Fossil fuel use - plenty ‘trapped’ into the planned future28 Jun 2025 06:07
Https://www.newagebd.net/post/country/268437/bangladesh-trapped-into-fossil-fuel-use
Bangladesh trapped into fossil fuel use
Emran Hossain
28 June, 2025, 00:29
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After two decades from today Bangladesh will still continue to substantially depend on fossil fuels for energy, with nearly 10,000 MW of the installed power generation capacity in 2045 directly relying on gas, coal, and liquid oil.
The actual fossil fuel dependence in 2045, however, will be far higher because some of the installed capacities in that year will be disguised as clean energy, a definition that replaced renewable energy in the Integrated Energy and Power Master Plan in 2023, introducing technologies yet in infancy but promises to make coal and gas cleaner.
By 2041, the installed power generation capacity in Bangladesh will exceed 60,000 MW, the IEPMP said, stating that 40 per cent of the capacity will be based on clean technology, which energy expert terms as ‘green washing’.
Bangladesh’s plan about the fossil fuel reliance reflects the global admiration for development using dirty energy, which led to a 60 per cent increase in carbon-dioxide emissions from energy and industry sectors since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992.
‘Perhaps the most interesting aspect of such aggressive fossil fuel expansion is the role foreign investors played behind it,’ said Sharif Jamil, head of Waterkeepers Bangladesh, a nongovernmental and non-profit body dedicated to the protection of water bodies and the restoration of water ecosystems in the country.
The foreign investments in Bangladesh included foreign direct investments and investment from multilateral development banks, which came as part of a deep global conspiracy involving fossil fuel lobbies, said Sharif Jamil.
While destroying Bangladesh’s renewable energy potentials, he said, the investments created a market from where Bangladesh would have no escape for decades.
‘The business model at work is rather brutal where investors profit from destroying economies and environments of third countries,’ said Sharif, explaining that the investors mine fossil fuels in third countries and burn them in others for profits.
‘Bangladesh has turned into a milking cow, always depending on others for energy,’ he said.
Over the past two decades, energy experts said, major power and energy sector plans were penned with help from by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Asian Development Bank. Japan provided money and technical support in formulating Bangladesh’s past four power sector master plans since 2005, each invariably promoting fossil fuel while undermining renewable energy potentials.
The ADB, on the other hand, was involved in energy-related plans involving $2 billion over decades, energy experts said.
Bangladesh’s current installed power generation capacity of 27,426 MW, overwhelmingly relying on imported
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