions.

Smaller shares came from manure management, synthetic fertiliser use and crop residue burning, it said.

Energy use in irrigation, tillage and post-harvest processing added a further 3-4 million tonnes of emissions annually, according to the roadmap.

Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of roughly 170 million people, is widely regarded as among the countries most exposed to climate hazards including flooding, cyclones and coastal salinity intrusion.

The report noted that soil amendments such as biochar could help by improving water retention “in saline-affected coastal regions and drought-prone areas where soil moisture management is critical.”

It also warned that the intensifying impacts of floods, droughts and cyclones threatened the continuity of mitigation projects and productivity outcomes, while smallholder farmers, women and tenant farmers faced heightened risk of exclusion from new financing and technologies.

The roadmap set out five priority interventions it said could collectively cut emissions by 10-15 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year: alternate wetting and drying (AWD) in rice cultivation, precision fertiliser services, livestock methane reduction, biochar production, and agrivoltaics, which combines solar power generation with crop farming on the same land.

AWD, which replaces continuous flooding with intermittent irrigation, has already been rolled out on more than 100,000 hectares and can cut methane emissions by 30-40 per cent while reducing irrigation water use by up to 30 per cent, the report said.

However, it cautioned that many farmers still associate higher yields with continuous flooding, and that weak water-pricing incentives and poor field infrastructure continued to slow uptake.

Despite the scale of ambition, the report flagged structural barriers including fragmented institutional mandates, weak data systems for measuring and verifying emissions reductions, and limited farmer access to finance.

To address this, the roadmap proposed creating a National Steering Committee for Low-Emission Agriculture, a nationwide digital monitoring, reporting and verification platform, and a dedicated Low-Emission Agriculture and Livestock Facility to channel concessional loans and blended finance to farmers and agribusinesses.

Bangladesh formally established a Designated National Authority in June 2024 to coordinate its participation in international carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the report said, positioning the country to move from legacy Clean Development Mechanism projects toward internationally transferred mitigation outcomes.

The roadmap called on multilateral partners, including the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, CGIAR, the United Nations Development Programme and the Green Climate Fund, to provide co-financing and technical support to de-risk private investment in mitigation technologies.

The initiative is designed to support Bangladesh’s Third Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement, which commits the country to a 22 per cent reduction in total emissions by 2030, comprising a 6.73 per cent unconditional cut and a further 15.27 per cent contingent on international support, the report said.

The roadmap draws on findings from 23 technical notes compiled during a Mitigation Marketplace and workshop process held in September 2025, which brought together scientists, policymakers and private-sector representatives to shape the agenda, according to the World Bank.