Full Ballrooms, Empty Fields: What Must Bangladesh Win at COP31?

Every November, Dhaka's hotel ballrooms fill up, and this year is no exception. With COP31 set to open in Antalya, Türkiye, on 9 November, pre-COP consultations, policy dialogues, stakeholder workshops and press briefings have filled the calendar for weeks. Banners are printed, buffets laid out, and position papers launched with photographs. Meanwhile, a farmer in Satkhira is deciding whether to plant again on land left salty by the last tidal surge, while a woman in Kurigram is paying the weekly instalment on a loan she took out after the last flood.

Preparation matters, and I do not dismiss it at all. But after so many years of such preparation, it is fair to ask a plain question. What does Bangladesh actually bring home from a COP, and does any of it reach the people in whose name we negotiate?

Bangladesh's National Adaptation Plan estimates that adaptation will cost about US$230 billion between 2023 and 2050, roughly $8 billion a year. One recent estimate by Change Initiative puts the country's climate financing gap at $232.6 billion by 2030, against current flows of around $900 million a year. Of about $720 million approved by multilateral development banks for climate-related projects, only 32 per cent had actually been disbursed.

The global picture is no better. UNEP's Adaptation Gap Report 2025 estimates that developing countries will need $310-365 billion per year for adaptation by 2035. International public adaptation finance in 2023 was just $26 billion, down from the year before. The Glasgow promise to double adaptation finance by 2025 is set to be missed. At COP30 in Belém, countries spoke of tripling adaptation finance by 2035, but this is not yet a binding commitment.

Then there is the question of what kind of money arrives. According to the Change Initiative's Climate Debt Risk Index, more than 70 per cent of the climate finance reaching Bangladesh arrives as loans. Our debt-to-grant ratio is 2.7, against an average of 0.7 for least developed countries. In plain terms, we are borrowing to recover from a crisis we did not cause, and our children will repay it.

And what reaches the field? Globally, the Climate Policy Initiative found that small-scale farmers and food producers received only 0.8 per cent of all tracked climate finance, and that share had fallen 44 per cent in two years. Here at home, an International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) study found that rural households spend almost $2 billion a year of their own money coping with climate shocks, far more than they receive from the government or donors.

In November 2025, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) reported that of the US$458.5 million allocated to 891 projects under the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund between 2010 and 2024, an estimated $248.4 million, more than half, was lost to corruption and irregularities. In solar streetlight projects alone, TIB estimated that Tk 1.44-1.75 billion was embezzled.

International climate finance flows mainly through loan and grant agreements negotiated by the Economic Relations Division and implemented by ministries and projects. The challenge is visibility: citizens, journalists, and farmers' organisations struggle to find annual funding totals, loan shares, project allocations, or the share that reaches local communities. Projects produce workshops and consultants’ reports, but rarely public accounts of on-the-ground results.

That’s why the seminars trouble me. Five-star venues aren’t crimes, and dialogue isn’t wasteful. But when the same people meet in the same ballrooms year after year, while marginal farmers appear only in slides or case-study photos, the process serves itself. Climate finance has its own calendar, and farmers aren’t on it.

COP31 won’t solve everything, but Bangladesh should arrive in Antalya with a focused list. First, adaptation finance must be in the form of grants, not loans. It should seek a clear baseline and timeline for tripling funding, as discussed in Belém, as well as a guaranteed grant share for the most vulnerable countries. Adaptation in chars and coastal polders generates no repayment revenue and should not be treated as a loan-funded investment.

Second, the Global Goal on Adaptation indicators agreed at Belém must track what reaches local communities. If an indicator measures the extent to which adaptation finance reaches smallholders and local institutions, all donors must report against it. Third, the loss and damage fund needs real funding: its first call offers just $250 million in grants of $5–$20 million, despite $2–$3 billion in requests. The first four approved proposals used nearly a third of its start-up funds. Bangladesh should push for replenishment and direct community access while preparing strong proposals.

Fourth, and most importantly, Bangladesh must put its own house in order. Before seeking more global support, the government should publish a searchable climate finance tracker listing every loan and grant, its terms, implementing agency and recipient upazilas. It should act on TIB's call for independent oversight rather than shelve it. A fixed share of adaptation finance, say, a quarter, should go to locally led groups, including union parishads, farmers' groups and women's organisations. Finally, the delegation should represent those it serves: give farmers and fishers seats and reduce the number of places for repeat attendees who never report back. This costs nothing but sends a clear message.

Success at COP31 should not be measured by the number of side events we host or the photographs we post. It should be measured next monsoon, in Satkhira and Kurigram, by whether a farmer can plant again without taking another loan. If the money does not reach her, Bangladesh has won nothing in Antalya, no matter what the press release says.
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The writer is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Development Studies and Sustainability (IDSS), United International University (UIU) and is an Adjunct Faculty member in the Department of Agriculture at Daffodil International University